October Issue : Firsova • Smirnov 'Love and Loss'
Firsova: Quartet for the Time of Grief. Piano Quartet No 2,'Four Seasons' - Smirnov: Abel -to be or not to be Rudersdal Chamber Players OUR Recordings (8 226932 • 55')

Readers may recall how prominent husband and wife Dmitri Smirnov and Elena Firsova were during the 1990s, not least in the UK, where they made their home. This collection of chamber works, played by musicians for whom they were mostly written, could not be more welcome.
Abel (I 991) testifies to Smirnov's all-round immersion in and his love for the work of William Blake, whose The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve posits a fratricidal, also generational conflict mirrored by the four instruments as these move towards a violent denouement before retreating into the remoteness from which they emerged. to be or not to be (2018-19) literally integrates Shakespeare's text into its content, with viola first among equals in an impassioned discourse that makes allusions (not always specific) to Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.
Quartet for the Time of Grief (2023) finds Firsova rendering Messiaen (and Smirnov) from a perspective of the Covid pandemic, with her husband among its earlier casualties. The music abounds in violent contrasts that bring about a tangible if fractured close: 'Love and Loss', indeed. Her Second Piano Quartet (2019) evokes the seasons in detached if never aloof terms from a forthright 'Winter', eloquent but volatile 'Spring' then brief yet eventful 'Summer', to the sustained inwardness of' Autumn' that brings the whole sequence expressively full circle.
Throughout this programme,the Rudersdal Chamber Players convey an empathy that could only result from close familiarity. Those who acquired their release of Poul Ruders (I 1/22) should not hesitate, while admirers of both these composers will need little encouragement. Richard Whitehouse