Alexander Glazunov was always one of those composers I felt kind of sheepish about liking. I remember sitting at a listening bar at a used record shop in Philadelphia and asking to preview a recording of Glazunov’s ballet music. “I know I’m not supposed to like this stuff,” I commented, almost apologetically.
Admittedly, at the time, other than the Violin Concerto, I didn’t really know a lot of great recordings of his music. I found the Marco Polo releases I had heard, with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, to be underwhelming, and these prejudiced me against the composer for years. But Neeme Järvi’s performances on Chandos were a revelation. Then of course I eventually got my hands on the Melodiya issues with Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and Evgeny Svetlanov.
Okay, so Glazunov isn’t Beethoven. Who is? But at his best, his music is well-crafted, attractive (to me, anyway), and marked by an abundance of memorable melodies that would make any honest composer jealous.
Join me on this week’s “Music from Marlboro” in enjoying Glazunov’s String Quintet in A major (1891). The work is full of serene lyricism, generously melodic and beautiful. We’ll hear it performed at the Marlboro Music Festival in 1982 by violinists Sylvie Gazeau and Ernestine Schor, violist Toby Hoffman, and once-and-future cellists of the Guarneri Quartet, David Soyer and Peter Wiley.
Above and beyond his own merits as a composer, Glazunov had an eye for developing young talent. In the capacity of director of the Petrograd Conservatory, Glazunov saw to it that a young Dmitri Shostakovich be allowed to bypass preparatory theoretical courses and enter directly into the conservatory’s composition program. In general, Shostakovich was lukewarm on his mentor’s music, but he had very kind words for the man and expressed admiration for his scherzos.
We’ll preface Glazunov’s Quintet with Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 4 in D major (1949). Shostakovich’s quartet grew out of a newfound confidence on the part of the composer as a result of Stalin personally selecting him as a cultural ambassador to the West. Shostakovich persuaded Stalin that if that were going to be the case, then perhaps it would be a good idea to lift the ban on Soviet performances of his music. Otherwise, it might look a little peculiar to outsiders.
Papa Joe agreed, and Shostakovich promptly embarked on his new quartet, which he loaded up with Jewish folk songs and all sorts of things that had a history of angering the “wise leader and teacher.” Fortunately for Shostakovich, who had walked a very precarious line with the authorities, his friends persuaded him not to allow the work to be performed publicly, and the composer put it in a drawer for another day.
That other day is now, and we’ll hear it played by violinists Sylvie Gazeau and Yuzuko Horigome, violist Philipp Naegele, and cellist Robie Brown Dan, at Marlboro in 1983.
Sylvie Gazeau does double duty in music by Shostakovich and Glazunov, on this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page
PHOTOS (Clockwise from left): Gazeau, Glazunov, and Shostakovich
