David Dalle
Thursday May 22nd, 2025 with David Dalle
Schnittke's Choir Concerto in Ottawa! Recent Canadiana.

Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke wrote his Choir Concerto in 1985 and it remains one of the most daunting and spectacular contemporary works for an a cappella choir. Ottawa's Capital Chamber Choir had worked hard to prepare this work for performance, in 2020. This concert was cancelled by the pandemic. Five years later, they are ready to present it again! This Sunday afternoon they are performing Schnittke's Choir Concerto St. Joseph’s Church, 174 Wilbrod St, 3pm. https://www.capitalchamberchoir.ca/tickets/schnittke Schnittke was a tremendously influential composer in my musical world. Indeed, I featured the first work I heard by him in my "30 for 30" last year (https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/66789.html). However, his work is very rarely performed in Canada. This may be the first time I've heard his music in Ottawa! The Choir Concerto was composed in 1985, and it features the more mystical side of Schnittke. He uses text based on a devotional work "Book of Lamentations" from a 10th century Armenian poet, Gregory of Narek. This work doesn't have the wild polystylism of his 1st symphony, but is still a work of dense and rich complexity. "One of Schnittke's characteristic devices is to take a single pitch, and then allow the individual voice parts--as many as sixteen--to peel away one by one from the central pitch to form a tangle of imitating lines. The same process might then be enacted in reverse, the dense weave gradually thinning to a single chord or note. These meditative passages alternate with great choral outbursts".