Sofia Gubaidulina

Alexander Ivashkin’s bold, confident cello-playing is the thread running through these works; he partners the organist Malcolm Hicks in the 1979 In croce, plays the Ten Preludes for the solo instrument from 1979, and leads a quartet of cellos in the remarkable Quaternion. Though many of Sofia Gubaidulina’s works have a religious dimension, In croce does not, despite its title; ‘On the cross’ refers to the way in which the two instruments exchange roles during the work, the cello beginning with microtones in the lowest register and gradually rising to a high diatonic end, while the organ starts off high in a pure A major and descends to the depths to a cluster that gradually collapses when the instrument’s blower is turned off. Though the Ten Preludes stretch the player’s capabilities to the maximum, they remain more or less within the conventional resources of the instrument. But Quaternion creates a whole new, ethereal, sound-world in which the cellos are tuned in pairs a quarter-tone apart, the players wear thimbles on their fingers in one section, and the music is persistently coloured by harmonics.

Sofia Gubaidulina’s religious nature, specifically Russian Orthodox, finds expression in each of these pieces. Each also makes use of her much-loved bayan, the Russian button accordion played here with great virtuosity by Iñaki Alberdi. Kadenza is a solo tour de force; Et exspecto, based on the closing words of the Creed (‘I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come’) is an impressive five-movement sonata in which, the booklet-note tells us, the performer’s interpretation goes, with her encouragement, well beyond the composer’s notation. In the other works, much is made of the combination of the accordion sounds and Asier Polo’s cello. With In croce, a number of cross-like ideas derive from the title – crossing of registers, crossing of lines and textures and so on – which are essentially private creative stimuli for the composer. But in the major work on the record, the half-hour Seven Words, the sentences spoken by Jesus on the cross are graphically, even fervently implied. Gubaidulina’s love of short motifs, here often using very close intervals, produces in her hands music of strong and even painful intensity, seizing and gripping the attention, sometimes with fiercely punched chords on the accordion or with soaring harmonics on the cello that vanish into silence after the final Word. The longest movement is the central No 4, Jesus’s cry, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’, a powerful and deeply affecting invention. This is a remarkable, compelling work.

Nelsons is the guiding spirit in what is surely, listened to in order, one of the most remarkable musical and spiritual journeys ever conceived.

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s first Bach recording for DG couples his Concertos BWV 1041 and BWV 1042 with the world-premiere recording of the Concerto commissioned by her from Sofia Gubaidulina, the Russian composer who regards Bach as her greatest source of inspiration. Mutter gave the premiere performance of Gubaidulina’s Concerto at the 2007 Lucerne Festival and will record the work with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev at the beginning of 2008.

Sofia Gubaidulina - Portrait - Claire-Marie Le Guay (2009) {Accord 4803153}
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© 2009 Accord / Classics Jazz France | 4803153
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Piano / Orchestral

Following the critical success of her Haydn/Mozart series Claire-Marie le Guay concentrates her new recording on the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. This portrait features the beautiful piano works Invention (1974), Chaconne (1963), Musical Toys (1969) and Introitus (1978), a chamber concerto with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jean-Jacques Kantorow.

Sofia Gubaidulina - Sofia Gubaidulina (2002) {ECM New Series 1775}
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© 2002 ECM Records | ECM New Series 1775 / 461897-2
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Orchestral

“There is no more important reason for composing music than spiritual renewal.”–Sofia Gubaidulina. Shostakovich once famously said of his student, Sofia Gubaidulina, “I want you to continue along your mistaken path.” Mistaken, that was, in the former Soviet Union, where the deliverance preached through her devout composing sat uncomfortably with censors. So much so that when she composed her Seven Words in 1982, she was obliged to leave out “…of Our Savior on the Cross” from its title. Nevertheless, this riveting work is one of the twentieth century’s reigning masterpieces.

Sofia Gubaidulina - In Croce - Works for Double Bass (2013) {Wergo - WER 6760 2}
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© 2013 Wergo | WER 6760 2
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music

The double bass is the focus of four compositions by Sofia Gubaidulina, presented here in unique interpretations by Daniele Roccato, Fabrizio Ottaviucci and Massimiliano Pitocco. The compositions which were written and reviewed over a time span of over 40 years "are among the highlights in double bass literature: four gems of outstanding value every double bass player should learn to perform." (Roccato)