Essential Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina’s varied oeuvre combines serialism, post-serial microtonal music with traditional instruments such as the bayan and deeply felt mysticism.
Read more…Gubaidulina was born in Tatarstan in 1931 and studied composition in Kazan and Moscow. While she saw music as an escape from the socio-political atmosphere of Soviet Russia, her spirituality as well as the influences of the Western avantgarde’s aesthetic in her work made her the target of repression and censorship from the Soviet Regime. In 1979, her name appeared on a black list of composers, which left her with writing film music as the only way to earn an income as a composer. After the fall of the iron curtain, Gubaidulina rose to international acclaim, with canonic releases on labels such as ECM and BIS.
Despite the deeply personal and spiritual themes of Gubaidulina’s work, her creative process is not merely led by intuition or emotion. Rather, she strives for the marriage of mathematical rigour and “fiery intuition” she admires so much in the work of J.S. Bach.
Sofia Gubaidulina has lived near Hamburg in Northern Germany since the early 1990s and continues to compose new music, such as “The Wrath of God” which was first recorded by Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in honour of Gubaidulina’s 90th birthday. With her extensive and idiosyncratic oeuvre, Gubaidulina has become one of the most renowned and influential modern composers while retaining a characteristic humility: “Whatever I write is just an attempt. For us human beings nothing is ever realised as we imagine. What we do is just attempts. That's our lot. So be it.”