Blog Post: Il'ya Dudkin

Today we have another blog post on "Hour of the Soul" by Il'ya Dudkin, one of our clarinet players. Enjoy!

A land plagued by corruption, gangs and cronyism. No I am not talking about the great state of New Jersey but rather Tatarstan, the home of Sofia Gubaidulina. (Pronounced Gubaidooolina. The accent goes on the second “u.”) When this piece was revised by the composer in 2004, and to some extent in the ’70 when the piece was originally, the aforementioned affliction must have impacted Gubaidulina. After all, the very foundations of the Soviet empire were crumbling and every comrade expected the ceiling to come crashing down.

So, there are moments in the piece that may appear to be nothing more than a cacophony, but maybe, just maybe the cacophony is a representation of the socio-political chaos that surrounded her.

The rests are ridiculous. In fact instead of counting out the rests you can run down to Stamp for a slice of pizza, update your fantasy roster and watch your favorite episode of “Matlock” and still be back in time with 10 measures of rest to go.