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| A Day of Sofia Gubaidulina |
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| Live,
justin harries,
19 February 2001 |
Rating: F5
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Bang. Scrape. Small gurgling sound. Bang! Most peoples definition of the music produced by those composing for orchestra in this day and age would include the words ‘unlistenable’, ‘horrible’, ‘crap’ and, for the most part they would be right. After all, orchestral music had a rough ol’ time over the past century, what with electricity making the sheer amount of thumb twirlers employed on stage look archaic and overblown. Not to mention the less than crowd pleasing antics of serialisim and other grim musical ‘languages’ on offer to replace dogmatic tonality. All this ‘farting’ music was a general turn off for the general public, especially when they could be listening to the Venga boys instead. And for those genuinely interested, sifting the shit from the great is tough work – no New Music Hits #56 on offer here. However, from the morass of the tail end of the twentieth century some composers stick out as being revelent, even vital in the overcrowded field of music. Nono, Gubaidulina, Feldman, Scelsi, all united not just by silly names, but with an attitude to sound, space, silence and the unfolding of time. It’s an oddity to see one of these guys pieces make it to stage, let alone have an entire concert devoted to their work, but that’s what’s happening next Sunday on the South Bank as the only female amongst the group, the Russian Sofia Gubaidulina, gets her very own day!
Less astringent than the other composers listed, Gubaidulinas sound world is lush, ghostly, often histrionic but tempered by a redemptive tonality. She is the wacky aunt to Schnitkners dour uncle in the family of new Russian music, and her music comes replete with all the Slavonic trimmings, bells, mourning strings and, of course, a massive dollop of mystical/spiritual yearning. With a background in free improvisation, and capacity to stretch an instrument and performer to extraordinary new lengths, she has an ear for the intimate as well as the verbose. For many, her finest moment is the grand violin concerto ‘Offertorium’ , which combines violent convulsions of orchestral colour and timbral upheaval with a keening, exquisite journey for violin. A kind of autistic stab at transcendence, it’s this stuttering, stammering, protracted unveiling of thematic material that permeates her writing for strings, of which there is plenty on offer on Sunday.
Along with the string trio we have all string quartets, with early music being represented by unaccompanied piano pieces. The later day consists of various instrumental groupings from Gubaidulinas later periods, with strings predominating. One to watch is the bright, clear Rejoice!, where violin and cello engage in a fluttering dance of fiercesome purity. The bayan, a Russian accordion features solo style in De Profundis, whilst In Croce throws a beleaguered cello into the whirling continuum created by this wheezing, hissing machine. The piano gets a battered with a glass tumbler in the taunt Dancer on a tightrope, whilst the best is saved for last. Silenzio for violin, cello and bayan creeps around the edge of silence – its muted, ecstatic nature very much indicative of Gubaidulinas music.
Recommend to those who believe modern music’s as dry as the writing on Foocha, this bout of Soviet mysticism’s for you. Bang! Squeak. You never know, you could even end up enjoying some of it.
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