Composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who combined sound and spirituality, has died aged 93

Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, an intellectual artist who fused sound and spirituality, died Thursday at her home in Appen, Germany at the age of 93.

Her death was confirmed by the publisher Boosey & Hawkes, which called Gubaidulina “the great lady of new music”.

One of the first female composers of the modern era to gain international recognition, Gubaidulina’s singular style was often far-reaching, both musically and philosophically, but intimate in the artistic detail she evoked from the orchestra.

In 2021, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, conductor Andris Nelsons and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra released an album featuring three huge symphonic pieces, each with a deeply metaphysical underpinning. Gramophone magazine called it “one of the most remarkable musical and spiritual journeys ever conceived, by a composer whose personal modesty would never lead you to guess that she commands the forces of the Apocalypse”. One of the works on the album, “The Wrath of God,” opens with an army of noisy tubas and ends with a wink and a rhythmic nod to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

News source here.