Sofia Gubaidulina 1931-2025

The Germany-based, Russian-born composer Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina has died at the age of 93.

Born in what is now the Republic of Tatarstan in south-western Russia, she encountered both music and religion at an early stage, and both were intertwined throughout her life. Her initial education is a familiar story of surreptitious rebellion against repression - hiding scores of banned music from the authorities during her studies at Kazan Conservatory, and finding innovative ways round restrictions in order to acquaint herself with the music of composers such as Stravinsky, Ives and Cage. Ironically, she was awarded a fellowship bearing the name of Stalin, surely the ultimate architect of that repression and constraint.

Further study in Moscow brought her into contact with Shostakovich, who (perhaps seeing a kindred spirit, in the light of his own run-ins with artistic censorship) encouraged her to stick to her guns as a modernist. Sure enough, she would share his fate - in an echo of Zhdanov’s attempt in the 1940s to snuff out the careers of Klebanov, Khachaturian, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Gubaidulina in her turn earned the honour of being singled out by Tikhon Khrennikov in 1979 as one of seven composers of ‘noisy mud instead of real musical innovation’.

Among those who did appreciate her music, and championed it, was the Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer, whose performances of her violin concerto Offertorium brought her wider acclaim. The title (in Russian ‘Zhertvoprinoshenie (Жертвоприношение)’, or ‘sacrifice’, referring to a key element of the Christian Eucharist service) is just one example among very many of religious elements in Gubaidulina’s work. She was a devoted member of the Orthodox Church (heavily suppressed under Communism and subjected to infiltration by political spies), and many of her works reflect aspects of her faith. 

Other influences beyond the religious included, at various times, fascinations with Wagner and with Gesualdo and Josquin; a desire to expand the instrumental palette with non-European instruments such as the Japanese koto and Chinese zheng (both varieties of plucked zither) and the Russian bayan (a variant of the accordion); a deep interest in percussion instruments, in whose sound she heard something profound and almost mystical; and the use of mathematical ratios (in particular the Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio) as methods to construct her music.

This last was a particularly key influence, and she took an almost playful delight in devising new number systems to use as the basis for composition. Among other things, this numerical focus allowed her to break out of the restrictive use of rhythm just as a local, in-the-moment technique and apply it (by analogy with long-range harmonic structures) to entire pieces. 

Her lifelong touchstones in musical terms remained Bach and Webern - composers whose music is also frequently held up as embodying mathematical perfection, and to whom she can perhaps be seen as an heir in turn.

Gubaidulina’s works encompass most of the main classical genres - symphonic works such as Stimmen… Verstummen… and The Unasked Answer, concertante pieces including Offertorium and The Canticle of the Sun, a wealth of vocal and choral works often with religious subject matter and inventive chamber works for often unorthodox combinations of instruments. This is to say nothing of an extensive body of film-score work, ranging from a late-1960s Russian animated adaptation of The Jungle Book to 2013’s Mary Queen of Scots. 

In marking her passing earlier today, the Russian state-run newspaper Izvestia praised not merely her successful career as a composer, but also her lifelong devotion to supporting young and aspiring musicians. 

Sofia Gubaidulina - a selected discography