Lebenslauf

‘The structure of the piece is determined by the course of my life to date: The important events and impressions for my development as well as my own and others' musical themes are indicated by aperiodic entries and accents at the respective points in time. Underneath, a time mechanism runs, which is accelerating but periodic. After 1982 comes the hypothetical time span of the future, about which I can still know nothing, except that time remains countable. This is why there is an aleatory section above the ticking rhythm of time, which then leads to a coda (inevitable for me as for everyone). My personal life has so far, thank God, been very poor in important events; but this results in a sequence of contrasting accents at different intervals, which allows for an interplay of subjective perception of time and objective counting of time. For this reason (and not out of narcissism) I used my life story as the model and title of the piece. I don't want to say anything about the events themselves, because ‘Lebenslauf’ is not programme music.’

(Alfred Schnittke)