SMA Zoom Colloquium – Perspectives on Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3
23rd October 2025 – 6:00pm (GMT)
Summary
Alfred Schnittke’s Third String Quartet (1983) remains one of the most performed post-1945 modernist works and a favourite of scholarly discourse addressing the composer’s polystylistic method(s). This colloquium hosted by the SMA brings together an international lineup of scholars based from across America, the United Kingdom, and Europe to offer a series of refreshing analytical readings of the Quartet. The colloquium’s format breaks down into four position statements, each providing a close analytical reading from a distinct perspective, before a wider discussion between contributors with audience participation. The event strives to be at once a site of novel analytical work, and a reminder of the value of ranging scholarly dialogue across the borders of learned societies in the field of music theory.
Position Statements and Speakers Biographies
1) Daniel Elphick: « From quotes to rows: 12-note ‘completism’ in the final movement of Schnittke’s Third Quartet »
Schnittke’s use of quotation for extra-musical signification has been widely examined, and the Third Quartet is one of the most accessible examples of this. Over the course of the work, Schnittke gradually expands his quoted melodies to extend to separate 12-note rows, concentrated in the final movement. My short talk will analyse Schnittke’s expansion towards 12-note completism not only within his wider 12-note practice, but also as a signifier of the sense of ‘ending’, of introducing another set of extra-musical signifiers via reference to the second Viennese school, and thus introducing a wider meta-narrative of the ‘evolution’ of music history towards the emancipation of dissonance.
Dr Daniel Elphick is a Lecturer in Musicology at Royal Holloway, specialising in East-European and Russian music from 1800 to the present. Dan’s publications include Music Behind the Iron Curtain (CUP) and, together with Stephen Downes, the forthcoming edited collection Sounding Polish: Constructions of Polish Musical Identities outside Poland since 1880 (Boydell & Brewer). Dan is a Fellow of the Centre for Russian Music at Goldsmiths, a convenor of the music study group for the British Association of Slavonic and East-European Studies, and also the Communications Officer for the RMA.
2) Cecilia Oinas: « Together in polystylism: Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3 and its performative affordances »
In this brief colloquium presentation, I explore how, in Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3 (1983), the pitch-based unison functions as a reference point not only in terms of texture but also from a performative perspective. Drawing from De Souza’s (2015) ideas on texture, Klorman’s (2016) theory of ‘multiple agency’ as well as my previous research on ‘sonic bridges’ (Oinas 2023), I argue that pitch-based unison, manifested through parallel motion (both strict and heterophonic), polyphony and homorhythmic passages, may create a sense of togetherness among ensemble members. The unison reference is especially prominent in the first movement, while the second movement relies more on rhythmic affordances. The final movement introduces parallel motion between various intervals as a new tool for creating synchrony within the ensemble. Ultimately, the contrast between one-voice and chordal textures may be traced back to the two musical quotations used by Schnittke: while the quotation form Lasso’s Stabat Mater features chordal writing with only small intervallic leaps, Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge subject features the unison line with zigzagging leaps of sixths and sevenths.
Dr. Cecilia Oinas is a Finnish-Hungarian music theory lecturer, music scholar and classically trained pianist at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Sibelius Academy. In addition to Finland, she has studied and worked in the United Satets, Hungary, Belgium and Austria. Her research focuses on music analysis, performance, and various modes of communication within chamber music. Dr. Oinas has published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Music Theory Online, Music & Practice, SMT-V, and Music Performance Research and has contributed chapters to several scholarly anthologies. She currently serves as an associate editor of Music Theory Online.
3) Inessa Bazayev: « Hearing Collage in Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3″
Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3 is one of the most discussed and well-known works within the composer’s output. It is among the iconically polystylistic works for several reasons: (1) It is a historical lesson on quotations of prominent works/mottos (Lassus’s Stabat Mater; the theme from Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge; Bach’s motto; and Shostakovich’s DSCH motto); (2) It features a twelve-tone row; and (3) It coantains familiar polyphonic procedures. Given this rich eclecticism of styles and musical procedures, my paper proposes listening to this work from the perspective of collage, which theorist Catherine Losada describes as a series of disparate elements that are connected to one another through one, some, or all of the following musical techniques: pitch convergence, chromatic insertion, and/or rhythmic plasticity (Losada 2008). I will show how these techniques are play out in the first movement of Schnittke’s Quartet No. 3 and the way they relate to the Russian visual art movement of photomontage, which influenced Schnittke’s creative process in this in other works.
Inessa Bazayev is Paula G. Manship Professor of Music Theory and Music Theory Area Head at the Louisiana State University, where she has been teaching since 2009. Her research focuses on Russian and Soviet music and music theory. She has published widely on these and related topics in leading music theory journals. She’s currently working on a monograph on Prokofiev’s music entitled Between Censorship and Innovation: Sergey Prokofiev, Soviet Propaganda, and the Making of a “Classic” Composer.
4) Christopher Segall: « Unsounding Paratexts: Signs in Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3″
Schnittke’s Third Quartet is a work defined by its paratext, literary theorist Gérard Genette’s term for elements that frame and accompany a text. Musical quotations from Orlando di Lasso, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Dmitri Shostakovich are labeled in Schnittke’s score. The labels are unsounding, but their presence ensures their centrality to the work’s discourse. I focus on another paratextual element: the repeat sign in the second movement. Frequently ignored in contemporary performance practice, repeat signs function primarily as signifiers of musical form. I take the repeat sign as an invitation to hear a sonata-form structure in the second movement. Such an orientation yields primary and secondary themes derived from two halves of a twelve-tone row, a development based on a theme from the first movement, and a recapitulation interrupted by the start of the third movement. Unsounding signs point to interpretive listening strategies.
Christopher Segall is a Canadian music theorist and Associate Professor at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, USA.
Zoom link
Join Zoom Meeting: https://iu.zoom.us/j/9166804343?omn=83579029641