Galina Ustvolskaya Centenary

June 17, 2019 is the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya. Known, rather unfairly, as ‘The Lady with the Hammer’ due to her regular use of uncompromising and heavy rhythms and massive chord clusters, her music actually has a great deal of variety and uniqueness, setting her apart from just about every other composer, but her teacher, Shostakovich, recognised her talent and said that in fact she could teach him more than he could teach her.

To celebrate the centenary, Divine Art will release a new recording of Ustvolskaya’s two major works for violin and piano – the Sonata and the Duo. Performed by violinist Evgeny Sorkin and pianist Natalia Andreeva,  the album is due for release in mid-May (Divine Art DDA 25182).

Pianist Andreeva, whose doctorate was based on the music of Ustvolskaya, previously recorded the complete solo piano music (Divine Art DDA 25130).