Sofia Gubaidulina’s Final Work Prolog, Completed by Elena Firsova, Receives World Premiere with Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons conducts the world premiere September 24–26, continuing his and the BSO’s close relationship with Gubaidulina’s late orchestral works
Sofia Gubaidulina’s final orchestral work, Prolog, completed after her death by her longtime friend and fellow composer Elena Firsova, receives its world premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Andris Nelsons on September 24–26, 2026.
> Sep 24-26: Gubaidulina-Firsova, Prolog (World Premiere)
Gubaidulina began Prolog in 2020 as a companion to her recently completed The Wrath of God. The new work completes a pair of orchestral works that occupied Gubaidulina during the final years of her creative life. Both are dedicated to Beethoven and take inspiration from the famous “Muss es sein? Es muss sein!” (“Must it be? It must be!”) of Beethoven’s final String Quartet, Op. 135.
“The prologue is intended to present the reason for the finale,” Gubaidulina explained. “And that is: Questions, questions, questions.” Taking Beethoven’s formulation one step further, she asks, “Must it be so? Yes, it has to be!” As Gubaidulina described the relationship between the works, “The Wrath of God then gives the answer to this question.”
Due to her declining health, Gubaidulina was able to work only intermittently on Prolog and was unable to complete the score before her death on March 13, 2025. Composer Elena Firsova, who shared a close friendship with Gubaidulina spanning 50 years, was subsequently entrusted with completing the work.
Firsova initially hesitated to accept. She and Gubaidulina had often discussed unfinished compositions and shared the belief that another composer generally should not attempt to complete them. “My first emotional reaction was that I had to refuse,” Firsova recalls. She ultimately reconsidered because of her intimate knowledge of Gubaidulina and her music: “For the memory of Sonia, I had to do it.”
> Read the interview: Elena Firsova on Completing Sofia Gubaidulina’s Final Work, Prolog
Gubaidulina left approximately six and a half minutes of music in completed manuscript, along with sketches and a written plan charting the work’s dramatic and philosophical progression. Firsova used the completed fragment, Gubaidulina’s plan, and her knowledge of the composer’s musical language to complete the approximately 20-minute score, seeking throughout to make her own “interference” as small as possible.
At the heart of Prolog is the series of questions Gubaidulina described in her own note. Her plan leads the music through questioning and uncertainty, an “Abyss,” attempts to move toward light, the appearance of God, human suffering and ultimately chaos. Among its striking musical features is a cross formed visually in the score by intersecting instrumental lines. In developing some of Gubaidulina’s unfinished ideas, Firsova also looked to textures in Offertorium, one of Gubaidulina’s landmark works and a score Firsova knew intimately.
For Firsova, the completed work ultimately occupies a unique space between the two composers. “It is not mine, because it is not my style,” she says. “At the same time, it is not Sofia’s, because certainly, if she had finished it, she would have written a very different composition.” She describes the result as “something else—a participation of both of us,” while adding: “I think her voice can be heard everywhere, because it is her style and her ideas.”
The premiere continues Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s close association with Gubaidulina’s late music. The BSO and Nelsons gave the world premiere of her Triple Concerto and the North American premiere of The Wrath of God. Nelsons subsequently recorded The Wrath of God with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.
> Listen to Gubaidulina’s The Wrath of God