Alfred Schnittke was a Soviet and Russian composer of Jewish-German ancestry, active in the late 20th century, born in Engels in the Volga German ASSR. He studied in Vienna before settling in Moscow, where he taught at the Moscow Conservatory (1962-1972), and later moved to Hamburg, Germany, in 1990. His wide-ranging output includes nine symphonies, string quartets and other chamber works, concertos for violin, viola, cello, and piano, opera and ballet, choral works with spiritual themes, and around 70 film scores. Debilitated by a series of strokes beginning in 1985, he died in Hamburg in 1998 at the age of 63.

Schnittke is among the most performed and recorded composers of the late 20th century, celebrated for pioneering polystylism, a technique blending musical idioms from different historical eras and popular sources within a single work to convey the moral and spiritual tensions of contemporary life. His late compositions, marked by a bleaker and more withdrawn character following his strokes, are considered by many critics to represent his most significant artistic legacy, securing his reputation as one of the leading voices of late Soviet-era concert music.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schnittke