Tatar Dance - Bayan and Two Double Basses

Tatar Dance

for bayan and two double basses

It so happens, time and again, that composers have written one work or another with great elan and then withheld it for a while. This is rather an exception with Sofia Gubaidulina. Nonetheless, several decades passed before the striking Tatar Dance for bayan and two double basses (unusual simply in view of its instrumental combination) could now be published as a printed edition.

The Tatar Dance was composed in 1992, and it is thanks to the bayan virtuoso Friedrich Lips that he continued to speak to the composer about this wonderful composition and motivated her to have it published. Lips has now edited the work which is full of magnificent new sounds, with the double basses forming a sonorous counterpoint to the bayan.

The world premiere of the chamber work Tatar Dance was given on 25 July 1992 by the soloists Elsbeth Moser (bayan), Wolfgang Güttler and Alexander Suslin (both double bass) in Hitzacker. Sofia Gubaidulina dedicated this work to Viktor Suslin.