Alfred Schnittke’s Third String Quartet: an intertextuality analysis

Abstract

This is an analytical study of intertextual procedures in Alfred Schnittke's Third String Quartet (1983). The study intends to demonstrate how intertextual compositional elements (“texts”) are appropriated by the composer in the creation of his work. The texts are: the main theme of Beethoven’s Great Fugue op. 133, a motif of Orlando Di Lasso's Stabat Mater and Shostakovich’s DSCH monogram. To this end, this study discusses: the use of citations and allusions according to Schnittke; the genesis ans stricture of the String Quartet n° 3; and the way in which the texts approprieted by Schnittke are reframed in his work. The analysis demonstrated that Schnittke performs several transformations in the texts to adapt them to the structural context of Third String Quartet.

Keywords

• alfred schnittke
• intertextuality
• compositional process
• musical analysis