Elena Olegovna Firsova

Jelena Firsowa (2003)

Jelena Olegowna Firsowa , also Jelena Olegowna Firssowa , ( Russian Елена Олеговна Фирсова ; born March 21, 1950 in Leningrad ) is a Russian composer .

Life

Jelena Firsowa is the daughter of the atomic physicist, an employee of Igor Kurchatov and Lenin Prize winner Oleg Firsow .

From 1963 to 1970 she attended music schools, then until 1975 the Moscow Conservatory , where Alexander Pirumow ( composition ), Yuri Cholopow ( music analysis ) and Nikolai Raskatow ( orchestration ) were her teachers. Through extensive studies and encounters with Edisson Denissow and the Webern student Philip Herschkowitz , who emigrated from Vienna to Moscow , she acquired her own compositional technique.

In 1976 Firsowa became a member of the Soviet Union of Composers. In 1979 she was one of the seven composers who, at the sixth congress of the association, were described by its chairman, Tikhon Khrennikov, in a speech entitled The High Purpose of Soviet Music as unworthy to represent Soviet music abroad. The occasion was the officially unsanctioned performance of works by these composers at music festivals in Cologne and Venice . In addition to Firsowa, these Khrennikows Seven included her husband Dmitri Smirnow , Vyacheslav Artyomov , Sofia Gubaidulina and Edisson Denisov. As a result, the works of these composers were no longer or rarely performed on the radio or at concerts in the Soviet Union. In 1990 Firsowa was involved in the re-establishment of the Russian Society for New Music (English: Association for Contemporary Music ).

Jelena Firsowa has lived in Great Britain since 1991 . From 1993 to 1997 she was a professor at Keele University in Newcastle-under-Lyme , and from 1999 to 2001 she taught composition in Manchester .

plant

Jelena Firsowa created more than one hundred works in many genres of classical music, including commissioned works for the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra , the Brodsky Quartet , the Proms and the Expo 2000 Hannover .

Her works are published by Boosey & Hawkes and Hans Sikorski , among others .

Selected Works:

• The Garden of Dreams Op. 111 (2004)

  For orchestra

• Chamber Concerto No.5 Op. 78 (1996)

  For cello, celesta, harp and strings

• Requiem Op. 100 (2001)

  For soprano, choir and orchestra based on texts by Anna Akhmatova

• The first is gone, Op. 93 (1999)

  For soprano, bass, choir and chamber orchestra. Based on Bible texts, texts by Frankz Kafka and an anonymous psalm from the Buchenwald concentration camp

• Secret Way Op. 52 (1992)

  For mezzo-soprano and orchestra based on texts by Osip Mandelstam

• Silentium Op. 51 (1991)

  Cantata for mezzo-soprano and string quartet based on texts by Osip Mandelstam

• Before the Thunderstorm Op. 70 (1994)

  Cantata for soprano and chamber orchestra based on texts by Osip Mandelstam

• Three Poems by Osip Mandelstam Op. 23 (1980)

  For soprano and piano

• The Prophet Op. 107 (2003)

  For baritone, choir and bayan

• Misterioso. String Quartet No. 3, Op. 24 (1980)

literature

• Jelena Firssowa: About music . In: Hermann Danuser, Hannelore Gerlach, Jürgen Köchel (eds.): Soviet music in the light of perestroika . Laaber, Laaber 1990, ISBN 3-89007-120-1 , pp. 336 f .
• Susan Bradshaw:  Firsova, Elena. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
• Detlef Gojowy:  Firsova, Elena. In: MGG Online (subscription required).

Web links

Commons : Jelena Firsowa  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Works by Jelena Olegowna Firsowa in the catalog of the German National Library
• Official website ( Memento of April 7, 2001 in the Internet Archive ), accessed May 7, 2018
• Lexical article on Jelena Firssowa at MUGI - "Music and Gender on the Internet".
• Catalog raisonné (English) ( memento of December 7, 2003 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 7, 2018