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OUR Recordings

Love and Loss

$17.99

Details

Composer
Elena Firsova, Dmitri Smirnov
Artist
Rudersdal Chamber Players
Format
CD
Label
OUR Recordings
Released
Feb 06, 2026
Catalog #
8226932
UPC
0636943693223

About

Rudersdal Chamber Players is one of the Nordic region's leading ensembles for contemporary music, and this recording represents a special tribute to their friendship with the composers, which dates back to 2019. London-based Elena Firsova and Dmitri Smirnov are internationally acclaimed composers. Their catalogue is extensive and includes commissions and performances by, among others, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, RSNO - Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Gidon Kremer / Kremerata Baltica, Ensemble InterContemporain (Paris), Ensemble Modern (Germany), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, The Hallé Orchestra, and BBC Proms. Elena Firsova and Dmitri Smirnov formed an extraordinary composing couple who spent almost half a century of creative life together as wife and husband. They met and fell in love while studying at the Moscow Conservatoire, and from the start, they shared a passion for the arts and the world around them. As young composers, Smirnov and Firsova's music was heard in "unofficial" concerts outside the USSR, away from the judgmental ears of the Union of Soviet Composers. Despite this, they still ran afoul of officialdom and were denounced as members of The Seven, a group of non-conforming composers that included Denisov, Firsova, Smirnov, and Gubaidulina, at the 6th Congress of the Union of Soviet Composers. Ironically, this rebuke only served to generate more foreign interest in the composing husband-and-wife team. When Smirnov died in 2020, at the start of the COVID pandemic, he left behind not only a prolific musical legacy (200 opus numbers), but also poetry, artworks in various media, and several books, including Song from Underground, one of the most important chronicles of later Soviet music. For Elena Firsova, her first critical influence as an artist was her father, an internationally distinguished thinker in the field of atomic theory. As if to balance her father's scientific perspective, Firsova found inspiration in the great Russian poet Osip Mandelstam and has composed numerous works based on his texts.

Tracklist 7 tracks

  1. 1 Abel', Op. 65 13:15
    Track
    1
    Title
    Abel', Op. 65
    Duration
    13:15
    Composer
    Dmitry Nikolayevich Smirnov
    Ensemble
    Rudersdal Chamber Players
  2. 2 to be or not to be…, Op. 195 15:06
    Track
    2
    Title
    to be or not to be…, Op. 195
    Duration
    15:06
    Composer
    Dmitry Nikolayevich Smirnov
    Ensemble
    Rudersdal Chamber Players
  3. 3 I. Winter 02:23
    Track
    3
    Title
    I. Winter
    Duration
    02:23
    Composer
    Elena Firsova
    Ensemble
    Rudersdal Chamber Players
  4. 4 II. Spring 05:11
    Track
    4
    Title
    II. Spring
    Duration
    05:11
    Composer
    Elena Firsova
    Ensemble
    Rudersdal Chamber Players
  5. 5 III. Summer 01:47
    Track
    5
    Title
    III. Summer
    Duration
    01:47
    Composer
    Elena Firsova
    Ensemble
    Rudersdal Chamber Players
  6. 6 IV. Autumn 06:43
    Track
    6
    Title
    IV. Autumn
    Duration
    06:43
    Composer
    Elena Firsova
    Ensemble
    Rudersdal Chamber Players
  7. 7 Quartet for the Time of Grief, Op. 209 10:22
    Track
    7
    Title
    Quartet for the Time of Grief, Op. 209
    Duration
    10:22
    Composer
    Elena Firsova
    Ensemble
    Rudersdal Chamber Players