Janos writes about Schnitte's Concerto for piano and strings:

>Today was a "normal" day, but the Schnittke, opening the concert, still
>packed a wallop, it impressed and moved as no other part of the program
>did.  The 1979 concerto is vintage Schnittke - dark, brooding, with
>beautiful harmonies interrupted by violent dissonance. I wasn't in Santa
>Rosa on 9/11, but I can imagine the impact of this traumatizing music
>in that context.
>
>The 25-minute concerto is all of one piece, disparate, conflicting
>elements melding into an overwhelming coherence that's impossible to put
>in words.  Some of the dissonance is exaggerated, grotesque, the deliberate
>ugliness working as the contrast does in Strauss' "Elektra," good and
>evil bouncing off each other, completing the other.

Janos has it exactly right- I simply want to add that those not familiar
with this composer's Eighth Symphony should seek it out on cd.  It is a
marvelous work which somehow has a spiritual dimension (IMHO of course
!!!) as does the piano concerto.

I have no idea how composers endow their music with a spititual dimension.
I am even prepared to grant that this is a very subjective state of
affairs.  I can even now hear a hard headed, hard nosed, analytical,
positivistic member of our little group saying - humbug!!!!  its just
notes on music paper- this guy is getting senile.

Can't rule it out.

Professor Emeritus Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University