Julliard's FOCUS, Alfred Schnittke's Music - You Lost Me

FOCUS, Julliard's week tribute to Russian composer Alfred Schnittke to mark his 80th birthday continues through Friday.  Schnittke's compositions were unbeknowst to me.  His music had been suppressed under Stalin, barring the release outside the U.S.S.R.  Julliard has been endowed with many of Schnittke's papers.  Joel Sachs, the Julliard Orch. conductor, had a personal relationship with the composer and felt a tribute was in order to honor the late composer.  Program II on Mon. Jan. 27th featured a string quartet performing Arvo Part; a collaborative piece.  Part is an Estonian classical & religious composer who music is minimlistic & reflective of Gregorian chants.  It sounded like 4 musicians were all practising their own piece and the composition was neither cohesive or harmonic.  The cello player plucked most of her piece and the group stopped to "retune" at one point.  Duo-Sonata for 2 bassoons by Sofia Gubaiulina, (b. 1931 in Russia) was interesting for its unique sound: 2 discordant bassoons playing diverging melodic themes.  Schall und Hall composed in 1983 by Schnittke was a trombone & organ duet.  Again, intriguing but not appealing.  FOCUS continues through this Friday and I will use my tickets for Program 4 on Wednesday.