Special works by RSB Composer in Residence 2021/2022 Yelena Firssova and other connecting composers' works, including Sonata No. 2 by her husband Dmitri Smirnov, who died in April 2020. He dedicated the sonata to Yelena Firssova for her birthday in 1979.

For Dmitri by Yelena

The Russian composer Yelena Firssova is composer-in-residence of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in 2021/2022. RSB flutist Rudolf Döbler has undertaken to incorporate stations from her artistic biography - role models, teachers, reference persons - into a chamber concert program. Maria Pflüger, violinist in the RSB, lived for a year in the apartment of the couple Yelena Firssova and Dmitri Smirnov during her studies in Moscow. Afterwards the Russian artist family visited Maria Pflüger in her German home. From their time together, Maria Pflüger has access to some chamber music works that are otherwise little known - and will present one of them within our concert in Berlin: the Sonata No. 2 by Dmitri Smirnov from 1979, dedicated to his wife for her birthday. Yelena Firssova has expressed the wish that during her residency at the RSB the music of her husband Dmitri Smirnov will also be commemorated. He passed away on April 9, 2020, at the age of 71, as a result of a corona infection.

Program

César Cui "Orientale" from "Kaleidoscope" for violin and piano op. 50 No. 9, arranged for wind quintet by Angel de Busto

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov "Scheherazade" - 4th movement from the Symphonic Suite op. 35, arranged for wind quintet by Keith McDaniel

Alexander Glasunov Quartet for four saxophones, 2nd movement, arranged for flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon by Rudolf Döbler

Dmitri Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C minor op. 110, 3rd movement, arranged for wind quintet by Mark A. Popkin

Edison Denisov Wind Quintet

Yelena Firssova Scherzo for wind quintet and piano op. 1

Dmitri Smirnov Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano (for Yelena Firssova)

Yelena Firssova "Triple-Portrait" for flute, violoncello and piano op. 132

Dmitri Smirnov "Abel" for clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano op.65
(after the painting "The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve" by William Blake)