Gubaidulina, misunderstood

Since the early 1980s Sofia Gubaidulina has received numerous accolades, and her music has been performed and recorded worldwide. However, the critics' reaction to her works has often been resoundly negative. In particular, Western critics have been baffled by Gubaidulina’s penchant for long durations, the employment of seemingly literal musical symbolism verging on kitch and, last but not least, the composer’s religious fervour. Starting from the reviews of two ambitious events that served as introductions of Gubaidulina’s music to British audiences, I will discuss the main objections directed towards her oeuvre and demonstrate that Gubaidulina’s idiosyncratic compositional method has been misunderstood by British critics