Great Composers: Galina Ustvolskaya
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- Опубликовано: 29 авг 2024
- A look at "the woman with the hammer."
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Classical Nerd is a weekly video series covering music history, theoretical concepts, and techniques, hosted by composer, pianist, and music history aficionado Thomas Little.
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Music:
- Galina Ustvokskaya: Composition No. 2, performed by Asko|Schönberg Ensemble conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw [original upload: pnZ0UBC07Ow]
- Thomas Little: Dance! #2 in E minor, Op. 1 No. 2, performed by Rachel Fellows, Michael King, and Bruce Tippette
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Contact Information:
Questions and comments can be directed to:
nerdofclassical [at] gmail.com
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All images and audio in this video are for educational purposes only and are not intended as copyright infringement. If you have a copyright concern, please contact me using the above information.
Thank you!
Never heard of her, but that’s what these videos are here for after all! Thanks for putting me on to such an interesting composer
Actually one of her students got notable. Boris Tishenko.
Boris Tichtchenko has studied with her. I think there's an influence, in particular with his piano sonatas (the 4th for example).
unique
Love this!!!
As for performers of Composition 2 - Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Reinbert de Leeuw, piano
Great video! Will you do a "great composer" one about Bartok?
I'd love to! The current request queue is quite full, however, so it might take a little while.
Are you going to cover any more American female composers, such as Ruth Crawford Seeger?
There are a lot of female composers that I wanted to be able to cover in this March series. Unfortunately, that entailed many snubs as well-including Seeger. I'll definitely add her to the request queue, however.
Perhaps she was a narcissist!
Possibly, but also an outstanding composer.
The problem here is, she's not a "great composer." Oh, some of the intelligentsia made asses of themselves singing her praises, but the majority of her stuff is unlistenable, quite frankly. She has been exposed to the West now for well over 20 years, and has made no significant impact in performances of her work. A few off-label CD's have been released and quickly deleted from the catalogue due to stunningly low sales ... a "great composer" is one which makes a huge impact on the world by the immense virtues of their music. This lady certainly did not. That said, the Piano Concerto is not bad, and the Trio and Octet are interesting.
... "great composers" is the name of the series of biographies that have been a staple of this channel since I started it.
I've been thinking about the interesting things you say and I don't mean to offend you, but I think your opinion is quite misplaced. In itself it is a very interesting topic; what do we mean by 'great art' and in this case a 'great composer'. I think it is very important to clearly define what exactly we mean by the term 'great composer'. (If we are even able to do that).
I am from the Netherlands (I am now also studying composition there) and a well-known Dutch conductor (Reinbert de Leeuw) has tried hard to perform Ustvolskaya her music and, through a documentary about her, to bring her music to a wider audience. I don't think we should ignore the fact that Ustolskaya's music is forgivable... it really is a struggle to get through a piece; it is not easy on the ears, but the accessibility of art is not what makes art great, and popularity, for quite some time already, says little about quality. (The ultimate example is Bach, who was considered very old-fashioned in his day and is now considered one of the greatest composers who ever lived).
Ustvolskaya certainly left a huge impression on me (and on many of my colleagues in the Netherlands). The music is so incredibly emotional that I experience a kind of incredibly bizarre rollercoaster of emotions in every piece of hers. At first I am captivated by the directness of the music; it goes straight to the point and with all the loud sounds, clusters and the special instrumentation, it really hits you, you immediately feel the gigantic emotion in the music. At a certain point it turns into laughter (for me) because the music is soooo incredibly bizarre that it somehow becomes funny... who only writes clusters and quarter notes, in FFFF (and then also for 8 double basses, piano and chest), until I at a certain point, feel the seriousness of the music again and that slowly changes (in my experience) into music that precisely because it is so emotional; becomes abstract. (Totally weird and captivating experience)
Now I also realize that those experiences are completely personal and I'm even guessing that if you read this you might even think: “what an incredibly vague nonsense…” and that's fine if you think that. But a composer who can create a completely original sound world, with unique instrumentations, who can cause such emotional rollercoasters for some people... in addition to all kinds of theatrical aspects in her music... I think that is a great composer. I once heard an analogy about exactly this; you cannot judge the impact of a book by how many times the book has been lent out, after all it may be the case that the 3 times that the book has been lent out (only) it has changed the life of the person who has read it and I think that this also applies to someone like Ustvolskaya, it is not for everyone (and that is fine), but for the people who enjoy it, it is incredibly dear and special to them. (That is, a great artist; a great composer)