Ivana Medić Gubaidulina, misunderstood UDK: 78.072.3(410):78.071.1Gubaidulina S.A. 783/789.072(470+571)“19/20“ DOI: 10.2298/MUZ120303014M Ivana Medić The Open University, United Kingdom [email protected] GUBAIDULINA, MISUNDERSTOOD Abstract: Since the early 1980s Sofi a Gubaidulina has received numerous accolades, and her music has been performed and recorded worldwide. However, the critics’ reaction to her works has often been resoundingly negative. In particular, Western critics have been baffl ed by Gubaidulina’s penchant for long durations, the employment of seemingly literal musical symbolism verging on the kitch and, last but not least, the composer’s religious fervour. Starting from the reviews of two ambitious events that served as introductions of Gubaidulina’s music to British audiences, I will discuss the main objections directed towards her oeuvre and demonstrate that Gubaidulina’s idiosyncratic compositional method has been misunderstood by British critics. Keywords: Gubaidulina, BBC, Tsvetaeva, Offertorium, religious music Born in 1931 in Chistopol, in the Autonomous Tatar Republic, and educated in Kazan and Moscow, the remarkable contemporary composer Sofi a Asgatovna Gubaidulina belongs to the generation that stepped onto the Soviet creative scene in the early 1960s. This “generation of the sixties” (Rus.: шестидесятники) grew up under the infl uence of the public denunciation of Stalin’s crimes and his cult of personality. The works of the generation of the sixties were characterised by a quest for truth, rebellion against the establishiment, maverick creative curiosity and, most importantly, an urge to end the isolation and get to know the world on the other side of the “Iron Curtain”. As a woman in a male-dominated profession, a practicing believer in the atheistic Soviet Union, a person of mixed Tatar-Russian background in a largely xenophobic society and a member of non-conformist, partisan artistic groups in a state-controlled culture, Gubaidulina spent several decades fi ghting oppression, stigmatisation and exclusion. The fact that she was banned from travelling to the West to attend 101 Музикологија 13 – 2012 Musicology premieres of her works until 1984 is just one example of the harassment that she was subjected to (Kurtz 2007: 177). In spite of being treated as a “black sheep” due to her biological, cultural, racial, confessional and political “otherness” – or perhaps because of it – Gubaidulina created a distinctive personal style. The fact that she was an “outsider” and thus off the offi cial Soviet radar for a long time meant that she could dodge the prescribed rules and favoured solutions, and write music in accordance with her “inner need” (Kandinsky 1977: 19). Gubaidulina is commonly regarded as one third of the leading triumvirate of the so-called “Moscow avant-garde” (Hakobian 1997: 284) together with Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) and Edison Denisov (1929– 1996). However, her labelling as an “avant-gardist” had less to do with her music than with her personal circumstances. Since she was neither a member of the Communist Party nor associated with the offi cial clique (led by Tikhon Khrennikov, the long-standing President of the Union of Soviet Composers, and his associates Rodion Shchedrin, Karen Khachaturian, Andrei Eshpai, and others) she was grouped together with the so-called “unoffi cial” composers – a group of young and curious artists who “smuggled” long-maligned Western avant-garde techniques into Soviet music (Hakobian 1997; Schmelz 2004, 2008). Apart from Gubaidulina, Denisov and Schnittke, other composers who were considered “avant-gardists” or “non-conformists” were Andrei Volkonskii (1933–2008), Nikolai Karetnikov (1930–1994), Arvo Pärt (1935–), Alemdar Karamanov (1935–), Valentin Sil’vestrov (1937–) and many others. The fact that they were pushed into “unoffi cial” status and excluded from the offi cial system of commissions, performances and promotion (as governed by the Union of Soviet Composers) and that their music could only be heard in small, alternative venues, contributed to their separation from the establishment and strengthened their avant-gardist aura. Since early 1980s Gubaidulina has gradually achieved recognition in the West, mostly due to the immense success of her violin concerto Offertorium, championed by Gidon Kremer. In the past three decades she has received numerous prestigious commissions, become a member of the German and Swedish Academies of Arts, received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Chicago and Yale, and won numerous international prizes. 102 Ivana Medić Gubaidulina, misunderstood Her music has been released on Deutsche Gramophon, Phillips, Sony Classical and other prestigious labels. But while Gubaidulina’s music has won approval of listeners worldwide, more often than not, reviews of her works have been resoundingly negative. The critics are baffl ed by Gubaidulina’s penchant for (over)long durations, blatant dualisms, the employment of seemingly literal musical symbolism verging on the kitsch and, last but not least, the composer’s religious fervour. Using as a starting point reviews of the two ambitious events that took place in 2006 and 2007, which served as introductions of Gubaidulina’s music to British audiences, I will address the main objections directed towards her oeuvre. Then, I will analyse three of Gubaidulina’s major works written before the dissolution of Soviet Union and demonstrate how these works responded to the cultural challenges of that time and place. I will argue that Gubaidulina’s idiosyncratic compositional aesthetics, which merges populist with avant-garde and devotional with political, has been misunderstood by British critics and that her works cannot be appreciated without taking into consideration the context from which they originated. THE IURODIVAIA The mini festival titled Dancers on a Tightrope – Beyond Shostakovich, which took place between 13 and 15 October 2006 in the Southbank Centre in London, showcased the music of Gubaidulina among her other prominent (post-)Soviet peers – the Russians Galina Ustvolskaia and Alfred Schnittke, the Ukraininan Valentin Sil’vestrov, the Georgian Giia Kancheli and the Estonian Arvo Pärt – as well as their common “ancestor”, Dmitrii Shostakovich. While on this occasion Gubaidulina’s works were not reviewed individually, the critics pointed to the overall impression of “sameness”1 and “mawkishness”2 of the music of Shostakovich’s musical “offspring”. 1 “However, one prevailing feeling left with us is that most of the powerfully expressive works chosen to represent them are better heard standing alone or in mixed programmes” (Woolf 2006). 2 “Yet, if Dancers on a Tightrope has proved anything, it is that blanket programming of these composers does them no favours. Heard in isolation, several of these pieces might have seemed a powerfully personal statement of despair. In relentless succession, they began to seem merely mawkish” (Jeal 2006). 103 Музикологија 13 – 2012 Musicology Only a few months later, in January 2007, The BBC Composer Week- end subtitled A Journey of the Soul was organised as a retrospective of Gubaid- ulina’s entire career; most importantly, it was the fi rst signifi cant exposure of British audiences to her orchestral music. It was also the fi rst time that this long-running annual series has spotlighted a female composer; while the press release issued by the BBC stated that she was chosen on the basis of being “one of the world’s most original, respected and emotionally powerful musi- cal voices” and “the most important Russian composer since Shostakovich” (BBC 2006), a critic for The Independent has pointed out that the decision to feature Gubaidulina was also “a loud riposte to those offended by the ab- sence of female composers from last year’s Proms” (Picard 2007). The event comprised three days (12–14 January) of concerts, talks, showings of fi lms dedicated to her music, etc. The BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica and London Symphony Orchestra, with a host of renowned soloists and conductors, performed a selection of Gubaidulina’s works, focusing on the composer’s post-Soviet period; approx- imately half of the works were either British or European premieres.3 While the event received substantial coverage in the press, the reviews were overwhelmingly negative; in particular, the composer’s recent works fared poorly compared to the music from her Soviet period. Richard Whitehouse with the Classical Source noted that “Gubaidulina’s predilection for an expansive orchestral line-up crosses over into indulgence” and concluded that “for all its evident individuality, Gubaidulina’s music is best heard in small and strategically programmed doses” (Whitehouse 2007). The Guardian’s Tim Ashley’s quip that “the more one listens to Sofi a Gubaidulina’s music, the less one likes it” is based on his observation that the illumination of extremes of despair and elation constitutes “her sole mode of perception and expression” and that the outcome of this is a “sermonising rant rather than visionary spirituality” (Ashley 2007). The Observer’s Anthony Holden also complained about Gubaidulina’s “hectoring religiosity” which results 3 The following works were performed: the Triptych Nadeyka dedicated to the composer’s late daughter: The Lyre of Orpheus, The Deceitful Face of Hope and Despair, A Feast During the Plague; The Canticle of the Sun: Fairytale Poem; Offertorium; Pro et Contra; The Light of the End; Under the Sign of