Galina Ustvolskaya

The unique expressiveness of the work of Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) speaks to the listener with directness and nuanced layers of sound, the powerful, rhythmic stringency of the music testifying to the relentlessness of her vision. Fiercely independent, Ustvolskaya maintained that her music sounded like the work of no other composer, living or dead, and put herself outside all stylistic schools.

Her work, said Viktor Suslin, has the narrowness of a laser beam capable of piercing metal. Its sense of concentration is sometimes ferocious. Entering this sound-world calls for a special kind of commitment and intensity.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (recently described by Strings magazine as the most exciting violinist in the world) and Markus Hinterhäuser play the Sonata (1952) and the Duet (1964) for violin and piano, and together with Reto Bieri, the Trio (1949) for clarinet, violin and piano, all recorded in the acoustically superb studio in Lugano which has become one of ECMs primary locations.