Listening to Edison Denisov

Edison Denisov (Creative Commons photo by Dimitri Smirnov)

I have always meant to give a closer listen to the music of Edison Denisov (1929-1996) and figuring that the time is now, I have been busy exploring his music.

Denisov does not fit chronologically into the main focus of this blog -- musicians such as Gavriil Popov and Alexander Mosolov -- but in a way he fits thematically; as this Wikipedia biography explains, he became a leader of the Association of Contemporary Music when it was reestablished in Moscow in 1990. 

I discovered Denisov through a wonderful live recording of Denisov's second symphony, still my favorite Denisov work so far; I got it from Boom, i.e., Vadim Batitsky, the late music blogger I wrote about earlier.   It's a recording with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, Joerg-Peter Weigle conducting.(Boom had a large collection of live music recordings, which he would share on his blog). When I told Boom I was having trouble finding anything else by Denisov that I liked as well and I asked  Boom if he had any other good live recordings, he replied, " I am afraid his 2nd symphony is the only composition of his good enough to impress conductors outside Russia."

As you can from the Wikipedia biography, Denisov managed to get himself denounced by Tikhon Khrennikov for "western influences" and "erudition instead of creativity," so he has good street cred. I can't find it in the Wikipedia bio, but his father admired Thomas Edison, hence the composer's name. If you leave off the "V," his first name is an anagram of his last name. Denisov was from Siberia and lived most of his life in Russia but was in France for his last few years. 

I have recently persisted in trying other Denisov recordings; much of his work has in fact been recorded. I have in fact found other Denisov works I like; I can recommend his sonata for alto saxophone and piano, which has been recorded several times and in fact may be his most-recorded work. I also like the concerto for clarinet and orchestra. Does anyone have any other works to recommend to me?