Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime.
This week’s pick from the Capriccio label (C67139) is the Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings that Sofia Gubaidulina composed in 1975 for Valeri Popov (b. 1937), the foremost Russian bassoonist of his era. The concerto’s solo part exploits the full potential of what is an extraordinarily versatile and highly expressive instrument. Here’s the fourth movement, headed Rubato, mesto. quarter note = 60.
Sofia Gubaidulina died in March of this year. For an appreciation of her life and works please follow this link.