Glière: Orchestral Works

Read About This Recording

Reinhold Gliere is traditionally thought to represent the second generation of Russian composers — those who followed the brilliant Russian Five, who, collectively, put Russia on the musical map. The real ingenious work had already been done and composers such as Gliere, Liadov and Glazunov were considered expert though largely uninspired second-raters. Until recently, Gliere has been remembered in the West only for a single symphony (No. 3, "Ilya Murometz"), a single dance from his ballet The Red Poppy and for his being the first and most significant teacher of Sergei Prokofieff.

Some of this bad rep and subsequent neglect can be explained by the phenomenon of the far more avant-garde Shostakovich, in particular, and by the exigencies of cold war politics in general. The musically conservative Gliere had no trouble being accepted by the Soviet political hierarchy and was eventually elevated to the status of People's Artist of the USSR — surely the kiss of death during the Eisenhower years.

This release gives us the material for a major reassessment of his work.

Gliere is a superfine orchestral colorist who is able to deploy the large, Post-Romantic orchestra with the aplomb of an Elgar or a Richard Strauss. His writing is marked by soaring melody, luminous harmony and a telling sensitivity to the ethnic flavors and often out-and-out exoticism of his themes. Like Rimsky-Korsakov before him, he chronicles the Eastern influences on Russian music and, like Rimsky's, his stuff will test the mettle of any state-of-the-art sound system.

From the Tchiakovskian Ballad Op. 4, through the funky little Concert Waltz Op. 90, the exotic "Shakh-Senem," the echt-Russian "Overture on Slavonic Themes" and the "Heroic March for the Buryiat-Mongolian ASSR," Gliere pays homage to the kaleidoscopic multiculturalism of his Russia, transcends it, and informs our own multicultural world.

This recording, stunningly played by the BBC Philharmonic and enthusiastically (and sympathetically) conducted by Vassily Sinaisky, couldn't possibly make its case more eloquently.

—William Zagorski

Contents

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Concert Waltz, Op. 90; Ballad, Op. 4; Overture on Slavonic Themes; Heroic March for the Buryiat-Mongolian ASSR, Op. 71; Plus, Overtures: Holiday at Ferghana, Op. 75; Gyul'sara; Shakh-Senem.

BBC Philharmonic; Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor.