Elena Firsova

Elena Firsova, the Leningrad-born, Moscow-trained composer, emerged in the 1970s as one of the most distinctive and imaginative Russian voices of her generation Her music reflects the influence of her mentor Denisov but transforms his expansive lyricism into something more personal, private and romanticOften sets the intimate and confessional poetry of Mandelstam, one of the greatest modern Russian poets, who died in the Stalinist camps in 1938 Her orchestral works and concertos incline to delicate chamber-music textures and singing melodic lines Since the early 1990s, Firsova and her composer husband Dmitri Smirnov have lived in the UK

Works by Elena Firsova include:
Earthly Life (1984) Cantata for soprano and chamber ensemble
Secret Way (1992) for voice and orchestra
Cassandra (1992) for symphony orchestra

Works by Firsova are represented by Boosey & Hawkes/Sikorski for the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth (excluding Canada), the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and Israel

"The genre of the solo cantata is probably the most important for me. I have written cantatas on poems by Osip Mandelstam at regular intervals all my life, and every time it gives me a very strong creative impulse which even acts upon the next few compositions." — Elena Firsova