Meditation on a Bach Chorale

Bach’s influence on Russian composers has been particularly strong. Certainly one factor, apart from the “textbook” knowledge passed down by his music, is the spiritual richness that helped sustain musicians through the Stalinist night. Like Shostakovich before her, Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931) fell into official disfavor with Soviet authorities. For many years she could not get her music performed or published. She managed to survive by writing music for film—a long and illustrious tradition among Soviet composers—while satisfying her personal ambition by composing “for the desk drawer,” as Shostakovich described his hidden efforts. Gubaidulina holds an openly elitist notion about art. She believes in creating challenging music. That stance was irreconcilable with Socialist Realism, which demanded above all that music be accessible to the everyday comrade. Her Meditation on a Bach Chorale (1993) was commissioned by the J. S. Bach Society of Bremen, Germany. Bach had always been a source of inspiration and guidance for Gubaidulina. “I keep learning from him,” she says, regarding Bach as the ideal blend of a “masterly conception of form and a fiery temperament.”

(c) Jason Stell