Symphonic concert: Gubaydulina | Mussorgsky

Sofia Gubaidulina's Seven Words from 1982 are among the composer's most moving works. She combines deep spiritual reflection with her characteristic search for new relationships between sound and form. The title refers to the last words of Christ on the cross, but the work abandons the literal illustrative in favor of contemplation. Its essence becomes the tension between silence and sound, the solitude of the soloists and the saturated sound of the band.

A special role is played by the dialogue of the cello and the bajan — instruments with different timbre and articulation possibilities treated by the composer as two independent and at the same time complementary voices. Bajan, thanks to the smooth shaping of dynamics and the ability to sustain the sound for a long time, approaches the organ sound, while the cello retains the characteristic singleness of the string sound. The string orchestra creates a variable space around them — from single, almost ascetic sounds to dense layers of sound. Technical virtuosity is used to express tension, focus and silence. Music develops organically, through the build-up and discharge of energy, and form appears more as a process than a classical construction.

The paintings in the exhibition were created in 1874 as a piano series inspired by the posthumous exhibition of the works of Viktor Hartmann, a friend of Modesto Mussorgsky. The individual links differ in aura, rhythm and musical language, and the narrative is united by the recurring theme of the Promenade, evoking the step of the visitor. In the orchestral version of Maurice Ravel, the composition has acquired a new sonic dimension. Ravel retained its essential shape, translating the piano texture into the rich palette of the orchestra. Subsequent paintings take on different colors — from solo instruments to full tutti — emphasizing the grotesque of the Gnome, the monumentality of the Great Gate of Kiev or the melancholy of the Old Castle. The instrumentation is not limited only to the color of the sound: it brings out the relationships between registers, rhythm and sound plans, and the orchestra becomes the narrator of subsequent scenes.

The juxtaposition of the contemplative Seven Words with pictorial Pictures from the exhibition leads from spiritual focus to sensual imagination, showing two extremely different ways of shaping musical timbre.