Schnittke and interpreters

If Keith Fagan dislikes what he calls "public brawling", he really should not add to the fray by writing at length to a specialist journal about a composer (Alfred Schnittke) he blithely admits he does not actually know anything about (December, Correspondence). Far from shedding light on the issue of the Schnittke recordings, Mr Fagan seems intent on disseminating ignorance. He clearly knows nothing whatsoever about the list of artists (Kremer, Bashmet, Rostropovich et al) he describes as "top-ranking" but suspects of having "their own settled ideas concerning interpretation", which leads him to imagine that Schnittke preferred other artists for the BIS Complete Schnittke Edition. About Yuri Bashmet, to name but one, he could not be more wrong. Schnittke's Viola Concerto, for example, was not merely written for Bashmet but was essentially constructed around the letters of his name. Mr Fagan, however, thinks Schnittke "may prefer to work with musicians he knows personally", evidently assuming that he has never met Bashmet or Rostropovich! Has Mr Fagan even twigged that Schnittke is Russian?

You do not become one of the world's greatest living musicians, as The Times described Yuri Bashmet, by being insensitive to the ideas of the composers whose works you play, conduct and arrange—particularly composers you know as well as Bashmet knows Schnittke. If Mr Fagan doubts this, he should begin his education by reading Edward Seekerson's interview with Bashmet in your June 1991 issue. Next, he should listen to Bashmet's playing of some of Schnittke's music. If he is still unconvinced, I should be delighted to lend him a video of a TV documentary in which Schnittke, sitting in his study at home near Moscow, tells his close friend Bashmet, who is visiting him to discuss the interpretation of Monologue, about to be given its world premiere at the Moscow Conservatoire, that (to quote from the subtitles) "it was very interesting writing it and imagining you as the soloist. I have two kinds of relationship with soloists. With some I discuss every detail and everything comes out fine. But with others you hardly need to talk at all: they know it already and intuitively know what to do. This is far more important. It's a quality you have: you know what to do instinctively. Writing for a musician like you . . . the fact that you play beautifully is not what matters most; what's good is how you instantly find your way to the heart of the composition." Enough said, Mr Fagan?

The reason why Schnittke's Viola Concerto is not played by Yuri Bashmet in the BIS edition is almost certainly that Bashmet has an exclusive recording contract with RCA, the company which produced his own recording of the work (2/92—on the back cover of which he is pictured sharing a joke with Schnittke and the conductor, Rostropovich). But such a simple explanation seems not to have occurred even to David Fanning, let alone the clueless Mr Fagan. Quite what Gidon Kremer and the Borodin Quartet (not to mention the orchestras) would think of Mr Fagan's remarks I shudder to think. If this is his idea of "pouring a little oil on the troubled waters", the mind boggles at what he might come out with if he were trying to stir things up.

BARBARA HALL. Luxembourg.