Music
The cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble Le soleil des Incas (1964), setting the poems by Gabriela Mistral and dedicated to Pierre Boulez, gave him an international recognition. This happened after the series of successful performances of the work in Darmstadt and Paris (1965). Igor Stravinsky liked the piece, discovering the "remarkable talent" of its composer. However, the piece was harshly criticised by the Union of Soviet Composers for its "western influences", "erudition instead of creativity", and "total composer's arbitrary" (Tikhon Khrennikov). After that, performances of his works were often banned in the Soviet Union.
Later he wrote a flute concerto for Aurèle Nicolet, a violin concerto for Gidon Kremer, works for the oboist Heinz Holliger, clarinettist Eduard Brunner and a sonata for alto saxophone and piano for Jean-Marie Londeix, that became highly popular among saxophone players.
His sombre but striking Requiem, setting a multi-lingual text (English, French, German and Latin) based on works by Francisco Tanzer, was given its first performance in Hamburg in 1980.
Among his major works are the operas L'écume des jours after Boris Vian (1981), Quatre Filles after Pablo Picasso (1986) and ballet Confession after Alfred de Musset.
Read more about this topic: Edison Denisov
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the world—so that the moment of intense turning seems still and universal—all are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)