Alfred Schnittke Story of an unknown actor, op. 125

I 0:00 II 2:24 III 4:40 IV 6:20 V 9:33 VI 11:15 VII 13:08 VIII 15:04 IX 16:05 X 17:46 XI 19:11 (waltz) XII 20:23 XIII 22:30 In Schnittke s 1976 score for the film The Story of an Unknown Actor, he employs a single trite and sentimental melody for almost all the music s 12 scenes. A kind of Berliozian idée fixé, it follows our angstplagued protagonist, an aging thespian in a small Siberian troupe; in its constantly changing color and mood, the theme charts the actor s increasing anxiety and disenchantment. In this sense, Schnittke s score is classic film music, efficiently appending itself to a plot through single symbolic device, and sticking with But at the same time, the seams in Schnittke s score show; the melody s stylized, fakeTchaikovsky Russian pathos in its opening incarnation may strike some as impossibly sincere, its saccharine swagger and soaring scope