IT IS A RARE TREAT to hear a piece of classical music being played by the soloist it was designed for - and even rarer when the piece contains the soloist's name encoded into it.
This weekend Hong Kong classical musical fans will be able to hear it firsthand when Russian star Yuri Bashmet - the world's best-known viola player - will be performing Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.
The piece was so carefully crafted for Bashmet that at one point the music plays his name, spelled out in a series of chords.
It is easy to work out how the 'B' and the 'A' that begin his name could be part of a chord, but the rest needs some more explanation. 'It is complicated,' Bashmet explains in a telephone interview from Vienna.
'First it is like Bach, so you have Bash. Then there is a 'mi' in the Russian music way, and an 'e' like in the English music notation' he pauses and laughs. 'I don't remember the 't'.' He was touched when the Russian-German-Jewish composer explained it to him. 'I said to him that it was a big compliment for me. It means that you love me to have used my name.'
What does he remember of the late Schnittke? 'He was very busy; everyone wanted his music.' The first time they met was in 1976, when Bashmet took part in the premiere of Schnittke's piano quintet, along with violinist Gidon Kremer, who had already had several close collaborations with Schnittke.