Our series with music that was produced during the period of the collapse (‘destroyka’) and restructuring ('perestrojka') of communism in Eastern Europe returns to its birthplace in Russia on 12 November.
The pianist Ksenia Novikova plays ‘Memento Mori’ by Lera Auerbach, a piece written in 1992.
In 1992, the German television broadcaster ZDF also asked Alfred Schnittke for new music for ‘The last days of St Petersburg’, a silent film made by Vsevolod Poedóvkin in 1927. That was 'an offer you can't refuse'.
Alfred Schnittke died in 1998 in Hamburg and the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli (foto) wrote ‘Styx’ for solo viola, chorus and orchestra in memory of Schnittke and the Armenian composer Avet Terterjan. Georgia became independant in 1991.
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