Bayan
SKU:
HL.50600472
For
Bayan Solo. Composed
by Sofia Gubaidulina.
Woodwind Solo. Classical.
Softcover. 16 pages.
Sikorski #SIK8742.
Published by Sikorski
(HL.50600472).
8.25x12.0x0.076
inches.
In the
field of New Music, Sofia
Gubaidulina's “De
profundis†has
already achieved the
status of a classic. It
is not only an attainment
of the New Music that
instruments are capable
of approaching the human
voice in their sound, or
that they can imitate
areas of expression found
in language and
linguistic articulation.
But the avant-garde has
surely expanded the
spectrum to a
considerable extent. The
piece for solo bayan is
an impressive example of
this. The listener
witnesses a slow and
inexorable
intensification from the
“rattling†of
the lowest accordion
register up to the pure,
tender tones of the
highest register. It is
“anascent from the
lowest to the highest,
from the breath and soul
to the world's soul or
wisdomâ€, as
Gubaidulina's friend and
colleague Viktor Suslin
once expressed it. With
the means of sound,
Gubaidulina transfers a
symbol of life onto the
music: breathing.
Breathing distinguishes
the living from the dead.
What other instrument,
other than the winds,
perhaps, could better
lendexpression to this
characteristic than the
accordion? In contrast to
the wind instruments,
however, the accordion is
not an instrument into
which the player breathes
and creates breathing
sounds - instead, the
instrument itself assumes
this function. It
breathes through the
pulling apart and
pressing together of the
bellows. As the basis of
her composition,
Gubaidulina chose the
lines of the Psalm 130
“From the depths, o
Lord, I call to
you†for the
characterisation of her
interlaced message.
Shadowy chorale melodies
are occasionally heard,
but the fundamental idea
of ascent remains
decisive. Sharp
insertions and expressive
gestures, intrusive
glissandi and nervous
vibrati repeatedly
disturb the direction of
movement. And then we
hear consciously the
integrated breathing of
the instrument -
breathing slightly,
hardly audible, opposing
the powerful chord
blocks. The musicologist
Valentina Cholopova once
said of this: “All
these sounds confront
solemn chords richly
ornamented with
figurations, but there is
also a long, monodic
melody running through
the entire symbolic path
of the work - from the
depths all the way up to
the brilliant
heights.†The work
is dedicated to Friedrich
Lips!
Fun, light,
