String of Destiny (Sonata No.4) & A Brief History of Music

"String of Destiny" or Piano Sonata No. 4 (2000) is one-movement, eight-minute long concert piece dedicated to Alissa Firsova who premiered it in 2001 in St Albans and then recorded it to Belgian label Megadisc MDC-7818. "A Brief History of Music" (1978, revised in 1997) is rather an experimental piano piece that in three minutes presents a brief history of music from Bach and Haydn to Webern and Shostakovich. The piece was premiered by the composer in 1998 in St Albans, UK. First time it was printed in the collection "Dmitri Smirnov: Compositions for Piano", Kompozitor Publishers, Moscow, 1999. Dmitri Smirnov (pen names Dmitri N. Smirnov and D. Smirnov-Sadovsky) is a Russian and British composer. He was born in 1948. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory 1967-1972 under Nikolai Sidelnikov, Yuri Kholopov and Edison Denisov. He also studied privately with Philip Herschkowitz, a pupil of both Berg and Webern. In 1979 Smirnov was blacklisted as one of the Khrennikov's Seven at the "6th Congress of the Union of Soviet Composers" for unapproved participation in some festivals of Soviet music in the West. He was one of the founders of Russia's new ACM (Association for Contemporary Music), established in Moscow in 1990. Since 1991 he has been resident of England.