Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) was a Russian composer of German and Jewish descent, born in Engels on the Volga. He had his first music lessons as a boy in Vienna, where his father was posted after the war, studied at the Moscow Conservatory and taught there until 1972, and for years earned much of his living writing film scores. From the First Symphony and the first Concerto Grosso onwards he became known for polystylism, his term for music that sets clashing historical styles against one another. He wrote symphonies, string quartets, operas and a long series of concertos for the leading Soviet string players. A stroke in 1985 was the first of several. He moved to Hamburg in 1990 and died there.