This isnāt exactly aĀ ācompletedā work, it isnāt in the line of composersĀ āfinishingā the unfinished works of those before them. Late in his life, Schnittke wrote a short workĀ āPiano Quartet in a minor (after Mahler), and because that work is based on the material from the posthumously published quartet movement from Mahlerās school days, they tend to be paired together for musical context. Though it isnāt Schnittke attempting to elaborate on Mahlerās sketches, itās the opposite. He starts off with fragments of one of the main themes from the quartet, and uses it as an ostinato for different canons to develop over, each repetition becoming more gnarled in dissonant tonalities, building up until thinning out near the end in a more consonant language, bringing back the mood of Mahlerās quartet before breaking off into silence. Schnittke was a polystylist, so Iām sure he wouldnāt see a problem playing the work as theĀ āsecond movementā of Mahlerās original quartet. The piece that the teenage Mahler left us with, his only chamber work, is full of angst, pathos, rich in the German Romantic tradition while also throwing in a more Jewish sounding improvisation near the end of the movement where the violinistās scale descends the register of the instrument. The work was recently featured in Martin Scorseseās 2010 neo-noir Shutter Island, and gave it more of a spark in pop culture.Ā Pairing the work with Schnittkeās deconstruction is almost like forming book-ends to the century.
2087
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