hell und dunkel

Internationally famous composer, Sofia Gubaidulina, has three pieces that include organ that I know of and have played. Two are ensemble works (one with cello and one with percussion) and this one is for organ solo.

Gubaidulina is a deeply religious and mystical individual, and this forms the impetus for her compositions. "Light and dark" makes use of extended performance techniques that include tone clusters and hand/arm glissandi.

Her solo organ work makes full use of opposites, like the title, to great effect. This coexistence of light and dark is illustrated with other pairs: silence and sound, high tones and low tones, rapid 16th notes and static clusters, scalar patterns and major seventh jumps, connected melodic material and that separated by pauses, Lento and Allegro, extremely loud and extremely quiet, etc.

Theoretically speaking, her work sounds (and looks) like there is no tonality to it. Yet, I find the whole thing is "grounded" by the C-Minor triad.

1. The opening note is the fifth of the chord, a G.
2. The lowest note is the bottom C of the pedal board.
3. The minor third, C to E-flat, features prominently in the score, occurring 6 times, always as an anchor of sorts, if you will.

Rhythmically at the end during the slow climb up the keyboard of the tonal clusters, Gubaidulina nods to Messiaen with her use of dotted eighth notes.

Performance notes: the composer does not give any registration instructions except for the pitch levels to use (16', 8', 4', 2', tutti) to get started in key places. It is thus up to the performer's discretion and an instrument's capabilities as to what to make of things. This freedom is part of her fondness for improvisation, I suspect.