Sofia Gubaidulina, the Russian composer whose works, combining modernist techniques with Christian spirituality, drew the ire of Soviet authorities, has died at 93.
Born in Tatarstan, then a Soviet republic, and schooled in the conservatories of Kazan and Moscow, Gubaidulina had a fraught relationship with the cultural establishment, recognized for her talent and encouraged by Dmitri Shostakovich but denounced for a compositional style that was by Soviet standards avant-gardist. She also wrote and performed music for Russian folk instruments.
Her violin concerto “Offertorium,” introduced in 1980 and taken up by violinist Gidon Kremer, brought Gubaidulina to international notice. Subsequently, musicians in the West promoted and regularly performed her works, many of which were informed by her devout Christianity.
She spent her later years in Appen, Germany.
Gubaidulina’s compositions were marked by “struggle and disorder; of awaiting some signal from beyond with hushed anxiety; of the strenuous attempt to bridge the gap between humans and the divine,” The New York Times’ Zachary Woolfe writes in an appreciation of the composer. “Transcendence, if and when it arrives, is hard won.”
