Sofia Gubaidulina, generally considered the most important contemporary Russian composer, has died at her home in Hamburg, Germany.

Born in 1931 in Chistopol, Russia, she was severely affected in her early career by the repressive Soviet cultural policy. Her work was intensively promoted in the West in the 1980s, and was included in many Western concert programmes.

Like many of her Soviet colleagues, she left her homeland and emigrated to Germany.

Her deep faith was the driving force in her musical compositions that celebrated the elementary, humanity and referred to the transformative power of music.

Christian symbolism, mystical ideas or Christian literature were often the springboards that inspired her to produce her musical scores.

She improvised on rare Russian, Caucasian and Central and East Asian folk and ritual instruments, thus discovering new soundworlds.

She claimed that music connects the finite with the infinite, this becoming her underlying concept artistically. She held that the faith in God is directly related to the creative drive in mankind.