Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya

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Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaja ( Russian Галина Ивановна Уствольская , scientific transliteration Galina Ivanovna Ustvol'skaja ; born June 17, 1919 in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg); † December 22, 2006 ibid) was a Russian composer . As a composer, she did not feel connected to any school. Their music is considered distinctively unique.

Life

Ustvolskaya's mother was a teacher and came from an impoverished noble family. Her father was a lawyer and came from a family of priests.

Ustvolskaya studied from 1937 to 1947 at the music school and at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Leningrad . She began her studies at the time of the Stalin Purges .

During the World War , her studies were interrupted by a service in the military hospital. During the blockade of Leningrad , she was evacuated to Tashkent with other students at the Conservatory . Poverty forced her to teach composition at the music school of the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory from 1947 to 1975. Contemporaries describe the artist as shy, withdrawn, almost fearful.

As a composer, Ustvolskaya always enjoyed the recognition of her colleagues in the Soviet Union , but not always the recognition of the Soviet government. At first she was praised as a young creative composer, her “mature technique” and her “excellent sensitivity for orchestral colors” were praised. Her works have been performed prominently: The Leningrad Philharmonic's season opened four times with The Dream of Stepan Razin . But between 1959 and 1971 she hardly composed and after this break she began to compose music with Christian connotations: symphonies with titles like Jesus Messiah, save us! or prayer . Due to the anti-religious cultural policy of the Soviet Union, her works were performed less and less until they completely disappeared from the concert halls. Some works like her piano concerto have been explicitly forbidden.

“My works are not religious, but definitely spiritual because I gave everything of myself. My soul, my heart. "

- Galina Ustvolskaya

Ustvolskaya was little known abroad until the 1990s, although composers such as Witold Lutosławski and especially György Ligeti valued her works very highly. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, she has been considered, alongside Sofia Gubaidulina, to be the most important Russian composer of the 20th century. She herself was suspicious of her increasing popularity: she wrote to an interested western record company that she hoped that the planned release of her recordings was not “just motivated by economic considerations”.

Ustvolskaya and Shostakovich

From 1939 to 1950 Ustvolskaya was in Dmitri Shostakovich's composition class , she was considered the composer's favorite pupil, but Ustvolskaya later complained that the famous composer never stood up for her works and watched their systematic isolation without doing anything. The reasons for this are unclear. The composer Viktor Suslin writes:

“It is true that she was a student of Shostakovich, but not every student can boast that the teacher uses his subjects in his own compositions, gives him his manuscripts and sends him his latest works for review for his opinion get to know. "

- Viktor Suslin

In a letter to Ustvolskaya, Shostakovich wrote: "You are not under my influence, but I am under yours." The composer predicted that Ustvolskaya's works would be recognized worldwide. But the esteem was not mutual, Ustvolskaya made no secret of the fact that she did not like his music and did not believe in artists who publish hundreds of works, including Shostakovich. His music will fade over time, she predicted in an interview.

Musical creation

Composition as an end in itself

Ustvolskaya refused commissioned work. When she got into financial need, she composed “music for use”, but marked these scores with the note For Money, and she did not include any of these works in her list of works. If she disliked one of her compositions over time, she destroyed it or had it destroyed. Her list of works includes only 25 works and results in a total playing time of less than 7 hours.

style

Characteristic is the “generation” of the music from a “germ cell”: A short intonation core is at the beginning, from this the music develops, sometimes monothematic. A restrictive selection of means of expression ensures unusual instrumentations, for example piano, piccolo and tuba. Typically the expressive possibilities of each instrument are exhausted.

No "minimal music"

Some characteristics of Ustvolskaya's music can also be found in her closest colleagues. Dorothea Redepenning lists: a preference for disparate tone color combinations, writing without bar lines, including orthodox melodies, leaving out the middle register and the middle dynamic. Massive sound effects and clusters are also not uncommon with Alfred Schnittke or Arvo Pärt .

The uniqueness lies more in an all-encompassing sparseness paired with a majestic effect: Few motifs, few notes, few instruments, but which create a monumental sound and evoke an intimate, sublime atmosphere. Regardless of the sparse cast, their music is designed for large, devotional spaces such as churches, because, as with Giya Kancheli , silence becomes music with Ustvolskaya. Its 4th symphony is indicative of the barreness: four musicians, barely 7 minutes playing time, but like a symphony in their effect.

In spite of its sparseness, Ustvolskaya's music never sounds like so-called minimal music : in Ustvolskaya, repetitions do not serve harmony, but dissonance and mostly convey feelings such as agony, fear or rebellion. In addition, there is a variety of sharp contrasts that are seldom found even in Kantscheli. Another characteristic of her music, which clearly distinguishes her from Pärt's music, for example, is her tendency towards punctuality: punctual, sharp tones instead of long, soft tones.

Ustvolskaya myth

Ustvolskaya rarely commented on her own works. But there are three famous quotes:

  • As the composer of several sonatas for piano solo, several duets and trios and a symphony for only four musicians, she said:

"The inner content of my music excludes the term chamber music ."

- Galina Ustvolskaya
  • As the composer of 5 symphonies, she said:

“There is no symphonic music for me - in the usual sense of the word. But there are symphonies. "

- Galina Ustvolskaya
  • The most famous quote ultimately serves to form the myth. That quote that withdraws her music "by decree of ratio":

"I ask all those who really love my music to refrain from a theoretical analysis."

- Galina Ustvolskaya

Honors

  • Wiener Festwochen Homage to Galina Ustvolskaya May 31 to June 1, 2014
  • Peter Leipold and Patricia Hase founded the Galina Orchestra in honor of the composer
  • musica-viva special concert “Galina Ustwolskaja for her 100th birthday” on November 21, 2019 in the Herkulessaal in Munich

Works

Piano solo

  • Twelve Preludes (1953, Premiere 1968)
  • 1st Sonata (1947, first printed in 1989)
  • 2nd Sonata (1949, first printed in 1989)
  • 3rd Sonata (1952, first printed in 1989)
  • 4th Sonata (1957, first printed in 1989)
  • 5th Sonata (1986, first printed in 1989)
  • 6th Sonata (1988, first printed in 1989)

Duos and Trio

  • Trio for clarinet , violin and piano (1949, first printed in 1970)
  • Sonata for violin and piano (1952, first print 1974)
  • Great duet for violoncello and piano (1959, first printed in 1973)
  • Duet for violin and piano (1964, first print 1977)

ensemble

  • Octet for 2 oboes , 4 violins, timpani and piano (1949/50, first printed in 1972)
  • Composition No. 1 for piccolo , tuba and piano (1970/71, first edition 1976) Dona nobis pacem
  • Composition No. 2 for 8 double basses , wooden cubes and piano (1972/73, first edition 1980) Dies irae
  • Composition No. 3 for 4 flutes , 4 bassoons and piano (1974/75, first edition 1978) Benedictus, qui venit

Symphonies

  • 1st Symphony (1955, first printed in 1972)
  • 2nd Symphony (1979, first edition 1982) True, Eternal Bliss
  • 3rd Symphony (1983, first printed 1990) Jesus, Messiah, save us
  • 4th Symphony (1986, first printed in 1991) Prayer
  • 5th Symphony (1990, first edition 1993) Amen

Other orchestral works

  • Concerto for piano, timpani and string orchestra (1946, first printed in 1967)
  • The Dream of Stepan Razin (1949, first print 1963)
  • Suite for orchestra (1955, first edition 1958)
  • Symphonic Poem No. 1 (1958, first printed in 1961)
  • Symphonic Poem No. 2 (1959, first printed in 1965)

The composer subsequently counted the symphonic poems 1 and 2 as one work, and The Dream of Stepan Razin was also only subsequently included in her catalog raisonné, so that in some sources only 23 works by Ustvolskaya are counted instead of 25 here.

CDs

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Stähr: The composer Galina Ustwolskaja . In: Bayerischer Rundfunk / musica viva (ed.): Musica viva program booklet . tape 11/21/2019 . Munich November 2019, p. 22 .
  2. ↑ Ludmila Kovnatskaya: The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers 1996.
  3. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 47.
  4. ↑ a b The Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya. 3sat.de, culture time
  5. ↑ Dorothea Redepenning: Galina Ustwolskaja's œuvre in the Soviet context , in: Music Concepts 143: Galina Ustwolskaja, edition text + kritik, Munich 2009, p. 9
  6. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001. p. 17
  7. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 23
  8. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 50f.
  9. ↑ Quoted from: Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 23.
  10. ↑ Quoted from: Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 32.
  11. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 21.
  12. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 18.
  13. ^ Patricia Kopatchinskaja in conversation with Paolo Mendes , Berliner Philharmoniker. February 11, 2017. Retrieved July 15, 2017. 
  14. ↑ Dorothea Redepenning: Galina Ustwolskaja's œuvre in the Soviet context , in: Music Concepts 143: Galina Ustwolskaja, edition text + kritik, Munich 2009, p. 6
  15. ↑ Theo Hirsbrunner: Rejuvenating Nonconformism , in: Bökklet on CD Ustwolskaja: Compositions I, II, III , Philips Classics Productions 1995. Cf. Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as magical power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 59
  16. ↑ Michael Zink: On Galina Ustwolskaja's symphonies 2 to 5 , in: Music Concepts 143: Galina Ustwolskaja, edition text + kritik, Munich 2009, p. 72f.
  17. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 22.
  18. ↑ Olga Gladkowa: Galina Ustwolskaja - Music as Magical Power (Studia slavica musicologica Volume 19). Berlin 2001, p. 107.
  19. ↑ a b Stefan Weiss: In search of the building works secret of the Gothic woman of St. Petersburg . In: Music Concepts 143: Galina Ustwolskaja, edition text + kritik, Munich 2009. p. 21.
  20. ↑ Galina Ustvolskaya on her 100th birthday. In: Bayerischer Rundfunk. October 17, 2019, accessed November 21, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Dorothea Redepenning: Galina Ustwolskaja's œuvre in the Soviet context , in: Musik-Konzept 143: Galina Ustwolskaja, edition text + kritik, Munich 2009, p. 7, notes 14 and 16.
personal data
SURNAME Ustvolskaya, Galina Ivanovna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Уствольская, Галина Ивановна (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Petrograd
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 2006
Place of death St. Petersburg