Encounter

„I learned from Dmitri Shostakovich to be myself,“ said Sofia Gubaidulina, born in 1931 in the Tatar town of Chistopol, who is considered one of the most important voices in contemporary music. Encouraged by her great role model, she pursued her path as a composer, which led her into trouble with the authorities due to her nonconformity. In 1992, she emigrated from the Soviet Union to Germany, where she lived until her death in 2025. Her music, characterized by a multifaceted polystylism and deep spirituality, is juxtaposed in this concert with Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, into which the composer incorporated not only his grief over the death of his friend Ivan Sollertinsky in 1944, but also the misery of wartime. The concert concludes with Gubaidulina’s atmospheric piece Silenzio, in which the bayan, a type of accordion, evokes the composer’s Tatar homeland.

An introduction will take place in the Mozart Hall 30 minutes before the start.