Offertorium (Russian Жертвоприношение) is a concerto for violin and orchestra composed by Sofia Gubaidulina in 1980 and revised in 1982 and 1986. It was dedicated to Gidon Kremer, who in touring with it around the world brought Gubaidulina to international attention. History The story of Offertorium’s commission began with a chance conversation between the composer and Gidon Kremer, of whose playing skills Gubaidulina was an immense admirer, during a cab ride they happened to share. Though not well acquainted with Gubaidulina’s work, Kremer was impressed by those of her works he had heard, and he made an offhand request to her to write him a violin concerto. The request stuck in the composer's mind, and from that chance encounter, Offertorium was born – even though Kremer's whirlwind success, and the permission he had received to play outside the Soviet Union for two years, soon led him to forget all about it. Gubaidulina began working on the piece in the summer of 1979, taking musical advice from Pyotr Meshchaninov and completing it in March 1980. She drew inspiration from Kremer’s performance style; in particular, she took advantage of his handling of opposites and their transitions and his tone, which she recognized as expressing “total surrender of the self to the tone.” Offertorium is thus an example of a piece crafted both for and from the person to whom it was composed and dedicated. Like many of her other pieces, Offertorium contains religious elements. Even the name is a reference to that section of a Mass (performed immediately after the Credo) that is sung while the priest is offering up the prepared bread and wine. The work takes as its overarching theme the concepts of sacrifice and offering: the sacrifice of Christ during the Crucifixion, God’s offering in creating the Earth, the sacrifice of the performer to the tone, the sacrifice of the composer to the art, and the sacrifice of the main musical theme to disintegration and, later, reconstruction. Themes The work is centered on the musical theme given by Frederick the Great to Johann Sebastian Bach which formed the basis of his Musikalisches Opfer (BWV 1079). Gubaidulina orchestrates this theme using a Klangfarbenmelodie technique reminiscent of Webern, passing it around various instruments to exploit their different timbres. The introduction presents the theme almost whole: it lacks only the last note. The soloist then enters, beginning a series of variations, each