Detailed biography

Ambassador of Tonal Sensuality

Elena Denisova ranks as one of the finest and most charismatic violinists of her generation. Known for her great musical maturity, individual style of interpretation and supreme virtuosity, her performances have won critical acclaim from press and public alike.

Biography

Denisova was born in Moscow and, as a young child, was fascinated by Jascha Heifetz’s expressive playing and versatility of tone; she loved listening to his records over and over in her childhood home. Her parents supported this highly sensitive talent, and she recorded her first LP, Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No.2, while still a pupil at the music school of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

Highly influential among her teachers were two of David Oistrach’s most renowned students, Valery Klimov and later Oleg Kagan at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, which ranks as the foremost institution for Russia’s most talented musicians. She graduated with distinction. She has won many violin competitions and initially was active as a soloist and chamber musician in the former USSR – for example as soloist of the Moscow State Philharmonic and first violinist of the Moscow National Quartet. In 1990 she extended her concert performances to Western Europe, and found a second home in Austria. Elena Denisova has been an Austrian citizen since 1992.

In Austria she founded the Österreichische Gustav Mahler Vereinigung, the Gustav Mahler Ensemble and the Classic Etcetera Musikvereinigung. She is also the artistic director of the Carinthian-based Woerthersee Classics Festival, which she founded in 2002 and which has already gained a strong international reputation.

Repertoire and Philosophy

Elena Denisova lives for her convictions about how music can reach audiences today. She is a knowledgeable advocate of the music of our time, and international composers have dedicated highly complex pieces to her. She covers the complete violin concert repertoire from the Baroque to the Modern, whereby composers and colleagues affirm that “she plays even the most complex and challenging modern works with the same self-assurance and inner logic as if she were playing Brahms or Beethoven” (Franz Hummel).

Elena Denisova states: “People are moved by sensuousness in sound, and my priorities are expressiveness of tone and timing. A violin must sing in a familiar and yet completely unique manner, like a human voice. Every note must go under the skin.“ The wealth in nuance, the effortlessness with which she masters musical challenges, the power of expression and adaptability of her tone and her extensive knowledge of the stylistics of all musical languages are just some of her wide-ranging artistic qualities.

Tours and Festivals

Countless tours have taken Elena Denisova throughout the world, to the USA and Canada but also to exotic regions such as Egypt and Taiwan, and to western and central Europe and also in recent years increasingly to the new EU countries, such as Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary. She has performed at numerous festivals, such as the Carinthian Sommer Ossiach, the Bodensee Festival, the Flandern-Musikfestival, the Vienna Hörgänge and Klangbogen festivals, the Ljubljana Festival, the Russian Winter Festival in Moscow, the Concerti di Primavere in Parma, Beethovenfest Bonn and many others.

Elena Denisova has been accompanied by numerous orchestras, such as the Moscow Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Münchener Symphonikern, the Budapest Radio Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, the Trondheim Symphonie-Orchester, the George Enescu Philharmonic, the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovakian Philharmonic, the Berliner Rundfunk Orchester, the Zagreb Symphonic Orchestra, the Slovenian Philharmonic and the Kiev National Philharmonic, the Capella Istropolitana, Jose Carreras and Friends and of course her own formations, the Gustav Mahler Ensemble and the Collegium Musicum Carinthia.

“Denisova is amazing!”

Whenever her calendar allows it, she actively supports and warmly encourages young talent - in master classes and as a jury member of international violin competitions. She teaches at institutions such as the Austro-American-Institute in Vienna, gives lectures at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna and works towards equal opportunities and advancement for young musicians.

For many years Elena Denisova has been inspiring violinmakers to create new types of violin specially designed for playing 20th and 21st century compositions. She collaborates with the Machold Rare Violins collection and also works together successfully with Pirastro in the development of innovative violin strings.

Wherever she performs, Elena Denisova fascinates both public and critics: “Absolument remarquable!” [“Absolutely remarkable!”], enthused for example the French newspaper Le Courier Picard; “Unglaublich, diese Denisova!” [“Denisova is amazing!”], wrote the Hamburg-based Die Zeit; “Worthy of serious investigation”, stated the Dutch specialist journal The Strad about this remarkably authentic, likeable and modest artist.

Fellow musicians likewise pay tribute to her: “She pursues and deepens her onward path in the art of the violin with clarity and conviction, and performs with immediacy, soulfulness and harmony”, wrote for example the well known cellist Natalia Gutman.

The world is most certainly all the more rich for Elena Denisova – this violin virtuoso, ambassador of tonal sensuality and a fascinating woman with the air of an astonished child.

Media projects

Numerous CDs document Elena Denisova’s enormous artistic range.

She gained special attention with her interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, in she plays a different, wonderful historic violin from Cremona for each season: for this much acclaimed CD recording of the chamber ensemble version of the work she choose two Stradivaris, a Francesco Ruggeri and a Guarneri del Gesu from the top class Viennese instrument collection Machold and the Austrian National Bank (ÖNB) (DEKA media).

Also a major international success was Elena Denisova’s CD Wien um 1900 [Vienna around 1900]in which she plays chamber music works by Robert Fuchs and Alexander von Zemlinsky never before recorded. (International distribution: Gramola Wien).

In Vienna in the summer of 2009 a recording was made of a part of Haydn’s oeuvre not yet available on record: Eight Sonatas for Violin and Piano: “Exquisite chamber music, in which Haydn’s bizarre humour can often be felt” (Denisova). This CD world premiere will be released in autumn 2009 in collaboration with the internationally successful label Gramola Wien. Another proof for Denisovas limitless musical visions are the new CDs "Engelsmusik" ( Edition Lade ), "Mikhail Kollontay: Agnus Dei" ( Classical Reccords ) and "Fukushima by Franz Hummel" ( ARTyx ).

Sonic Visions by Manfred A. Schmid

The "Piaf of the violin" - this is the description frequently applied to Elena Denisova, the Russian-born violin virtuoso now living in Austria, her home for more than a decade. And even if this characterisation mainly alludes to her appearance, to her delicate physique which on first meeting you cannot help but notice, there is something to the description nonetheless. In this elegant and feminine virtuoso’s playing there is nothing of the cult of physical power and athleticism which many Russian violinists display and use to place their listeners under their spell and almost, often, under pressure. Rather, she enchants with grace and her distinctive individualism, without lacking pure concentrated energy. Despite physical fragility she is equipped with such an energetic passion that the question arises as to where she draws this power from.But here the comparison ends; Elena Denisova does not have anything in common with the French singer and the existential tragedy of her disastrous private life. Indeed, one of the major sources of the stunning energy she embodies would seem to be – alongside her talent and solid training – her evidently happy and harmonious private life.Of course this cannot take away the fact that Denisova’s playing, despite striving for harmony and perfection and showing a keen sense of proportion, always contains an element of battle, fighting. The music critic Valery Arzoumanov characterised this phenomenon well as an "extraordinary battle of a lonely female soul for the right to self-expression, to be heard and - without any glossing over - to be understood".“I’m not married to a particular violin”, she says to sum up her position, “but to a particular concept of sound.” For this reason a Guarneri del Gesu, for example, would be unsatisfactory for her as her sole instrument – no matter how much she values its unique qualities. Sound is indeed not something fixed, predetermined, unchanging, but subject to evolution. The desired tone develops from the dialogue between the musician and the work newly each time. And only from this will result the criteria that are to be considered in choosing a suitable instrument.With this in mind she has made contact with leading contemporary violinmakers. Why of all instruments should the violin have found its evolutionary end point at the time of the great classical violinmakers? Could anyone really proclaim that there is no room for improvement, not even in small nuances? Instead of aspiring exclusively to unravel the much evoked “secret” of the Stradivarius, Elena Denisova regards it as at least just as important to strike new paths as well. Copying old instruments should not be the sole aim, but a continual creative development in instrument making – not only drawing on the current level of technical possibilities, but also with regard to changing listening habits and aesthetic challenges.In holding these viewpoints – which some might consider as heretical with regard to the violin – Elena Denisova does not at all wish to criticise the merits of the periodic instruments movement and the so-called historically informed performance. These have brought far too many important insights which cannot be overlooked. But this does not change her conviction that it is a worthy endeavour to create a violin appropriate to the sonic visions of contemporary composers. In determinedly pursuing this aim, Elena Denisova not only works intensively with violinmakers but also seeks out dialogue with performing musicians. And as a consequence, being a dedicated performer herself, she finds herself in an important role, forming a link between violinmakers and composers.It is of course very common that composers and musicians get together to constructively exchange experiences. Frequently composers have a particular musician in mind when composing concert pieces, or have written especially for particular musicians and so had quite specific characteristics in mind. Alongside this, there are the countless cases in which composers have sought advice from virtuosos with regard to the instrument's possibilities and sonic finesse.A famous example of this is the close contact maintained between Johannes Brahms and the violinist Joseph Joachim. But composers joining forces with instrument-makers in order to explore new sonic horizons, or to develop suitable ways of implementing their very individual expectations, is a significantly rarer occurrence in music history, apart from the occasional performing musician who also dived into composing.Elena Denisova has been working together with the Carinthian violinmaker Thomas Adunka for some time, and a first concrete result of her collaboration with the Swiss violinmaker Karl Koch is already documented on CD. The works performed are pieces for violin and piano by Giuseppe Tartini, Edvard Grieg and Sergei Prokofiev.But not only contemporary violinmakers are inspired by Elena Denisova's lively interest. It is just as important to her to work together with composers from all over the world. She and her husband, with whom she frequently performs in various chamber music ensembles, have encouraged numerous composers to write new works.This includes for example the Dutch composer Jo Spork, whom she met in 1988 on the occasion of the Russian premiere of his first piano trio. The resulting close collaboration led in 2008 to the CD Silent Days. Chamber Music II. With its overtures, minuet, double and a connecting arioso this work exhibits a close connection to Johann Sebastian Bach's partitas for solo violin. Indeed, the revival and renewal of old, no longer fashionable musical forms is a particular concern of Denisova. A successful example from recent times is a series of new capriccios for solo violin in the style of Paganini's famous Pièces that she commissioned and premiered.Josef Matthias Hauer's student Nikolaus Fheodoroff also composed works commissioned by Elena Denisova and Alexei Kornienko. He based his 1992 composition Reminiszenzen for violin, cello and piano on the Russian folk song "Vijdi, vijdi Ivanku . . .". This song not only provides the first half of the twelve-tone series used, but also determines the vertical and horizontal structure of the piece, before it is quoted literarily as a three-part canon between the violin, the cello and the piano towards the end. Previously Elena Denisova had premiered Fheodoroff's Concerto for Violin, Strings and Timpani, a piece that she later recorded with the Collegium Musicum Carinthia, directed by Alexei Kornienko. This CD is yet another example of the violinist's desire to form manifold links between music of the Classical Period and music of our time, given that it combines Fheodoroff's piece with Beethoven's Violin Concerto, including cadenzas written by Fheodoroff.Another example of her extensive concert repertoire is given by her recording of sonatas for solo violin by the St. Petersburg violin virtuoso, conductor and composer Ivan Yevstafyevich Khandoshkin (1747-1804), which were entirely unknown in Austria previously, as well as some pieces for organ and violin by the Liechtensteinian Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901).Elena Denisova also enjoys working with Mikhail Kollontay, a composer born in Moscow in 1953. In his piano trio Ten Words of Mussorgsky on Victor Gartman's Death, which was commissioned in 1993 by the Jeunesse Musicale for Elena Denisova and Alexei Kornienko, he alludes to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.