Galina ustvolskaya hat art projects

Art historians, critics and musicologists passed judgement long ago about art in general and music in particular. Yet they haven't moved any closer toward the heart of the work itself. That's very bad. I repeated it many times and still beg you: it's better not to write anything at all about my music than to write constantly the same thing over and over in a circle – that it's chamber music, chamber-music, religious, and yet again chamber.

If the fate of my music is that it shall endure for some time, then for thinking musicians, without the limitations of some kind of stereotypes, it will be understood that this music is new both in its intellectual sense as well as in its contents. It is not pleasant for me to talk about this, but I have however decided to try.

My catalogue reflects true, spiritual, non-religious creativity. As van Gogh rightly said, "My painting seems to many people simple, too primitive". That which is externally simple may perhaps not be at all so simple! To that I can add: "My music isn't simple to understand!"

The non-chamber quality of my music is novelty, the fruit of my tormented life, devoted to creative work! And I'm not talking here about the number of performers, but about the essence of the music itself. It's very difficult for me to read over and over again: "chamber music", "chamber symphony". For example all my Sonatas, Grand Duet, Duet for Violin and Piano, Compositions and other works are not chamber music!

If I put my entire 'I' into my works, all my might, then it's necessary to listen to me in a new way, and to put all your might into listening to it as well! I believe that in the future that will change. I'm sorry to have to explain it over and over. All forms, polyphony and so forth, they all must be considered anew.

I don't believe those who write 100, 200, or 300 works, including Shostakovich. It's impossible in each of several hundred works, in such an oc

Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya (1919 - 2006) was a Russian composer whose sui generis body of 21 austere, brutally direct works stands among the most uncompromising statements of 20th century classical music. A student of and influence to Shostakovich—who was “convinced that the music of G. I. Ustvolskaya [would] achieve worldwide renown, to be valued by all who perceive truth in music to be of paramount importance”—she later denounced her teacher’s music as dry and soulless, claiming “there is no link whatsoever between my music and that of any other composer, living or dead.” Working under Soviet constraints, Ustvolskaya weathered a socialist realist period of compulsorily created and soon-disowned populist music, but from 1963 onwards devoted herself exclusively to what she termed “true, spiritual, non-religious creativity.” Her penchant for the use of piano or percussion to insistently beat out regular, unchanging rhythms as the basis for relentless homophonic blocks of sound earned her the title “the woman with the hammer,” while her narrowness and obstinacy of vision have been compared to that of a laser beam. Although she preferred to write for small groups of frequently unusual instrumental combinations, Ustvolskaya regarded even the chamber music of her obsessive ascetic works as being orchestral in scale and intensity. A St. Petersburg hermit who came to refer to her works as “music from the black hole,” Ustvolskaya as a rule rejected commissions, remaining a cult figure until concerts at the 1989 Holland Festival catalyzed widespread recognition, leading to a number of international Ustvolskaya festivals.

Ustvolskaya’s spiritual pessimism is perhaps nowhere better expressed than through the six piano sonatas she wrote between 1947 and 1988. While the early sonatas betray an influence from Satie’s dissonant Rosicrucian period, the final two are suggestive o