Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya (
Russian: Галина Ивановна Уствольскаяlistenⓘ, 17 June 1919 – 22 December 2006) was a Russian composer of classical music.
Early years
Born in
Petrograd, Ustvolskaya studied at the college attached to the
Leningrad Conservatory (later renamed the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory) from 1937 to 1939, where she would later go on to teach composition. Her paternal grandfather was an influential priest in the Eastern Orthodox faith and his wife, Ksenia Kornilievna Potapova, was born into nobility. Although Ustvolskaya claims that her paternal grandmother grew up poor, her family status helped her access a good education. Nonetheless, Ustvolskaya lived an impoverished childhood.[1] In 1939 she was the only female student in
Dmitri Shostakovich's composition class at the Conservatory. Her composition teacher said of her:
"I am convinced that the music of G. I. Ustvolskaya will achieve world fame, and be valued by all who hold truth to be the essential element of music."[2]
Shostakovich sent some of his own as yet unfinished works to Ustvolskaya, attaching great value to her comments. Some of these pieces contain quotations from his pupil's compositions; for example, he employed the second theme of the Finale of her clarinet trio throughout the Fifth String Quartet and in the Michelangelo Suite (no. 9).
Ustvolskaya was a pupil of Shostakovich from 1939 to 1941 and from 1947 to 1948, but her works from the 1950s onwards retain little influence of his style. Until 1961 none of her true works were performed other than patriotic pieces written for official consumption. The middle of the 1960s witnessed greater tolerance for modernist music, and interest in Ustvolskaya grew – the Leningrad Union of Composers organized in the 1970s evenings of her music, which received high praise from listeners and critics. Widespread recognition came after her music was performed in several concerts of the 1989 Holland Festival.
The exact nature of Ustvolskaya's relationship to and involvement with Shostakovich has been unclear. In an interview for the TV program TsarskayaLozha, which celebrated Ustvolskaya's 80th birthday, she said, "It is sad that Shostakovich and myself were not ‘soul mates’; I know that he liked me and always treated me with respect, but I never reciprocated his feelings." She has also revealed that her former teacher once proposed to her, but she did not accept.[3]
Later years
From 1947 till 1977 she taught composition at Leningrad Conservatory. She allegedly spent this time working in a military hospital.[4] She taught her students to write
polyphonically and
contrapuntally, showing them works from
Mahler,
Stravinsky, and her previous teacher Shostakovich (specifically lesser known works by these composers, as suggested by several former students). Her students were predominantly male, with many of them infatuated by her. Her teaching style was more focused on aesthetics and feeling instead of harmony or scientific technique, and often encouraged students to experiment with modes instead of the typical major or minor scales.[5]
Style
Ustvolskaya developed her own style, of which she said, "There is no link whatsoever between my music and that of any other composer, living or dead."[6] Among its characteristics are the use of repeated,
homophonic blocks of sound – which prompted the Dutch critic Elmer Schönberger to call her "the lady with the hammer"[7] – unusual combinations of instruments (such as eight
double basses, piano and percussion in her Composition No. 2); use of extreme dynamics (as in her Piano Sonata No. 6); the employment of groups of instruments to introduce
tone clusters; sparse harmonic textures; and the use of piano or percussion to beat out unchanging rhythms. Ustvolskaya's music has been described by critics and scholars as carrying “the bleakness of one who stares into the void on a regular basis”[8] and as evoking “visceral feelings of horror.”[9] Many have attributed influences to her work, all of which Ustvolskaya has denied.[10]
Despite being a highly private person, Galina Ustvolskaya commented publicly on the spiritual aspects of her music. She often incorporated religious texts, especially in her later works, though she insisted that none of her pieces conform to the beliefs of a specific religious sect. In an interview, her friend and publisher
Viktor Suslin stated that her music is not liturgical and should not be labelled as religious, but rather that it “springs directly from the contact she feels with God.”[10] When discussing her compositional process, Ustvolskaya once said that she only composed when she “fell into a state of grace”[11] inspired by God and that “each work has a very long period of coming into being, after which she simply writes it down.”[10] When offered a commission, she wrote: “If God gives me the opportunity to compose something, then I will do it without fail.”[12] Although it is unclear whether Ustvolskaya was a member of a religious community, it is evident that she was greatly inspired by her spiritual connection to God and that it was integral to her compositional process.
The music of Galina Ustvolskaya was not openly censured in the USSR. However, she was accused of being unwilling to communicate and of "narrowness" and "obstinacy".
Though many who knew Ustvolskaya perceive the Western sentiment toward her compositions to be one of rebellion and grandiosity, with pianist Oleg Malov even calling her methods a totalitarian fight against Soviet Russia's totalitarian regime - resulting in 'double totalitarianism'. While her propensity for a grandiose attitude was seemingly present in her personal life, and noted by several students and colleagues, she never composed "for the table" (for money) and mainly thought of herself and her music as being misunderstood by those around her.
It has long been speculated that Ustvolskaya hid or destroyed compositions that did not meet the government's expectations of socialist realism for music, however she stated in an interview with biographer Olga Gladkova - whose book "Galina Ustvolskaya: Music as Obsession" seemingly has a controversial reputation amongst Ustvolskaya's contemporaries - that her main source of inspiration was God, claiming, "I begin to write when I enter a special state of grace. Music is born in me, and when the time comes, I record it. If the time doesn't come, I destroy it." But, when asked if she viewed her own compositions as Russian national (or nationalistic), Ustvolskaya noted that Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Bach, and Beethoven are not mainly associated with their nationalities and that their art is "higher" than such labels. She continued, "I only accept such work, meaning all types of art."[13]
Moreover, one of Ustvolskaya's contemporaries, pianist
Tatyana Voronina, likened the former's compositional style to a prisoner's shackles. In an interview, Voronina said that Ustvolskaya's use of rhythmic, repeating crotchets expressed a ‘dark, somewhat schizophrenic worldview.’ This sentiment was echoed by Soviet musicologist Ekaterina Ruchevskaya, who claimed of Ustvolskaya's alleged mental instability, "Whether or not there were some mental problems, I cannot say for sure, but I knew of one suicide attempt [...] She also had two students, one of whom, Alesha Nikolaev, an incredibly gifted boy, committed suicide aged 18".[14]
^‘Tsarskaya Lozha’ [The Queen’s Box], TV program on Channel ‘Kultura’ dedicated to Galina Ustvolskaya’s 80th birthday. 17 June 2004.
^Regovich, Kathleen. “To Be Totally Free: Galina Ustvolskaya, Sofia Gubaidulina, and the Pursuit of Spiritual Freedom in the Soviet Union.” Wellesley College, 2016.
^17. Nalimova, Elena. “Demystifying Galina Ustvolskaya: Critical Examination and Performance Interpretation.” Goldsmiths, University of London, 2012.
^de Groot, Rokus (2017). "Music and Belief: The Figure of Singularity in Galina Ustvolskaya's work," in Contemporary Music and Spirituality, ed. Robert Sholl and Sander van Maas (1st ed.). London: Routledge. p. 132.
ISBN9780367229481.
^Viktor Suslin, “The Music of Spiritual Independence: Galina Ustvolskaya.” In “Ex oriente...” Ten Composers from the Former USSR, ed. Valeria Tsenova, trans. Carolyn Dunlop (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2002), 108.
^Gladkova, Olga. Galina Ustvolskaya: Music as Obsession. 1999.
^Nalimova, Elena. “Demystifying Galina Ustvolskaya: Critical Examination and Performance Interpretation.” Goldsmiths, University of London, 2012.
Lemaire, Frans. Notes to Symphonies 2,3,4 and 5. Megadisc MDC 7854.
Simon Bokman. Variations on the Theme Galina Ustvolskaya. Translated by Irina Behrendt. (studia slavica musicologica, Bd.40), Verlag Ernst Kuhn - Berlin,2007.
ISBN978-3-936637-11-3 (in English)
Rachel Jeremiah-Foulds: 'An Extraordinary Relationship and Acrimonious Split - Galina Ustvolskaya and Dmitri Shostakovich' in Mitteilungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung, No. 23, April 2010.
Rachel Jeremiah-Foulds: 'Spiritual Independence or a Cultural Norm? Galina Ustvolskaya and the Znamenny Raspev' in Church, State and Nation in Orthodox Church Music, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Orthodox Church Music, University of Joensuu, Finland - 8–14 June 2009.