text: It was because the charismatic in music is genuinely awe-inspiring , and to watch the violist trek across Schnittke 's barbarous Russian landscape was like watching humanity and inhumanity in ferocious battle , waging every grand and noble struggle that we associate with the 19 th -century violin concertos , except without any of the reassuring triumphalism that , among 19 th -century composers , was indistinguishable from a finale .
  
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  Music is usually awe-inspiring .