Programme

Henri Dutilleux
Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher

Johann Sebastian Bach
Suite für Violoncello solo Nr. 5 c-Moll, BWV 1011

Galina Ustvolskaya
Composition No. 1 "Dona nobis pacem" for piccolo, tuba and piano [1970-71]

Galina Ustvolskaya
Composition No. 2 "Dies irae" for 8 double basses, percussion and piano [1972-73]

Galina Ustvolskaya
Composition No. 3 "Benedictus, qui venit" for 4 flutes, 4 bassoons and piano [1974-75]

Nicolas Altstaedt, Cello

Natalie Schwaabe, Piccolo

Henrik Wiese, Flute

Ivanna Ternay, Flute

Petra Schiessel, Flute

Marco Postinghel, Bassoon

Susanne Sonntag, Bassoon

Rainer Seidel, Bassoon

Francisco Esteban Rubio, Bassoon

Stefan Tischler, Tuba

Markus Steckeler, Percussion

Lukas Maria Kuen, Piano

Heinrich Braun, Double Bass

Philipp Stubenrauch, Double Bass

Simon Wallinger, Double Bass

Frank Reinecke, Double Bass

Teja Andresen, Double Bass

Lukas Richter, Double Bass

José Trigo, Double Bass

Yi-Rung Lai, Double Bass

“To me she’s like a meteorite that fell to earth.” Commentaries on Galina Ustvolskaya, like this one by Martin Hinterhäuser, often go to extremes. Born in 1919, this Russian composer knew no middle ground; her music opens up gaping chasms. When quiet realms shudder beneath a hammerblow, she reduces her resources to a bare minimum. No one before had ever shown how infinite is the distance separating a tuba from a piccolo. Ustvolskaya commanded respect with her unwillingness to compromise. One of her teachers, Dmitri Shostakovich, called her “my musical conscience” and subjected his unpublished works to her scrutiny. Her own works, of which only 25 reached publication, are often written for small ensembles, but hardly for small spaces: “My music is never chamber music, not even in the case of a solo sonata!” Her pupil Boris Tishchenko compared the density of her style with the bundled rays of a laser beam, which is capable of piercing metal. Now, for the centenary of her birth, Nicolas Altstaedt contrasts her Triade with two pieces for unaccompanied cello that convey not only the profound loneliness of her music but its existential force.