Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted by Andrey Chistiakov.
I - March "The Swan, the Crab and the Pike" (0:00) - Overture (1:55)- Chichikov’s Childhood (3:15) - The Portrait (5:37) - Major Kovalyov (12:02) - The Nose. [The Morning (12:45) - Loss of the Nose - Searching the Nose (14:16) - Despair (15:47) - The Nose is Found (17:39)] - The Overcoat (19:59) - Ferdinand VIII (22:15) - The Civil Servants (23:25) - The Unknown Woman. [Barrel-organ (25:54) - The Unknown Woman (28:04) - Pas de deux (29:27) - The Debauch (33:00) - Sabbath (34:28) - Barrel-organ (36:30)] - Spanish Royal March (37:39) - The Ball (39:19) - The Testament. Ukrainian Folksong (45:18) - March "The Swan, the Crab and the Pike" (50:36)
Schnittke's "Sketches" (Esquisses) was assembled on 1985, largely derived from previously written music in collaboration with Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. It was first staged in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre on January 16 of 1985, led by Rozhdestvensky with Andrei Petrov as the choreographer. Written in a single continuous movement, the ballet can be described as a choreographic fantasia on themes from the works of Nikolai Gogol.
In 1978, Schnittke wrote the incidental music for a production of "The Inspector's Tale", an adaptation for stage of Gogol’s "Dead Souls". It was to have been directed by Yuri Lyubimov, but the Soviet government banned the production. A suite was assembled from the score by Gennadi Rozhdenstvensky, and two leading colleagues of Schnittke, Gubaidulina and Denisov, contributed a jointly composed march, which opens this ballet. It was in 1985 the music was choreographed and performed at the Bolshoi. Schnittke composed a number of new pieces for this production. The characters in the action are all from Gogol, but in addition to The Dead Souls, we meet Tchitchikov, Major Kovalyov’s Nose, and Ferdinand VIII from "Notes of a Madman".
Each scene is each pretty short. They’re really satirical little vignettes where wit is in solution with corrosion. The music is polystylistic, sometimes raucous in the manner of Ibert and Satie. At other times there are tasty little knockabout visits by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Beethoven (Symphony No. 5 – Fate motif), Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake), Mozart and Chopin (Pas de deux) references are dropped and capitalised upon along the way. The harpsichord is a frequent visitor but in a slightly less intense fashion than we may be accustomed to from the use made of the instrument in Shchedrin and Weinberg. French cinema music of the 1950s and 1960s is also evoked. There’s an electric guitar (solo and bass), flexatone, piano (prepared with coins between the strings) and other percussion some of it ‘outlandish’. There’s even a Russian speaker in Ferdinand VIII. The Barrel Organ creaks and wheezes charmingly. All of this contributes to a sense of devilish mischief, which suites ideally the grotesque nature of many of Gogol’s characters.
Picture: "An Englishman in Moscow" (1914) by painter Kazimir Malevich
Sources: tinyurl.com/22dq8daf and tinyurl.com/2a8rzwae
Unfortunately, the score is not freely available.
Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted by Andrey Chistiakov.
I - March "The Swan, the Crab and the Pike" (0:00) - Overture (1:55)- Chichikov’s Childhood (3:15) - The Portrait (5:37) - Major Kovalyov (12:02) - The Nose. [The Morning (12:45) - Loss of the Nose - Searching the Nose (14:16) - Despair (15:47) - The Nose is Found (17:39)] - The Overcoat (19:59) - Ferdinand VIII (22:15) - The Civil Servants (23:25) - The Unknown Woman. [Barrel-organ (25:54) - The Unknown Woman (28:04) - Pas de deux (29:27) - The Debauch (33:00) - Sabbath (34:28) - Barrel-organ (36:30)] - Spanish Royal March (37:39) - The Ball (39:19) - The Testament. Ukrainian Folksong (45:18) - March "The Swan, the Crab and the Pike" (50:36)
Schnittke's "Sketches" (Esquisses) was assembled on 1985, largely derived from previously written music in collaboration with Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. It was first staged in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre on January 16 of 1985, led by Rozhdestvensky with Andrei Petrov as the choreographer. Written in a single continuous movement, the ballet can be described as a choreographic fantasia on themes from the works of Nikolai Gogol.
In 1978, Schnittke wrote the incidental music for a production of "The Inspector's Tale", an adaptation for stage of Gogol’s "Dead Souls". It was to have been directed by Yuri Lyubimov, but the Soviet government banned the production. A suite was assembled from the score by Gennadi Rozhdenstvensky, and two leading colleagues of Schnittke, Gubaidulina and Denisov, contributed a jointly composed march, which opens this ballet. It was in 1985 the music was choreographed and performed at the Bolshoi. Schnittke composed a number of new pieces for this production. The characters in the action are all from Gogol, but in addition to The Dead Souls, we meet Tchitchikov, Major Kovalyov’s Nose, and Ferdinand VIII from "Notes of a Madman".
Each scene is each pretty short. They’re really satirical little vignettes where wit is in solution with corrosion. The music is polystylistic, sometimes raucous in the manner of Ibert and Satie. At other times there are tasty little knockabout visits by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Beethoven (Symphony No. 5 – Fate motif), Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake), Mozart and Chopin (Pas de deux) references are dropped and capitalised upon along the way. The harpsichord is a frequent visitor but in a slightly less intense fashion than we may be accustomed to from the use made of the instrument in Shchedrin and Weinberg. French cinema music of the 1950s and 1960s is also evoked. There’s an electric guitar (solo and bass), flexatone, piano (prepared with coins between the strings) and other percussion some of it ‘outlandish’. There’s even a Russian speaker in Ferdinand VIII. The Barrel Organ creaks and wheezes charmingly. All of this contributes to a sense of devilish mischief, which suites ideally the grotesque nature of many of Gogol’s characters.
Picture: "An Englishman in Moscow" (1914) by painter Kazimir Malevich
Sources: tinyurl.com/22dq8daf and tinyurl.com/2a8rzwae
Unfortunately, the score is not freely available.
