The Temple of Sofia: how Gubaidulina's work combined the avant-garde and religion

She created innovative, avant—garde symphonic and chamber music - and at the same time wrote soundtracks for the popular films "Vertical" and "Scarecrow", the cartoon "Mowgli". She has long been called a classic, but, composing until the last days, she did not stop experimenting, striving for new things. Perhaps there is no Russian composer who has not watched her scores and studied her work. And certainly every musician knew that name.: Sofia Gubaidulina. Today, on March 13, she passed away. Izvestia recalls her journey.

"Go your wrong way"

When talking about Russian academic music of the last third of the 20th century, they always mention, first of all, several surnames: Alfred Schnittke, Rodion Shchedrin, Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina. There were, of course, many other excellent musicians, but it was these four who became absolute classics, and educational courses at conservatories, as well as concert programs around the world, are no longer complete without their names.

Until today, two of the four remained alive: Shchedrin and Gubaidulina. Now it's just Shchedrin. However, this neighborhood is conditional: Rodion Konstantinovich represents a more traditional branch of music, which retains a close connection with folk melody and tonality. Gubaidulina, on the other hand, was a much more radical figure. In fact, the Soviet musical avant-garde ended with her life.

— She is the greatest, amazing. He is one of the most performed composers in the world, the pride of the Tatar people. Dmitry Shostakovich died half a century ago, and Gubaidulina's departure is a misfortune of the same level. But she will remain in her scores, her experiments, and her love of music," Alexander Sladkovsky, artistic director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Gubaidulina Concordia Festival, People's Artist of Russia, shared with Izvestia.

Sofia Gubaidulina was born in the Tatar town of Chistopol in 1931. But seven months later, the family moved to Kazan, where the girl studied first at a music gymnasium, and then at the conservatory (and in two specialties — as a pianist and composer). After that, she entered the Moscow Conservatory, where her professors were Vissarion Shebalin and Nikolai Peiko.

Dmitry Shostakovich was no longer teaching at that time — in 1948, in the midst of a campaign against formalism, to which he had become a victim. But I still watched the symphony of a promising student on the advice of colleagues. However, they unanimously argued that Gubaidulina's path was wrong. Shostakovich admonished her: "Go your wrong way."

And she went on, not allowing herself a single indulgence, not a single compromise. Even when the same Shostakovich wrote works in praise of Lenin, Gubaidulina stubbornly rejected any opportunistic proposals. They didn't execute it, they didn't make orders. To survive, she took up film music, as did all her comrades in the avant—garde: Schnittke, Karetnikov. However, even in this seemingly applied work, she rose to the artistic peak and years later did not regret the time spent at all.

"This experience has given me a very good practice. I could work closely with the performers. I was composing, and the next day I already heard the sound result. And she could choose any composition of musicians — an ensemble, an orchestra... I tried to compose for a large orchestra. Moreover, she could work with the drummer separately, with the string group separately. She could have asked for a choir. Or if, for example, I need a children's choir— please. The state paid for it, which is extremely important. Without such practice, it would simply be impossible to move on," Sofia Asgatovna confessed to Izvestia.

She was best at music for cartoons. "Mowgli" became truly popular, for which Gubaidulina's wild rhythms and percussive timbres turned out to be so organic: the images of dangerous jungles and a determined young man would have been much less expressive without her soundtrack.

But not even every musician will remember that Gubaidulina wrote the music for Stanislav Govorukhin's "Vertical" starring Vladimir Vysotsky, and for Roland Bykov's "Scarecrow" starring little Kristina Orbakaite.

In other words, almost every inhabitant of the USSR is unwittingly familiar with her work, even if he is completely far from music.

But for all the brilliance of these soundtracks, they are still incomparable in importance to what she did in the academic field. Moreover, in the era of postmodernism, polystylistics, and collage, her work possessed a rare integrity — stylistic and spiritual. It is all imbued with a deep faith in God, which for the 1960s and 1970s was no less a challenge than the avant-garde. And if we try to formulate as succinctly as possible why her music is so significant for Soviet and post-Soviet culture (and the world too), we can say this: She showed that the most daring sound experiments and religious tradition do not contradict each other at all.

The Source of Spiritual Life

Her works include "The Seven Words of Christ" and "Hallelujah", "From the Book of Hours" and "The John Passion". Her last published opus was "The Wrath of God." She shunned opera and ballet music, which her colleagues enjoyed doing, but offered a new perspective on the cantata-oratorio tradition, taking over from Bach, and on the genre of instrumental concert, which also acquires a sacred meaning for her.

The main researcher of Gubaidulina's work, Valentina Kholopova, wrote in her monograph: "The spiritual life of all times and peoples is the dominant theme of Sofia Gubaidulina's work. At the same time, she has mastered Western liturgics as if it were part of the spiritual history of her own homeland."

Gubaidulina herself described her perception of music in general in an interview with Izvestia.:
"Music is the main source of spiritual life in modern society. Of course, poetry, literature, painting, and architecture contribute to this. But music is the most direct way of connecting the material and the spiritual. Our life proceeds in the space between materiality and non-materiality. And music has the material that most contributes to movement in this space, provides a correspondence between matter and spirit."

Without the anthem

Since 1992, Gubaidulina has lived in Germany — the period of perestroika and the nineties were even less comfortable for serious free creativity than the era of stagnation, albeit for other reasons. However, emigration had practically no effect on Sofia Asgatovna's art itself. She lived in seclusion, in the countryside, in constant contact with nature. And she continued to compose, having minimal contact with the external environment, but, however, maintaining contacts with her Russian colleagues, including young ones.

Composer Yaroslav Sudzilovsky showed Izvestia a handwritten letter from 2009, which Gubaidulina sent to him, then still a young author, reacting to acquaintance with his works. "The most important thing that attracts me is the rare combination of chamber music with freedom from musical notation," it is written in a neat, almost calligraphic handwriting. Being an almost 80-year-old world-renowned master, inundated with orders from the best teams, Gubaidulina did not cease to be interested in what the new generations were creating.

And the chairman of the board of the Union of Composers of Russia, Rashid Kalimullin, who in the past headed the branch of this organization in Tatarstan, told Izvestia how one day, at the request of the mayor of Kazan, he came to ask her to write the anthem of the city.

— Sofia Asgatovna said that the anthem of the Soviet Union was written by Alexandrov, not Shostakovich. And this is a different specificity. She was a very unusual person. But at least we made such an offer to her, because she is an incredibly important figure for Tatarstan," Rashid Kalimullin shared.

Her music is perfectly integrated into the world, Kalimullin emphasizes. "It often happened that I came to some major foreign festival, and there, along with the compositions of Western masters, her work was on the program."

An eloquent fact: in 2022, despite all the sanctions and the almost complete absence of Russian musicians among the nominees for Western awards, the recording of "Wrath of God" was nominated for a Grammy. Even the highly politicized American music establishment understood that this figure was above the moment. The conflicts will pass, but Gubaidulina's work will remain.

She didn't let anyone into her world.

She is no less appreciated in her homeland. At the initiative of Rashid Kalimullin, the Sofia Asgatovna Center for Contemporary Music was opened in Kazan. Gubaidulina, which is successfully functioning to this day, and GASO RT and Alexander Sladkovsky created the Concordia festival, to which she also allowed to give her name.

And, of course, it's not about self-love, not about striving for laurels. It seemed to her that the mundane was alien to her. She lived in her own universe.

— She was an outstanding and self-sufficient person. I loved all people equally, even though you were a conductor, even though you were an orchestra member, but I also kept my distance from everyone the same way. She heard and saw the world in her own way and didn't let anyone in there," notes Alexander Sladkovsky.

When Izvestia interviewed her, the last question was: is it true that you turn on your phone for only five minutes a day? Sofia Asgatovna replied to this: "I don't turn it on at all." Now it wasn't just her phone that went silent, but she herself as well. Although her music will continue to speak to the public.