Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (Russian: Альфред Гарриевич Шнитке; born November 24, 1934 in Engels, USSR; died August 3, 1998 in Hamburg) was a soviet composer, pianist, theoretician of music and educator. His music is derived from various traditions: Russian (Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky), Germanic (Gustav Mahler, Alban Berg), and American (Charles Ives). On his mother’s side he was of Volga German and Roman Catholic extraction, on his father’s side he was German-Jewish.