Ustvolskaya - Piano Sonata No. 5 (Part 1/2)

Piano Sonata No. 5 in ten movements (1986)

"Composed no less than twenty-nine years after its predecessor, it is soon clear that it engages with the same spiritual preoccupations, although the musical style has become more radical in the intervening years. The repeated clock-like chords of the Fourth Sonata find their counterpart in the Fifth's obsessive Db in the centre of the keyboard, which like a sun at the centre of a planetary system binds together all ten movements. This one note is pivotal, able to attract lines inwards towards itself and to radiate power outwards, driving the music forward.

Ustvolskaya's mastery of large scale structures is nowhere more apparent. The ten short movements play without a break, related in numerous ways, but it is a single powerful drama that unfolds in these ten linear images.

The fifth movement, at the heart of this sonata, is one of the composer's most challenging musical statements. The two clusters reiterated at terrifyingly high but carefully graded dynamic levels are revealed as the source of a rich and abundant resonance, rather than the flat wall of sound they at first appear to be. Locked within their stark insistent power is, I believe, the core of Ustvolskaya's vision, poised between the insight which arises when the human spirit is reduced to absolute zero, and when, in physical response, the instrument is taken to the extreme limits of its tonal capacity."

Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) was a relatively obscure 20th-century Russian composer. Before the 1970s she was virtually unknown to the West and only recently have scholars and performers taken an interest in her music. From 1939 to 1947 Ustvolskaya studied with Shostakovich, who praised her music and unique compositional voice; he even quoted some of her themes in his own music. It was later revealed that there was a romantic relationship between teacher and pupil, and that Ustvolskaya declined Shostakovich's proposal of marriage.

Although Ustvolskaya, like many composers operating in the Soviet regime, appeased the State by writing propaganda pieces, she also wrote modern absolute music "for the drawer." She has been called by one critic "the lady with the hammer" owing to her tendency for dissonant counterpoint and tone clusters. Many of her works reflect her fervent devotion to Christianity, and are characterized as austere, esoteric, declamatory, and without clear influences from other composers.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• galina
• ustvolskaya
• schnittke
• gubaidulina

[TheRealLordRama]

This is pure genius. The only other modern composer I can think of with so unique a voice is Messiaen, and perhaps Scelsi. It's shocking how little-known she is.

[HyneseyBoy]

Seriously man, hats off for the continuous postings!

A genuinely unique composition...

[TheFate23]

@bayreuth79 everything can be music, also noises.

[RoxxorzYourBoxxorz]

Whoa, that sounded pretentious, but hey, still.

[RoxxorzYourBoxxorz]

Ooh, this is pretty divisive in its response. I feel that's a testament to the validity of its existence. Though I welcome corollary!

[imnotonlinenow1]

You gave me hope! now i know even i can compose something people will listen to!

[realself1]

Great. Thanks for sharing this!

The pauses say as much as the notes

[realself1]

Great. Thanks for sharing this!

[bayreuth79]

Pretentious nonsense. I'm not even sure this can described as music. I'm by no means musically unsophisticated- I appreciate the music of Schoenberg and Webern (well, some of it at least)- but this is just vacuous noise. In fact, atonal music is an oxymoron. For music to be distinguishable from mere noise it has to be in a tonal context, even if this tonal context is pushed to its limits, as in certain passages from 'Tristan' and later composers.

[inafantasy]

@vkoracx

Aye, seems an excellent plan. I found this piece growing on me more and more as I listened to the second half of it, as well as some of her other pieces (I find myself particularly fond of her 6th sonata). Cheers. :)

[vkoracx]

@inafantasy

no ,of course there are many

I just find it hard to accept or understand hers as something that is valid and that makes sense and that is rare with me as I am open to all kinds of music (contemporary(serial) baroque ,pop etc)

there is always the matter of taste ,like "I am not a fan of hers /his but I recognize his/her genius but with her...I am not even there..anyway I'll try listening to her more maybe something will change