Vadim Gluzman, Friedemann Eichhorn: Schnittke

The Strad Issue: August 2026

Description: Long-time friends unite for a searing musical experience

Musicians: Vadim Gluzman, Friedemann Eichhorn (violin) Evgeny Sinaiski (piano, prepared piano, harpsichord, celesta) German Radio Philharmonic/Valentin Uryupin

Works: Schnittke: Concerti grossi nos.1 and 3; Moz-Art à la Haydn; Moz-Art; Prelude in memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich

Catalogue number: NAXOS 8574460

Vadim Gluzman and Friedemann Eichhorn have been friends since they were students at the Juilliard School, as they explain in their booklet note. That closeness and unanimity of purpose is written all over this powerful collection of Schnittke’s complete music for two violins.

If anyone still views the composer as a playful polystylistic mischief-maker, then Gluzman and Eichhorn’s searingly intense account of his Concerto Grosso no.1 – the best-known work here – will surely set things straight. It’s a deeply felt, often harrowing performance, thoughtful in its unflinching depictions of despair, yet shot through with snarling humour in its Baroque-style excesses and aching sadness in its anachronistic tango. Gluzman and Eichhorn are often raw, sometimes abrasive, their intensity matched by the playing of the German Radio Philharmonic, all captured in rich and detailed recorded sound.

The lesser-known Concerto Grosso no.3 is a more elusive work, though it receives no less of a commanding account from Gluzman, Eichhorn and the orchestra, who navigate its unpredictable mood shifts expertly and focus on defiance rather than despair.

Among the disc’s smaller pieces, the two violinists offer a restrained but gritty Prelude in memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich, and a more playful Moz-Art that’s elegant but still spiky. It’s a profoundly affecting disc of deep commitment and sometimes distressing sincerity.

DAVID KETTLE