In 1978, Alfred Schnittke (1934-98) composed music for The Inspector’s Tale, an adaptation to the scene of Gogol’s Dead Souls. The director should have been Yuri Lyubimov, but the Soviet government banned production. From the score of Gennady Rozhdestvensky it was collected a number, and two of Shnittke’s amazing colleagues, S.Gubaidulina and E.Denisov, have written a march. In 1985, the music was choreographed, with ballet called Esquisses performed at the Bolshoi Theatre.
Schnittke composed a number of new works for this production. The music is a poly-stylistic, with a huge orchestra (2 electric guitars, flexatone, prepared piano with coins inserted between the strings), quotations from Beethoven, Haydn, Tchaikovsky – all with a sense of devilish mischief which suites ideally the grotesque nature of many of Gogol’s characters. The characters in action are all from Gogol, but in addition to the Dead Souls, we meet Chitchikov, Major Kovalev’s Nos, and Ferdinand VIII of the Notes of the Mad. An excerpt from the book is read in his work and read by the conductor on this disc:
For almost thirty years I repeatedly saw one and the same dream: I would arrive in Vienna at long last. I would feel really happy, for I was returning to my serene childhood.
Alfred Schnittke
