While the use of a diversity of styles provided Alfred Schnittke with an effective way to express alienation and irony in his music, the ability to write in a Baroque style was also valuable from a professional standpoint: people do not always wish to hear alienating, ironic music in film scores. But while his Concerti grossi made extensive use of his film music in a kind of highly charged pastiche, the Suite in the Old Style for violin and piano is simply a transcription of certain movements from his film scores, with no commentary from Schnittke on what it meant to compose in Baroque forms in 1973. The first two movements, a Pastorale and a Ballet, are taken from a film detailing the adventures of a dentist. Apparently, this was not a very adventurous dentist, as both these movements are cheery and inoffensive in the extreme; the Pastorale, in particular, sounds sweet enough to be salon music. The Minuet was taken from a children's animation film—which raises some questions about Soviet children's animation, for this movement is extremely slow and melancholy. The piano imitates traditional ornaments, while the violin takes the subordinate role it sometimes had in Baroque violin works; the two even play in a resigned, almost exhausted canon at one point. A Fugue taken from a film about a sportsman is resolute and accomplished, driving quickly to its emphatic coda. Fittingly, the most daring piece here was also written for a children's animation work: the final Pantomime, despite its charming melody, features bare, exposed rhythms, striking pizzicati, and even what in context feels like a searing dissonance in the violin. The Pantomime does not end so much as trail away, perhaps providing a hint that an era of musical composition was over, or at least that Schnittke's serious work would never sound quite like this again.

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