Ustvolskaya - Sonata No. 6

Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) Sonata No. 6 (1988) Luke Arnold, piano Performed in Duncan Recital Hall, Shepherd School of Music at Rice 30 August 2023 Galina Ustvolskaya once wrote that “my music has no relation to that of any other composer, living or dead.” While this bold claim might be hard to prove, it is unquestionable that her aesthetic is highly memorable and unique. A student of Shostakovich just after the second World War, Ustvolskaya actually collaborated with Shostakovich on several works in the 1950s, but her personal style developed in a much less nimble and melodic direction. Dense blocks of sound, extreme dynamics, and gaunt orchestration became hallmarks of her style, earning her the nickname of “the lady with the hammer.” But this monolithic music, which has been compared to the imposing walls of unadorned concrete in brutalist architecture, is not alien or inhuman in the least. A common thread in Ustvolskaya’s music is the use of chant and liturgical music – the reflection of a lifelong struggle to find spiritual meaning during the Soviet era. In a 2005 retrospective interview, she said, “my heart, my soul, everything I had in me I used for my work…[for] my whole life I cried out to God, but I still feel lonely…my life is very sad.” This sonata in particular, written during glasnost in the last days of the Soviet Union, epitomizes the themes of spiritual turmoil in her work: long lines of descending chant never find resolution, and sudden caesurae...