Alfred Garyevich Schnittke

1934 - Alfred Garyevich Schnittke, born on the 24th of November in Engels in the Volga-German Republic of the RSFSR, Soviet Union. He was a Russian and Soviet composer.

1946 - He began his musical education in Vienna where his father, a journalist and translator, had been posted.

1961 - He completed his graduate work in composition at the Moscow Conservator.

1962 - He studied at the Moscow Conservatory where, among his teachers in composition, was Evgeny Golubev.

1964 - He took up the serial technique in works such as Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra.

1967 - 1968 - The first concert work to use the polystylistic technique was the Second Violin Sonata, Quasi una sonata .

1969 - 1972 - He continued to develop the polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony.

1972 - 1976 - Composed more stylistically unified works such as the Piano Quintet, written in memory of his recently deceased mother.

1977 - Developed his work, First Concerto Grosso.

1980 - His First Symphony was effectively banned by the Composers' Union, and after he abstained from a Composers' Union vote and he was banned from travelling outside of the USSR.

1985 - Suffered a stroke which left him in a coma.

       - He was declared clinically dead on several occasions but recovered and continued to compose.

1990 - Left Russia and settled in Hamburg.

1998 - Died on the 8th of August in Hamburg.