13 January 2015

The Russian composers Dmitri Smirnov (b. 1948) and Elena Firsova (b. 1950) are husband and wife.

When and how did you first encounter Britten's music?

DS I heard the name and read about Britten some time before I had opportunity to listen to his music. This was two or three years before entering the Moscow Conservatory in 1967. But soon, when I was able to obtain recordings of his compositions, I liked them very much, especially his Four Sea Interludes, Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, which I still regard as real masterpieces. Later I listened to more and more of his music with great interest and pleasure.

EF In 1966–7, as a first-year music student in the music college of the Moscow Conservatory. I used to buy records of contemporary music which it was possible to find in the music shops in Moscow (it was not a wide choice). Once by chance I bought a record on which Rostropovich played Britten's Sonata for Cello and Piano. I liked it very much and since that time (even now) it is my favourite composition of Britten's. A few years later, at the end of my first year at the Moscow Conservatory, I wrote a sonata for cello and piano [op. 5] which was certainly influenced by Britten's Cello Sonata, especially in the second theme of the first movement. There is the same motif. Of course, there is not only Britten, but also Hindemith and a little Shostakovich. Something mine too …

I may also have seen Peter Grimes a little earlier, at the Kirov Opera House in Leningrad. I liked it very much too, but the Sonata made a much stronger impression.

How did younger composers such as yourselves view Britten and his music?

DS During my time as a student in Russia we had rather limited access to contemporary music. We could listen to the works and get the scores of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and sometimes Stravinsky, but with Western composers it was much more difficult.