Dmitri Shostakovich was to encourage the young Gubaidulina, for instance when he told her in his official function as the chairman of a board of examiners: "Keep on composing on your errant ways." Her intuition was based on her profound religious faith as well as on literature and philosophy. In her String Trio of 1988 she accomplished a particularly impressive motif transfer in the finale. The motif, which has been powerfully completed before, sneaks in again through the first violin, endures, with continuous repetitions, starting from the leading tone and striving for dissolution. The cello, interfering with increasing ferocity, finally puts an end to it with one last sharp pizzicato: salvation denied. Hour of the Soul (1974) marks a point bordering on musical drama; only in the second half of the work its dramatic potential comes into effect as quotations from everyday life of the 1930s and 1940s are silenced by the forceful beats of the drums. The cantata Night in Memphis (1968), on the other hand, explores ancient Egyptian music and reveals itself as an intensive discourse on the ultimate thoughts of our physical existence, on departure from life.