Ustvolskaya: Composition No 2 (dies Irae); Sonata No 6; Grand Duet

Various performers Wergo WER 6739 2*****

Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) spent her life in St Petersburg, where she studied with Shostakovich (declining a marriage proposal from him) and in turn taught composition at the conservatory. She was a reclusive figure whose mature music deals mostly in extremes. The opening work here, Composition No 2 of 1973 is for eight double basses, wooden cube and piano. Its gestures are stark, blunt, brutal, the double basses mostly functioning en masse as a kind of hammer blow. The Piano Sonata No 6 (1988) is so full of loud clusters that it often sounds as if the piano is being flayed rather than played. And the Grand Duet for cello and piano (1959) is an example of oppositional chamber music, anti-conversational, as if the performers are individuals who talk at and over each other. And yet there’s something that makes it all utterly gripping. See wergo.de