Enter the wierdly wonderful world of Galina Ustvolskaya
Alastair MacaulayChristopher Russell and I share a longterm fascination with the reclusive Galina Ustvolskaya, a Leningrad composer who rejected everything in the Soviet system, including her former teacher and would-be husband, Dmitri Shostakovich.
Chris has just recorded her fifth symphony.
You see it here first.
Wierdly?
‘Wierd’ seems entirely appropriate here.
The loaden Russian pathos is unbearable, it sounds like conceived by thoroughly frustrated monks who live on locusts and grass, in badly-lit caves deep in the Ural mountains.
That is what communism does to people.
Communism induces people to become monks?
I like it.
If ever there was a Marmite composer it must be Ustvolskaya.
A performance of her complete piano sonatas by Markus Hinterhäuser a few years ago was
unforgettable.
Her music is meant for people who want to suffer, so it is very Russian, combining sadism with masochism. So, it can indeed be very uplifting.
PS:
Some nice uplifting pieces of this lady:
https://www.earsense.org/chamber-music/Galina-Ustvolskaya-Composition-No-1/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw9ni9zXc7A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8CsDZ7Vtdg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9MbXTmAunY
She called her own music: ‘Music from a black hole’.
——————————————–
This is somewhat better, and betrays the strong influence of Shostakovich – soviet commision for ‘the people’ – no wonder she hated him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE37vifSAr4
I was looking forward to this, after your December 4th post about it. It was a brave attempt, under Covid restrictions. But it really does sound much better with the prayer intoned in Russian, and in a live performing space, like this one by Cantata Profana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxjwhTCq2eY
Leon Botstein’s Orchestra Now played Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphonic Poem # 1 before covid ended the world. It was pretty cool. The program booklet did mention how much she disliked Shostakovitch.
All her music is an expression of disliking Shostakovich. She must have had quite a crush on him.
Ustvolskaya actually declined Shostakovich’s proposal of marriage after the death of his first wife Nina.
Let’s try to get the spelling of weirdly remedied, Norman. I’m surprised at you. You’d be first to criticize an American for being illiterate in this regard.
It’s not the spelling, but the gloves and mouth mask.