Schnittke, Alfred.

a closely-written working manuscript discussing Prokofiev's strategies for coping with the then prevailing political situation, noting that throughout the dreadful times he maintained his dignity, offering a quiet yet tough resistance, commenting on his poetic yet also business-like nature, his manner of writing (omitting the vowels, according to old Russian usage), his industry, his philosophy of life, his decision to return to the Soviet Union and the effect on him of the Second World War, Zhdanov's speech of 1948 and its effects; in the speech Schnittke also discusses many works by Prokofiev, including his 6th and 7th Symphonies, the Violin Sonata No.1, the Five Poems of Anna Akhmatova, the Piano Concerto No. 2, the ballets Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Ala i Lolli, and the String Quartet No.2, refers to other Russian composers and musicians, including Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Rostropovich, Tcherepnin, Glazunov, Liadov, Richter and Gilels, and also provides a memorable description of the premiere in February 1952 of Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto for Violoncello and a listing of those present at Prokofiev's funeral a year later



...Dieser Mensch sah die Welt anders und hörte sie anders - es schien ihm ein anderer Ausgangs- und Abzählpunkt von der Natur geschenkt zu sein als dem weitaus größten Teil der Menschheit...



7 pages, folio (29.6 x 21cm), containing a number of deletions, corrections and revisions, with an edition of the speech, published as Gedanken zu Sergei Prokofjew, Hamburg, Sikorski, 1990, no place or date [Berlin and Hamburg, summer 1990]

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate.
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A moving and penetrating tribute to one Russian composer from another.

Schnittke began work on this remarkable address in Berlin in the summer of 1990, during a 10-month stay there (October 1989 to July 1990) as Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). It was completed in August 1990 in Hamburg, and delivered by the composer, in the presence of Prokofiev's first wife and his two sons, at the opening of the Festival "Prokofjew und die neue sowjetische Musik" in Duisburg on 16 September of the same year.