Attending the following evening, I strongly concur with Janos Gereben's
assessment of the Schnittke 4th Violin Concerto.

While he apparently was silent for the performance Janos attended,
MTT spoke with the aid of a mike to the audience the night I was there.
His comments were brief, relevant, and welcome (unlike some other
occasions) as he likened the astounding second (Vivo) movement to the
nightmare described by Kafka or Rilke (MTT didn't know which) of a
violinist practicing of the neighboring room of each hotel one visited
during a road tour.  A concept similar to the Twilight Zone segment of
a cross-country driver who seems the same hitchhiker again and again.

I will buy a recording of the work, but it won't be able to match my
experience in the concert hall.  I won't be able to see the frightening
way Barantschik swiped at his instrument again and again without playing
a note, glaring at the audience.  I felt that classical music and its
conventions were deconstructing, that the bourgois blossoming begun in
Beethoven's time will all too soon end up as an Ozymandiad ruin.

Jeff Dunn
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Alameda, CA