Gubaidulina's Canticle

[Spotted Horses]

Happy birthday to Ms. Gubaidulina. Age 90, amazing. I have yet to really click with any of her music, but I would love to hear more of it. The only disc I have is The Canticle of the Sun with Rostropovich on EMI, and I think it may be a tad too esoteric for me. Anyone have any recommendations?

According to Wikipedia, she idolizes Anton Webern and J.S. Bach—two of my favorite composers.

I am in a similar situation, I have only heard one of her works, In tempus praesens, performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter and it didn't resonate with me. I'm not aware of how that work relates to Gubaiduilina's body of work.

[Brahmsian]

I am in a similar situation, I have only heard one of her works, In tempus praesens, performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter and it didn't resonate with me. I'm not aware of how that work relates to Gubaiduilina's body of work.

That is the only work I have heard as well.

[vers la flamme]

I ordered this:



Excited to check it out.

[Mirror Image]

Some of my favorite Gubaidulina works: Sieben Worte, Fachwerk, Viola Concerto, Pro et Contra, Offertorium, Music for Flute, Strings and Percussion, Piano Sonata, Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten and Alleluja. She was a difficult composer for me to get into because I didn't quite understand where she was coming from musically. Sometimes it takes awhile to assess a composer's style(s) and Penderecki was another one that took me quite some time to get into. She's not easy and her music doesn't fall on the ears like a velvet blanket, but I think she's an incredible composer and has a phenomenal ear for sonorities.

[Mirror Image]

I ordered this:



Excited to check it out.

A great disc! I wish Rozhdestvensky had recorded more of her work.

[bhodges]

Happy birthday to Ms. Gubaidulina. Age 90, amazing. I have yet to really click with any of her music, but I would love to hear more of it. The only disc I have is The Canticle of the Sun with Rostropovich on EMI, and I think it may be a tad too esoteric for me. Anyone have any recommendations?

According to Wikipedia, she idolizes Anton Webern and J.S. Bach—two of my favorite composers.

You might try Offertorium (her first violin concerto), which uses the theme from Bach's BWV 1079 as its starting point. Gubaidulina then takes that theme and subjects it to a somewhat Webern-like treatment (i.e., the piece shows influences of both).

On YouTube (just for easy access), I see the original with Gidon Kremer, which is very good. But there are also a good number of other, more recent versions that look quite interesting.

I am listening to this one now, and so far, it's superb. (I don't recall ever hearing this violinist.)
Arabella Steinbacher with Christoph von Dohnányi and NDR Sinfonieorchester (from 2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob6hHDbLxo8

--Bruce

Some of my favorite Gubaidulina works: Sieben Worte, Fachwerk, Viola Concerto, Pro et Contra, Offertorium, Music for Flute, Strings and Percussion, Piano Sonata, Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten and Alleluja.

All good recs. She has a particular love for low timbres, so there's a lot of bassoon and lower strings in many of her works.

I ordered this:



Excited to check it out.

A great one. Hope you like it, and let us know!

--Bruce

[Spotted Horses]

I am listening to this one now, and so far, it's superb. (I don't recall ever hearing this violinist.)
Arabella Steinbacher with Christoph von Dohnányi and NDR Sinfonieorchester (from 2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob6hHDbLxo8

--Bruce

I am a fan of Steinbacher, particularly her recordings of the Bartok Concerti, and French Violin Sonatas.

[bhodges]

I am a fan of Steinbacher, particularly her recordings of the Bartok Concerti, and French Violin Sonatas.

Thanks for these recs. As a fan of all of these, will want to hear them at some point.

--Bruce

[CRCulver]

Deutsche Grammophon has just released a recording of three recent(-ish) orchestral works by Gubaidulina.

[bhodges]

After some Gubaidulina love elsewhere, I found this fantastic live survey of all four of her string quartets, performed last fall by the Poland-based Royal String Quartet. Marvelous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbeS-PUaqDo

--Bruce

[brewski]

Friday at 11:00 am (EST), cellist Julia Hagen will perform some of Gubaidulina's works for solo cello. The cool thing: she'll be at the architectural marvel that is the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, but not inside the hall.

In the parking garage.

-Bruce

[Symphonic Addict]

To be released on 2 August:

[Le Buisson Ardent]

To be released on 2 August:

Andrew Manze conducting Gubaidulina?!?!? Well, he's full of surprises. This upcoming release will be, for me, a must-buy of course. I love Gubaidulina's concerti. Thanks for the alert, Cesar!

[brewski]

Very sad to hear that Sofia Gubaidulina has died at the age of 93.

Love her works, and will figure out what to listen to later.

[ChamberNut]

Sad news indeed! RIP

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Bad news, indeed! She's such an amazing composer. RIP, Ms. Gubaidulina.

[foxandpeng]

Sorry to hear this news. I very much like what I have heard of her music.

[Alex Bozman]

Very sorry to hear this. Recall her attendance at Huddersfield Festival and Sofia Gubaidulina helping to set up the stage, before a performance of her choir and ensemble piece, Now Always Snow.
Think she was in her late 60s then. Just found a Moscow Conservatory recording of that work and listened again tonight, striking music. RIP

[foxandpeng]

Very sorry to hear this. Recall her attendance at Huddersfield Festival and Sofia Gubaidulina helping to set up the stage, before a performance of her choir and ensemble piece, Now Always Snow.
Think she was in her late 60s then. Just found a Moscow Conservatory recording of that work and listened again tonight, striking music. RIP

Great story! A good memory to look back on.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

I wrote this on another forum about Gubaidulina:

Back in 2020 (aka the year that hell officially broke loose), I took a seven month absence from work amidst the panic and uncertainty that was happening around this time. In this particular period, there were a lot of composers that were kind of on my "backburner" so to speak and Gubaidulina was one of them. For years, I found her music difficult and just too austere for my tastes, but I would say the work that broke the mold for me was Sieben Worte (Seven Words). I became obsessed with this piece and read as much as I could about it. I found it endlessly fascinating (and still do), but this was the piece that enabled me to lift the fog from her music and pursue it with an open-mind. I only owned a couple of her recordings, but I ended up with probably double what I owned after I got deeper into her music. A lot of listeners and historians have attached her music to religion or say it's spiritual. I wouldn't disagree with this as religion is vital to her existence, but it's not the only element in her style. I think her music has a vicious, snarling quality to it as well. She is obviously avant-garde in the way she employs unusual timbres and extended techniques within many of her works, but none of it is ever out-of-place or feels like she's just "note spinning". Hard to believe she's in her early 90s now. I hope she still has much life in her to give us more music. She has become one of my favorite composers.