Uploaded July 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
String Quartet No. 2 (2006, revised 2011), ii. Langsam with soprano (Sprechstimme) in movements ii. & iii. (This version is of the alternate version substituting flute for the soprano voice.)
Text: Das Gespräch eines Lebensmüden mit seiner Seele (1900 b.c.)
Text language: Ancient Egypitan (Middle Egyptian).
This piece was composed in Studio City, California and was dedicated to the composer's fiancée.
English translation of portion of the text appearing in the second movement:
To whom may I speak today?
Siblings are evil,
Today’s friends show no love.
To whom may I speak today?
Hearts are greedy,
Every man grabs the property of his neighbor.
To whom may I speak today?
The gentle is extinct,
The violent oppress everyone.
To whom may I speak today?
People are content with evil,
While goodness is trashed everywhere.
To whom may I speak today?
The one whose wrongdoings should infuriate a man
Only makes everybody laugh, his crimes are so outrageous.
To whom may I speak today?
People plunder,
Everyone steals his neighbor’s belongings.
To whom may I speak today?
The scoundrel is one’s bosom buddy
While the comrade with whom one would act has become a foe.
To whom may I speak today?
The past is not remembered,
The one who has been a mentor has no mentor, in our time.
To whom may I speak today?
Siblings are evil,
It is to foreigners that one must turn -- for integrity.
To whom may I speak today?
Faces are blank,
Every man averts his gaze from his comrades.
To whom may I speak today?
Hearts are selfish --
There does not exist the heart of a man which one might trust.
To whom may I speak today?
The ethical people are no more --
The country has been abandoned to crooks.
To whom may I speak today?
In the absence of intimates,
One turns to the darkness – to gripe to it.
To whom may I speak today?
There are no more happy-hearted people,
And one’s companion of yore is history.
To whom may I speak today?
I am overwhelmed by despair
For want of one close to my heart.
To whom may I speak today?
Evil swarms in the land –
There is no end to it.
Death is in my sight today,
Like the bloom of health to one who has been plagued with illness,
Like going outside again after a long confinement.
Death is in my sight today,
Like the fragrance of myrrh,
Like lounging under the sails on a windy day.
Death is in my sight today,
Like the parting of the clouds,
Like when a man grasps what did not know before.
Death is in my sight today,
Like a man’s longing to see his home
When he has spent many years in prison.
String Quartet No. 2 (2006, revised 2011), ii. Langsam with soprano (Sprechstimme) in movements ii. & iii. (This version is of the alternate version substituting flute for the soprano voice.)
Text: Das Gespräch eines Lebensmüden mit seiner Seele (1900 b.c.)
Text language: Ancient Egypitan (Middle Egyptian).
This piece was composed in Studio City, California and was dedicated to the composer's fiancée.
English translation of portion of the text appearing in the second movement:
To whom may I speak today?
Siblings are evil,
Today’s friends show no love.
To whom may I speak today?
Hearts are greedy,
Every man grabs the property of his neighbor.
To whom may I speak today?
The gentle is extinct,
The violent oppress everyone.
To whom may I speak today?
People are content with evil,
While goodness is trashed everywhere.
To whom may I speak today?
The one whose wrongdoings should infuriate a man
Only makes everybody laugh, his crimes are so outrageous.
To whom may I speak today?
People plunder,
Everyone steals his neighbor’s belongings.
To whom may I speak today?
The scoundrel is one’s bosom buddy
While the comrade with whom one would act has become a foe.
To whom may I speak today?
The past is not remembered,
The one who has been a mentor has no mentor, in our time.
To whom may I speak today?
Siblings are evil,
It is to foreigners that one must turn -- for integrity.
To whom may I speak today?
Faces are blank,
Every man averts his gaze from his comrades.
To whom may I speak today?
Hearts are selfish --
There does not exist the heart of a man which one might trust.
To whom may I speak today?
The ethical people are no more --
The country has been abandoned to crooks.
To whom may I speak today?
In the absence of intimates,
One turns to the darkness – to gripe to it.
To whom may I speak today?
There are no more happy-hearted people,
And one’s companion of yore is history.
To whom may I speak today?
I am overwhelmed by despair
For want of one close to my heart.
To whom may I speak today?
Evil swarms in the land –
There is no end to it.
Death is in my sight today,
Like the bloom of health to one who has been plagued with illness,
Like going outside again after a long confinement.
Death is in my sight today,
Like the fragrance of myrrh,
Like lounging under the sails on a windy day.
Death is in my sight today,
Like the parting of the clouds,
Like when a man grasps what did not know before.
Death is in my sight today,
Like a man’s longing to see his home
When he has spent many years in prison.
![Edison Denisov, Symphony [No.1], USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra, Rozhdestvensky](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xiH4u8B_glg/mqdefault.jpg "Edison Denisov, Symphony [No.1], USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra, Rozhdestvensky
It seems to me that one of the greatest values of music is its spiritual power, its ability to carry a great spiritual charge. Music carried this charge during pre-Bach and Bach epochs, as well as for some time afterwards (Mozart, Brahms). In the 20th century, this charge was, to a considerable degree, lost. During our lifetime, for a long while, the loss of spiritual values has progressed, - or their leveling, or even a negative attitude to them revealed by the growth of so-called atheism - a phenomenon very dangerous to mankind. I remember Shostakovich telling me a few times a year or two before his death: Earlier, there were ten commandments: thou shall not kill; thou shall not steal; thou shall not seduce your neighbors wife; etc. But now we have just one single commandment - do not violate the purity of the teaching of Marx and Lenin. A lot of artists perceived the leveling of spiritual values and their replacement by false values. In music - both in academic and in new - there is a lot of what we may call bluff. Currently, even some prominent names, experiencing intense professional scrutiny closely follow all the slightest changes of fashion - and, since they possess a certain technique and skills in the application of cliché, they often deceive the audience. Take the great artists of the past - Mozart, Bach, or Brahms; from Russian music, take Mussorgsky, Glinka, Tchaikovsky. Those never cheated the audience, never fooled anyone - they were always honest and sincere. At present, unfortunately, the idea of honesty often disappears from art. Even significant composers, and to a much greater extent, artists, often indulge in bluffing, whereas the audience, having lost the criteria, takes this bluff at face value.
In our society, false art has often substituted true one. There was a long period when the true art was suppressed, whereas false art was hailed, presented as true, and the entire mass media industriously persuaded the people that this was true art. This was how, in particular, they managed to fend the people off the concert hall. When before the war, Soviet music was played, people went to listen to it. In the 20s, concert halls were packed. Nowadays, one has to organize the audience; there is even an expression, filling groups. Once there was an authors concert of some secretary-composer, related to his nomination for the Lenin award. I asked a clarinetist from the State Orchestra: How was the concert? And he told me: It was wonderful - one to five. - What do you mean? - Fifty people on the stage, ten in the stalls. This is a standard picture. Here also lies one of the reasons for the fact that opera houses, especially provincial ones, stay empty. For a long time, all had been done to divert the public from art.
Unlike some other composers who got carried away by serialism, I have never rejected intention, because purely abstract reasoning deprived of any intentional content, makes music more superficial. One may compose a lot of good pieces, but they will be, so to say, beautiful musical architecture with very little spiritual content. For example, I appreciate Xenakiss music, but objectively speaking, it is very superficial - it has almost no psychological content. In a sense, this is objective music. If we attribute Xenakis to French music, he will appear to continue the tradition of Roussel and Varèse, but in no way is he even close to Debussys tradition. To me, other things are more appealing. In my opinion, Debussy is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. I think that he is even more innovative, if we use this word, than Stravinsky or Webern - but Debussys innovations do not lie on the surface. In Stravinskys music, the new immediately strikes you; whereas one initially takes Debussy as very traditional. However, when you start to analyze, you see that he was a much more daring thinker than many of his contemporaries. In this respect, Debussys music, in his best pieces, like Pelleas and Melisande, is to me as promising as Mussorgskys music - which was really appreciated almost one hundred years after [his death], or possibly has not yet been appreciated even today.
Edison Denisov
Denisov was born in Tomsk, Siberia into the family of a radio-physicist, who gave him the very unusual first name Edison, in honour of the great American inventor. He studied mathematics before deciding to spend his life composing. This decision was enthusiastically supported by Dmitri Shostakovich, who gave him instructions in composition.")
