Rudersdal Chamber Players - Love and Loss (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Abel, Op. 65
02. To Be, or Not to Be...
03. Piano Quartet No. 2 4 Seasons: I. Winter
04. Piano Quartet No. 2 4 Seasons: II. Spring
05. Piano Quartet No. 2 4 Seasons: III. Summer
06. Piano Quartet No. 2 4 Seasons: IV. Autumn
07. Quartet for the Time of Grief, Op. 209

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.

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