5 Präludien und Fuge

The Five Preludes and Fugue for piano are an early work by the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke, who died in Hamburg in 1998. They were composed in the years 1953/54 when Schnittke was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. Shortly prior to this, in the years 1949 to 1953, Schnittke had completed studies in choral conducting and piano at the Russian Vocational School. During this time the composer was extensively involved with the piano works of Rachmaninoff and Skryabin; he also played Chopin Etudes and learnt the solo part of Grieg’s Piano Concerto. Schnittke’s close friend Alexander Ivashkin once wrote that the style of the Five Preludes and Fugue is at times almost orchestral because Schnittke was then intensively coming to terms not only with the above-named composers, but also with Wagner. One of the Preludes is reminiscent of Chopin’s Prelude in E minor, another of Liszt’s “Funérailles”. In the Preludes, however, one also clearly recognises the style of Nikolai Myaskovsky, whom Schnittke greatly admired.