Sofia Gubaidulina

A partir del cuadro del artista estadounidense Cy Twombly titulado Untitled (Roses) (2008, Museum Brandhorst, Múnich), en cuya superficie el pintor ha escrito los últimos versos del poema «Little Gidding» (Four Quartets), de T. S. Eliot, célebre poema que concluye con el verso «And the fire and the rose are one» (‘y el fuego y la rosa sean uno’), se analiza la presencia de esta imagen simbólica de la unión de la llama y la rosa procedente de la poesía sufí persa (Rūmī, Ḥāfiẓ) en la obra poética del propio Eliot y de J. L. Borges, buenos conocedores ambos de la literatura persa. Asimismo, la compositora rusa de origen tártaro Sofiya Gubaidúlina, en su Hommage à T. S. Eliot (1987) para octeto y soprano, también evoca esta imagen de la unión mística del fuego y la rosa con un sentido netamente espiritual. La finalidad del presente estudio es pues analizar la arqueología de un motivo de procedencia oriental, el de la unión mística de la llama y la rosa (Rūmī, Ḥāfiẓ, Ġālib), presente en tres campos de la creación occidental contemporánea: poesía (Eliot, Borges), pintura (Twombly) y música (Gubaidúlina).

Reseña del concierto realizado por Pablo Ferrández, violonchelo y la Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra. Pamplona. Auditorio Baluarte. 12-II-2023. Directora: JoAnn Falletta. Obras de Gubaidulina, Chaikovski y Farrenc. Recuperado de: https://scherzo.es/pamplona-osn-y-pablo-ferrandez-liricas-diferencias/

Each and every important work of art leaves traces behind in its material and technique," Theodor W. Adorno postulates in Aesthetic Theory, as he describes the way a composition is both a result of its own time and reacts critically to the time it belongs to. This quote demonstrates a reversal: rather than merely an expression or an outcome of an artist's idea, art itself is regarded as a source for change. The work may come to affect its own tools and materials and the social space around it. The primary question of this article is: what is it in musical composition that leaves the traces? This article attempts to move the focus away from discussion of finished works, and instead, depict how composition as a discipline engages in dialogue with its handcraft, historicity, and surrounding social world. I call this aspect of composition that possesses critical potential a lingering reflection. Slow and heteronomous in its nature, it presents a counterpoint to ideas that seem solid, are easily accessible and unquestioned.

This essay analyses and interprets the scores, recordings, and media used in Knittel and King's The Heart Piece - Double Opera (1999) and Stulgińska's Three Women for three women and ten instruments (2017), two semi-improvised Polish operas using performance art and interaction between sound, text, choreography, lighting, theatrical form and electronic medium. In Stuglińska's modern music theatre, the listener follows different sound sources and the setting: choreography, performers' and speakers' arrangement on stage, props and lighting, whose intensity dictates the form. The Heart Piece chamber opera is a two - Polish and American - composers' take on Müller's play Herzstück, with separate movements in their native languages. Music and text create an interactive setting, and their notation and semantics make music both seen and heard. These works use the concept of hybridization and, in Wolf's terminology, intracompositional intermediality, where di...

In my performance practice and pedagogy, I approach the inter-related elements of playing the cello – technique, interpretation and performance – as a single integrated domain. This article seeks to elucidate this notion, highlighting the inherent continuity between the development of the cello’s technical and expressive capacities. Within the broad area of ‘technique’, I believe that traditional and contemporary technical styles can evolve through a fluid process of interactions – a ‘dialogue’ that is enlivened by tensions, transitional turns and mycelial exchanges.

Focusing on Nomos alpha by Iannis Xenakis – one of the most complex works for solo cello of the twentieth century – the article investigates the dynamics of these interactions and how the traditions established in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries might support the expanding domain of new techniques and approaches to the cello. I argue that the extended and ‘extreme’ techniques employed by Xenakis to convey the sound architecture of Nomos alpha must be viewed as a part of a global perspective on the traditions of cello playing.

By juxtaposing the orthodox cello method by David Popper (Hohe Schule des Violoncello-Spiels Op. 73) with contemporary studies compiled and edited by Siegfried Palm, Pro musica nova: Studien zum Spielen neuer Musik: für Violoncello and the set of Ten Preludes by Sofia Gubaidulina, the article explores the interactions, interrelationships and interdependencies that exist in the superficially different approaches to cello technique.

Το πιανιστικό έργο «Musical Toys» της Σοφία Γκουμπαϊντούλινα, που θεωρείται μια από τις πλέον σημαντικές συνθέτριες της εποχής μας, αποτελείται από 14 μικρά κομμάτια για παιδιά. Η Γκουμπαϊντούλινα συνθέτοντας αυτή τη συλλογή είχε την πρόθεση να ιχνογραφήσει μινιατούρες που η ίδια θα ήθελε να είχε παίξει σαν παιδί. Παρ’ ότι τα κομμάτια δημιουργούν ηχοτοπία που μπορούν να τροφοδοτήσουν την παιδική φαντασία , τεχνικά θεωρώ πως τα περισσότερα είναι αρκετά δύσκολο να παιχτούν από παιδιά. Σε αυτή την εργασία θα προσπαθήσω αφ’ ενός να κάνω μία στιλιστική ανάλυση του κάθε κομματιού και αφ’ ετέρου να απαντήσω στο ερώτημα κατά πόσο το έργο απευθύνεται ερμηνευτικά σε παιδιά. Άλλα ερωτήματα που θα επιχειρήσω να απαντήσω μέσα στην εργασία είναι το κατά πόσο και με ποιες συνθετικές τεχνικές τα κομμάτια απηχούν τον τίτλο τους και άρα είναι προγραμματικά , και σε ποια μαθητικά επίπεδα θα μπορούσαν να διδαχθούν .

Campos Fonseca, Susan. “In croce: María Zambrano y Sofia Gubaidulina (La filosofía como música y la composición musical como filosofía)”. En: Sonic Ideas/Ideas Sónicas, Año 6, No. 12, enero – junio 2014, México D. F.: CMMAS, pp. 13-32. 

Web Oficial: https://sonicideas.org/

Around 1976, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt developed a new compositional process reminiscent in some ways of sounding bells; hence its appellation 'tintinnabulation'. The technique is seemingly simple, comprising just two musical lines: one moves in largely stepwise motion, the other utilizes the notes of a principal triad. In this chapter, I explore how Pärt uses this new technique in “Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem,” his innovative setting of the St. John Passion, completed in 1982. I note that far from being simple, tintinnabulation is a process that affords a large and subtle range of consonance and dissonance, and that Pärt has used the technique to extraordinary effect in a wide range of compositions, both sacred and secular. In the first section of the chapter, musical settings of the Passion are contextualized within a broad framework that examines the historical continuum since 1965, noting some of the theological interpretations expounded in different examples. In the second part, tintinnabulation in Pärt’s “Passio” is described, noting distinguishing features of the music and some of the compositional procedures Pärt employs. In the third part, I situate tintinnabulation in the narrative of metamodernism (a term that has become a viable substitute for the more clumsy 'post-postmodernism'). My own framework is based on the definitions of this term by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, who situate metamodernism “epistemologically with (post) modernism, ontologically between (post) modernism, and historically beyond (post) modernism.” Finally, I propose three ways in which the discourse for Pärt and his music should be reoriented in a way that coincides with notions of the metamodern,
since it more accurately describes the essence of the man and his music.

The principle question concerning the setting of any text to music is:
What does the music actually do to the text? How does it change or
transform it? The answer is twofold: first, music provides increased
expressivity, and second, it seeks to interpret the text. It is difficult to
express in words the additional depth of emotion achieved by adding
music to any text, let alone a story that concerns cruelty and death
and is directly related to religious beliefs. It is even harder to describe
how a composer might seek to contribute to our understanding
of this story by highlighting certain words, reordering the events,
or even by adding innovative elements to the traditional narrative.
Nonetheless, the developmental history of musical settings of the
passion is directly concerned with increased expressivity and is
intimately linked with developments in musical style. Study of musical settings requires reference to manuscript and source studies,
reception history, performance practice, cultural studies, and to
changing theological concerns, all of which demonstrate how
composers have sought to make the death of Jesus engaging to their
audiences.

Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina und Edison Denisov
zählten seit den 1960er Jahren in der Sowjetunion und
im Westen zu den namhaftesten Komponisten.
Sie galten als „Erben Šostakovčs“und schufen für viele
Sowjetbürger aufregende Klänge, die dem oftmals
widersprüchlichen und überfordernden Leben im
Spätsozialismus Sinn und Bedeutung gaben. Die drei
Komponisten prägten die musikalische Welt der
Sowjetunion und wurden deshalb schon bald unter dem
Namen „Moskauer Trojka“ bekannt. Dieses Buch zeigt,
dass Komponisten, Musiker und ihre Hörer ein wichtiger
Teil der sowjetischen Gesellschaft waren, die im
ausgehenden 20. Jahrhundert einen hyper- und
schließlich instabilen Zustand annahm.

Sofia Gubaidulina’s Dancer on a Tightrope (Der Seiltänzer, 1993) for violin and piano is an excellent example of the sonic capabilities of both instruments. To convey the balance and uncertainty of a circus act, Gubaidulina makes ample use of rhythmic variation, flexible melodic gestures, compound meters, dissonance, and indeterminacy in notation of musical time. Due to the intricate nature of both parts, this can be a difficult work to perform accurately. This paper is an accompanying document to the score to explain notations, suggest performance techniques for both instruments, and provide a thorough analysis of the complete work. Students of Gubaidulina’s music can find numerous studies detailing her biography as a Soviet and post-Soviet composer. There are many dissertations on her string works, including the string quartets and string trio. However, there is no performer’s guide or existing study that would provide insight to Dancer. Most of the existing literature on Gubaidulina is not based on sketches but relies on analysis of published sources. In researching this document, I drew upon the manuscript collection for Dancer on a Tightrope housed at the Paul Sacher archives in Basel, Switzerland. I compare sketches with the published score and analyze the work’s structure, melodic aspects,
harmony, timbre, and practical applications of the extended notation. I will also compare Dancer on a Tightrope to Gubaidulina’s works from the same period, violin writing, and other chamber music. Many of the rhythmic and pitch ambiguities in the published score will be clarified by a sketch study of the piece. For assistance with piano notation and performance, I suggest techniques for the most careful way to play inside the instrument to avoid damage. I contextualize Gubaidulina within a Soviet and international context. It is essential to view her work within a broader twentieth-century framework, her life as a composer in the USSR, and in light of broader socio-political trends. Gubaidulina is one of the foremost Soviet composers who has earned international recognition. This performer’s guide will advance and encourage performances of Dancer on a Tightrope and help disseminate knowledge about this work.

An examination of the lives of two composers of new spiritual music, Arvo Pärt and Sir John Kenneth Tavener, highlighting the motivation and intent of each to express spiritual meaning through their music.  It is music with the potential to teach humanity to listen more carefully and thereby become more receptive and responsive to the voices of others.  This is music that encourages the new spiritual community to share a commitment to the quest for wholeness in a social, communal and planetary context.

"El presente estudio esta dividido en dos partes, la primera procura compartir el interés por un conocimiento iniciático : la pregunta por un método filosófico en sentido musical. Planteada en "Notas de un método" (Mondadori, 1989), de la filósofa española María Zambrano (Vélez-Málaga, 22 de abril de 1904 – Madrid, 6 de febrero de 1991). Libro publicado al año siguiente de que su autora fuera laureada con el Premio Cervantes (1988). A continuación, la segunda parte se propone como un primer acercamiento al problema etno-histórico que significa, en este marco del pensamiento de la filósofa española, la posibilidad de un “sonido-ritmo propio”, base de lo que ella entendió como una “condición órfico-pitagórica”, precepto ontológico y epistemológico , posible en una “razón mediadora” , a la que consideró “otra manera de definir la música”

A partir de este objetivo, se considerarán algunas de sus fuentes, y a continuación, se realizará un experimento concreto, que permitirá considerar las propuestas de la filósofa relativas a ese método filosófico posible en sentido musical, enfrentándolo con una música concreta, en este caso, la obra "in croce" de la compositora Sofia Gubaidulina (Chistopol, Tartaristán, 24 de octubre de 1931). Porque entre ambas subsiste una “Némesis musical” , pensamiento vinculado a su propia historia sacrificial, razón más que suficiente para justificar un estudio comparado entre estas dos creadoras: compositora y filósofa."