- Date: 1989
- Composer: Sofia Gubaidulina
- Period: Contemporary (1950- )
Review
This is a large-scale orchestral work in a style prevalent in Eastern Europe at about the breakdown of the Communist system among the less in-favor composers. That is, it is monumental, spiritual, and slow-moving; hence: meditative.Sofia Gubaydulina was born in Chistopol, the capitol of the Tatar Republic. She studied in Kazan and at the Moscow Conservatory. A major influence on her compositional style emerged from her co-founding in 1973 with Viktor Suslin and Vyacheslav Artyomov an ensemble called Astreya. This group improvised performances on various ethnic instruments from the nationalities located along in the southern Soviet areas. However, they tended not to improvise ethnic music, but instead to use the instruments to create new combinations of sounds.
They also had a tendency to stretch out musical sounds, making the flow of the music -- the rate at which sonic events occurred -- slow down radically, creating in Gubaydulina and Artyomov a new sense of musical time.
This work is fully representative of Gubaydulina's fondness for working in long, slow-moving time-units. It was the result of a commission from the Louisville Orchestra. (Located in the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, this symphony had been known for 40 years for its ambitious program of commissioning new orchestral music.)
Its scoring is for a large orchestra: Its woodwind section adds all the common auxiliary orchestral winds except English horn, the brass section is the standard 4.3.3.1 configuration, and its uses a large string section. Two harps, celesta, harpsichord, and piano are supplemented by a six-person percussion section that is heavily oriented towards gongs, drums, and cymbal of various sizes, plus bell sounds of high and low range, and xylophones and marimbas.
The composition lasts 40 minutes or more. It is symmetrically structured in a large arch form, with two movements of ten minutes' duration flanking a large 21-minute middle movement.
Although the title means "For and Again," this is not a work of contrasts. The slow moving sounds merge into each other or are layered in offset fashion so as to present a slowly turning kaleidoscope of rather austere orchestral color. Virtually all the tempo markings in the first two movements are in the moderate range. The music maintains an almost unbroken feeling of peace and calm throughout these two movements. The last movement, however, is in a faster tempo and does rise to full-orchestral outbursts.
The style is an example of post-atonal extended harmony. The music tends to center around an somewhat uncertain tonality. Gubaydulina does find contrast in the percussion section, as the deep drums, gongs, and the low sounds of piano and harp contrast with the percussions, keyboard instruments, and harps that can make high sounds.
Standing at the center of the arch, and instantly noticeable, is the traditional Russian Orthodox "Allelujah." The whole musical structure works towards this central point, then works back away from it.
Pro et contra received its first performance with the Louisville Orchestra under Lawrence Leighton Smith on November 3, 1989. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Pro et contra, concerto for cello & orchestra | |
| Pro meu pai tocar, for guitar |
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