Sofia Gubaidulina, part 18!

After being reminded of my series of posts on this composer by a commentator, I decided to try and finish the series. Looking back, I was astonished to see that the last one in the series was posted in February 2019! Now that's a hiatus. Here is that post: Sofia Gubaidulina, part 17 and there is also a link to the first one if you want to go back and pick them up from the beginning. I started this series because I feel that Gubaidulina is one of the most important composers working today.

Sofia Gubaidulina

To write this series of posts I am mostly working my way through the biography by Michael Kurtz (English edition 2007) from Indiana University Press.

Picking up where I left off, we are in 1987 and after her successful concerts in Germany and the US, her next appearance was at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland. This festival, founded by the cellist Seppo Kimanen, commissioned Gubaidulina's String Quartet No. 2 for the summer of 1987. The piece uses timbral contrasts and the Fibonacci series as structural elements. This was followed by the premiere of the String Quartet No. 3 at the Edinburgh Festival in August. Let's have a listen to these two pieces.

No-one could accuse this piece of being atonal--at least not in the beginning where it is very firmly focussed on G!

The String Quartet No. 3 was given its US premiere in September by the Muir Quartet at a festival organized by the Louisville Orchestra.

This was a rich time for chamber music as after a visit to Paris in November 1987 she was commissioned  to write a string trio by Radiodiffusion Française which was premiered by members of the Moscow String Quartet in the Salle Gaveau in March 1989.