“At 84, Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina is a revered figure in the world of classical music, and one of the last major composers who came of age during the Soviet Union’s darkest years under Stalin,” writes Jeremy Eichler in Sunday’s (7/31) Boston Globe (subscription required). Gubaidulina is composer in residence at Vermont’s Marlboro Music Festival, where “chamber musicians were recently rehearsing her Quasi Hoquetus for viola, bassoon, and piano…. The music seemed to speak with a rare, almost wild intensity…. Boston Symphony Orchestra audiences had a chance to experience Gubaidulina’s otherworldly music in 2014, when Andris Nelsons led her ‘Offertorium,’ a violin concerto, with the Latvian soloist Baiba Skride.” Gubaidulina’s “new BSO co-commissioned Triple Concerto—for violin, cello, and bayan (a type of accordion)” will have its U.S. premiere in February. “While she has lived in Germany now for over a quarter-century, her music retains its older aura of spiritual authority.” Says pianist Mitsuko Uchida, Marlboro’s artistic director, “Sofia’s music is totally honest. This is such a rare quality.”
Posted August 5, 2016
