David Dalle
Thursday April 17th, 2025 with David Dalle
Passion music. Sofia Gubaidulina's harrowing, apocalytpic St. John Passion.

For my annual show before Good Friday, I draw upon the incredibly rich tradition of music for and inspired by the Passion story, as well as unexpected music which I find fits the theme. This year, it too often feels like we're living during the end times. Fitting, perhaps, is this year's choice for Passion music: the St. John Passion by Sofia Gubaidulina, the great Russian-Tatar composer, who died in March, aged 93. Gubaidulina came of age at the end of Stalin's tyranny, and she embarked on an idiosyncratic musical path completely at odds with Soviet restrictions. She was encouraged by Shostakovich who told her to continue in her "mistaken" path. She was a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, and her religious fervor, both from Eastern Orthodox and her father's Islamic background, was a central part of her music. This was very unpopular with Soviet authorities and she was blacklisted in 1979 with her activities severely curtailed, watched by the KGB, and even physically assaulted. Years later, Gubaidulina recalled that “being blacklisted and so unperformed gave me artistic freedom, even if I couldn’t earn much money.” She had a big break in 1980 when she shared a cab with the great Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer, who asked her to compose a violin concerto. Only a couple of years later, Gidon Kremer defected to the west after refusing to return to the Soviet Union after a two year tour. The work, "Offertorium", was smuggled out of the Soviet Union where Gidon Kremer performed it around the world and recorded it to great acclaim. This made Gubaidulina well known in the West. After the fall of the Soviet Union, she moved to Germany where she remained the rest of her life. The New York Times wrote "Gubaidulina made music that manages to be both uncompromising and accessible. Its strange colors are so alluring and changeable, its sense of drama and timing so sure, its desire to communicate — even if enigmatically — so evident that it’s irresistible." She was still composing music into her 90s (we heard a recording celebrating her 90th birthday with recent works on my program in 2021). Gubaidulina's St. John Passion was commissioned, along with Passions by Osvaldo Golijov, Tan Dun, and Wolfgang Rihm, by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart in 2000 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Bach's death. Gubaidulina used text from the Gospel of John as well as, unusually, the Book of Revelations. This has dramatically demarcated her Passion from the other three commissions, as well as the standard Passion tradition. Though the Passion of Christ is full of episodes of terror, suffering, and pain, most musical Passions end with at least hints of hope, redemption, and even joy. Her Passion ends with "The Seven Bowls of Wrath" from Revelation. Gubaidulina herself said "‘I sensed that the narration of Jesus’s earthly life path must in no case be allowed to end with a 'solution of the dramatic conflict;' after such a dramatic process, there could only be one thing – a sign from the Day of Judgement. This meant an extreme dissonance, a kind of cry or scream. And following this final scream, only one thing was possible – silence. There is no continuation and there can be no continuation: 'It is finished.'" Gubaidulina's St. John Passion is harrowing, terrifying, gripping. Her view was not just of the Passion, but her assessment of the current world, she wrote: "man should have to experience divine wrath for having chosen evil instead of good’ and that the message of John about the primacy of the will of the Father is crucial in our times when the world is on the verge of extinction". This seems even more urgent in 2025 than it did in 2000. However dark the work is, it is also very approachable in its earnest desire to communicate and sincere emotions. It was the first Passion to be composed in Russian and often uses very sparse musical forces with recitatives, yet maintaining a very high level of tension. It does use a very large orchestra and choir which is used to great effect. Her Magnum Opus and one of the greatest musical Passions. We hear the recording of the world premiere.