Modern music: Sofia Gubaidulina

Composer monologues ** "Difficulties of translation." Transfer with the participation of poets of Lithuania and Russia. ** “Red dry”. Czech beer. Moravian wine

Excerpts from the program.

Sofia Gubaidulina:

In the 19th century, a person composed a better position, because they had a complete impression that they knew how it should be. And in this sense, Beethoven's figure is indicative for me, he was completely sure - it should be so. And in the twentieth century, no one, neither writers, nor artists, nor composers know, as it should be, they have a completely different worldview. None of us know and cannot know how it should be. Therefore, the only chance we have to go deep into ourselves, deep into our subconscious and to find some kind of esoteric truth there. I think that now there is more understanding, more experience in listening, more, perhaps, horizons. I have no too big illusions regarding past centuries. We say that this was a happier time, then yes, but in fact it turns out that no, I would not want to live in that society. I had a trip to Italy and there, in the conclusion of the festival, a lunch concert was given in a royal palace, huge tables were set, full of feeding, a lot of tasty things were served. Everyone thundered with forks and spoons, they spoke loudly, and at that time there was a concert of Tyleman, Bach and Mozart. For me, it was an absolutely unbearable situation. I perfectly understood that they retained the traditions of that time. It was an absolute humiliation of music and musicians. The tables were set here, the powerful of this world gathered - these were all the philanthropists, their wives, festively dressed, all in gold, silver, and the musicians in front of them were the highest rank, a very good conductor, played wonderful music. And this is, I would say, humiliation of music, musicians with champing. I thought: it was they who retained the tradition from the past. We live worse, maybe physically, but for me it means a lot - music is high or low. The status of music in the world is important. If this is, then you can live, if it is lost, then the disaster.

Listeners, from my point of view, are talented and mediocre. I had a festival, it was specially for me in Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, I arrived there, there were several concerts from my music. The first concert is a normal visit, then there were more and more people, it was impossible to get to the last concert. So I think it was my win. And there, in the center of Russia, I met an absolutely craving public, it longs for new art, and so pure, not commercial and not official. And then there was a meeting at the conservatory, so I just could see my listeners close. I had a complete impression that it was longing, and we from Moscow handed them a glass of water. I had a complete impression that they were drinking. Once in Moscow, too, there was the same thirsty audience, some special thirst, blessed beggars of spirit. At that time, many said that in the West the audience is worse, it is not as susceptible as in Moscow. Time passed since then, I noticed that in the West, not only in the West, but also in the East, I was in Japan, for example, in Amsterdam, what kind of audience was such attention, such a respect to art in general. It is very interesting to observe the public: in some countries they applaud loudly, shout “BIS”, “bravo”, stomping in other countries, and in Amsterdam the whole hall rises and applauds standing. It is so shocking to the core. From all this experience, I conclude that, probably, in the past centuries there were less often such phenomena.

I was very influenced by Peter Nikolaevich Meshchaninov, somehow I sucked his concept so much that the pain of musical material is based on the basis

When Schounberg reflected on how to organize musical tissue, the internal need was not at all theorizing, but an attempt to answer the pain that existed in the most musical language. I was very influenced by Peter Nikolaevich Meshchaninov, somehow I sucked his concept so much that the pain of musical material is based on. The musical tissue itself evolves and requires composers of one or another step, and they intuitively follow the commands that this stage of evolution of the material offers them. Moreover, this evolution does not happen directly, but in exciting. On the rise of the waves, the composer is dictated by the material itself one task, in the climax another, on the decline is a third. Their tasks depend on this and it doesn’t matter that there is a theory or practice ahead, it is important that they meet the commandments of this material. Schounberg, when he created his system ... I have a complete impression that this whole period is directed to dissolve the musical material and make it soil for a new state, dissolve, dematerialize. That is, when the wave rises, the task of the composer is to materialize, and when it descends, the task of the composer is dematerialize in order to make something formulated, in this case harmonic formulation, to make the ground for a new sonor space again. And Schounberg was doing this when he created the theory.

Sofia Gubaidulina in Sofia Kyiv (October 2012)

There were a lot of female composers, now their scores are found. There was really no such activity as in the twentieth century. It is characteristic that now in the Conservatory comes the girls more at the composer faculty than boys. The head of the department of the Moscow Conservatory Albert Semenovich Leman once complained to me that there were too many girls-it’s not good. The question is very acute, apparently: can a woman really deal with this matter. If I offer two scores, then, perhaps, I will not distinguish the score of Ivana Loudova, my Czech colleague, my friend, and I take the score of the composer from Prague, my friend, suppose I am afraid that I will not distinguish, because the score of Ivana is the top of perfection. In addition, I know such wonderful women-composers as Utoslskaya, Firsova, Grazhina Batsevich. If you distract from this almost children's infantile question, who is better, a man is a man, a woman - a moon, to consider in some higher plan, say, a cosmic plan, as, say, a phenomenon of opposites, yin and Jan Chinese, maybe that male culture that has arisen since the time of Confucius, say, there was a male culture, when there was a very large influence when the female was a very large influence of the female consciousness. I have the impression that it may be the twentieth century to such a high state of male culture, when a complimentary connection is required with the opposite sign of two different consciousnesses that really differ, I think they are different. A woman wants to try her strength, apparently something bubbles in her, apparently something is not spent. I was at the Festival of Women in Heidelberg several times, I saw these girls, young women, they have some kind of gleam in their eyes, some kind of expression of their eyes thirsty. This is serious - their desire to compose. This may be the requirement of the culture itself.

I am probably a typical representative of archaic consciousness, where the truth lies not in the material and not outside the material, but I myself have a sound

Innovation for me generally does not mean. The news, it seems to me, is better in newspapers, and art, from my point of view, should have been engaged in completely different things that are deeper than to think about innovations. From my point of view, you need to think that music wants, music itself, sometimes it does not want innovation at all. I am probably a typical representative of archaic consciousness, where the truth lies not in the material and not outside the material, but I myself have a sound. When I came to this thought, I remembered that I really also have an archaic consciousness, for example, it is associated with a symbolic consciousness. My craving for instrumental symbols just gives me out.

I have a lot of performance now - this is really a problem. How do I feel about this? As a very great danger. It is very strange to hear, because I spent most of my life almost without executions, with rare executions and always suffered from a small number of executions. This was dangerous for my profession, the composer must certainly hear himself and feel the reaction of the performers, the reaction of the audience, finally, get criticism - all this is a normal composer life. For a long time I was deprived of this and terribly yearned. But oddly enough, I had a very good free condition, a very creative state of freedom and leisurely. The most important thing was that it was even at a moment when such negative emotions are the possibility of the deepest concentration. Now it turned out that I have a lot of performance and a lot of travels, and I am very happy about it, because I am present at rehearsals, I see the performers, I study on this, I have a very large impulse. But I am losing concentration, so I have already abandoned many travels, I refused many executions to return this concentration.

Translation difficulties

Conversation with poets-translators from Lithuania and Russia

Red dry

Czech beer, Moravian wine