Glière (The) Orchestral Collection
Sumptuously scored Soviet-era music and a fitting tribute to a great conductor
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Reinhold Glière
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 13/2011
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 348
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN10679

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 3, 'Il'ya Mouromets' |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Downes, Conductor Reinhold Glière, Composer |
Symphony No. 2 |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Downes, Conductor Reinhold Glière, Composer |
(The) Zaporozhy Cossacks |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Downes, Conductor Reinhold Glière, Composer |
Symphony No. 1 |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Downes, Conductor Reinhold Glière, Composer |
Suite from 'The Red Poppy' |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Downes, Conductor Reinhold Glière, Composer |
Suite from 'The Bronze Horseman' |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Downes, Conductor Reinhold Glière, Composer |
Concerto for Horn and Orchestra |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Downes, Conductor Reinhold Glière, Composer Richard Watkins, Horn |
Gyul'sara |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Reinhold Glière, Composer Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor |
Concert Waltz |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Reinhold Glière, Composer Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor |
Shakh-Senem |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Reinhold Glière, Composer Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor |
Ballad |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Peter Dixon, Cello Reinhold Glière, Composer Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor |
Overture on Slavonic Themes |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Reinhold Glière, Composer Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor |
Heroic March for the Buryiat-Mongolian ASSR |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Reinhold Glière, Composer Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor |
Holiday at Ferghana |
Reinhold Glière, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Reinhold Glière, Composer Vassily Sinaisky, Conductor |
Author: Guy Rickards
Glière adapted quietly to the conditions of Soviet rule, dutifully fulfilling official conditions, often with politically correct use of musical elements from further-flung cultures of the Empire. Thus Gyul’sara (1936), Holiday at Ferghana (1940) and Shakh-Senem (1926) respectively deploy Tajik, Uzbek and Azeri features; only the quasi-tone-poem Heroic March for the Buryiat-Mongolian ASSR (1927, which I listened to while flying over Mongolia) has an openly political point in its juxtaposition of the Tsarist anthem and the Internationale.
In avoiding abstract forms such as the symphony post-Revolution, Glière escaped the dangerous criticisms that former pupil Prokofiev and especially Shostakovich had to endure. Glière’s party-line pieces, while slighter in content and ambition, do not show the same falling-off in quality of many of Shostakovich’s. His lighter music, such as the Ballad (neatly delivered by Peter Dixon), Concert Waltz and some sections of the suites were calculated to endear, while in the Overture on Slavonic Themes and The Zaporozhy Cossacks (1921) he plied this lighter style on a larger scale. Glière’s accommodation with the regime no doubt irked those colleagues anxious for artistic freedom but he seems to have been unbothered by the constraints.
Chandos’s recordings still sound glorious and the orchestra’s manifest engagement with the music shines through. Watkins is excellent in the Horn Concerto but overall it is Downes’s enthusiasm that makes the set so valuable. It is really a memorial to him as much as the Bax symphonies are for Tod Handley and anyone who warms to the latter (Bax was a noted Russophile) will thoroughly enjoy these discs. I know I did.
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