Composer of the Week - Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) - Episode 5

Donald Macleod presents a celebration of the music of the USSR's last great composer, Alfred Schnittke. Almost incapacited by a series of crippling strokes, Schnittke continued heroically to compose right until his death in 1998. Donald is joined for a final time by Schnittke's friend and biographer Alexander Ivashkin to discuss the composer's last work: his enigmatic Ninth Symphony, deciphered after his death from near-illegible scrawl by composer Alexander Raskatov. Featuring excerpts from Schnittke's last film music - for an adaptation of Bulgakov's diabolical story The Master and Margarita - and his controversial opera, Life With An Idiot, a work that brutally sends up life in Communist USSR.