Galina Ustvolskaya

born in 1919 in Petrograd, she studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Leningrad under Dmitri Shostakovich. After completing postgraduate course she assumed the composition class at the Conservatory , where she lectured until 1977.
Galina Ustvolskaya is one of the most original personalities in contemporary Russian music and the only one of Shostakovich’s students who worked out her own aesthetic, completely independent from the style of her great teacher (‘It’s not you who is under my influence, but rather I am under yours,’ Shostakovich once wrote to her). Ascetic in means and full of tension, her compositions are not – as Victor Suslin wrote in a sketch about her, published in the catalogue of the Hans Sikorski Music Publishers in Hamburg – ‘avant-garde’ in the colloquial sense of the concept, which is why they avoided official condemnation in the former Soviet Union. But they were nevertheless scorned as uncommunicative, raw and even ‘limited’. The significant interest in the composer’s work in recent years as well as their presence at many festivals is particularly due to the influence of concerts devoted to her music in Heidelberg in 1988, as well as the first half of the 1990s in Amsterdam and Cologne.

Selected works: String Quartet (1945), Cello Sonata (1946), Concerto for Piano, String Orchestra and Kettledrum (1946), Sonatina for Violin and Piano (1947), six piano sonatas (1947, 1949, 1952, 1957, 1986, 1988), Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1949), Stepan Razin’s Dream – ‘bylina’ [old Russian epic folk song] for baritone and symphony orchestra (1949), Octet for Two Oboes, Four Violins, Kettledrum and Piano (1949-50), In Praise of Youth, a cantata (1950), Young Pioneers, a symphonic poem (1950), Sinfonietta for orchestra (1951), A Man from a Hill, a cantata (1952), Sonata for Violin and Piano (1952), 12 Preludes for Piano (1953), Symphony No. 1 for orchestra and two boy sopranos (1955), Suite for Orchestra (1955), Heroic Deed for orchestra (1957), Fire on the Steppes for orchestra (1958), two symphonic poems (1958, 1959), Grand Duo for cello and piano (1959), Song of Glory for boys’ choir, trumpets, percussion and piano (1961), Duet for violin and piano (1964), Composition No. 1 – Dona nobis pacem for piccolo flute, tuba and piano (1970–1971), Composition No. 2 – Dies irae for eight double basses, percussion and piano (1972–1973), Composition No. 3 – Benedictus, qui venit for four flutes, four bassoons and piano (1974–1975), Symphony No. 2 – True and Eternal Bliss for orchestra and a solo voice (1979), Symphony No. 3 – Jesus, Messiah, Save Us! for orchestra and a solo voice (1983), Symphony No. 4 – A Prayer for trumpet, tom-tom, piano and
alto (1985–1987), Symphony No. 5 – Amen for oboe, trumpet, tuba, violin and percussion (1989–1990).
Trio
Speaking of her Clarinet Trio of 1949, the composer said: ‘all my music from this work onwards is «spiritual» in nature’.