String Trio (1988)

With Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina was one of the two most exciting composers to emerge from Russia towards the end of the Soviet era - thanks not least, in both cases, to the widely influential support of the violinist Gidon Kremer. Schnittke and Gubaidulina are, however, very different phenomena. His musical personality was born of an affinity with West-European culture; hers is more exotic, a product of her half-Tatar-half-Russian parentage and her early life in the Tatar Republic. In spite of conservatoire training, first in Kazan and then in Moscow, her Crimean background, together with the creative courage derived from her religious convictions, has had much to do with the development of the distinctive sound world and visionary nature of her music.

Gubaidulina’s interest in instrumental colour for its own sake is a vital element of the String Trio. Written for members of the Moscow Quartet in 1988, it takes flight from string-ensemble fundamentals. The first movement has three main themes or ideas - a rhythmic element percussively insisting on one pitch and alternating with quiet rattlings of the wood of the bow (col legno) on the strings, a melodic element of glissandos falling and rising from the same note followed by a briefly expressive high-lying line on the violin, and a harmonic element of double-stopped dissonances on all three instruments in rhythmic unison. After a dramatic development of the percussively articulated rhythmic material, the three themes are combined and modestly transfigured in a sustained closing section.

The second movement is a fantasy pizzicato dialogue between violin and cello overlaid by a spectral line of harmonics drawn out by the bow of the viola. Shortly before the end the viola takes a firmer line to make allusions back to the melodic and percussive elements of the first movement.

The last of the three sections of the work is the longest but at the same time, given its rondo-like construction, the clearest in outline. Based on the primitive theme introduced by the viola in the opening bars, it both pursues its own course and integrates itself with the rest of the work. The rondo theme is periodically recalledd - first on violin, then on cello in counterpoint with the other two instruments, then in high profile in multi-stopped harmonies at the vociferous central climax of the movement - while earlier events are more discreetly re-enacted. Most significantly, the expressive violin melody from the first movement is remembered, together with the col legno rattling and the one-pitch rhythms, at the end of the first episode. The percussive element is quietly echoed again just before the violin takes up the rondo theme to repeat it in a high-pitched whisper over a liberated pizzicato viola and eloquently linear cello. In the closing bar, as the other two instruments are gradually reduced to silence, the bottom string of the viola is plucked so vigorously as to strike noisily against the fingerboard.