Reinhold Gliere (1875-1956)

Started by vandermolen, April 08, 2007, 02:37:36 PM

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vandermolen

#20
Ilya Murometz is being played at the London Proms this summer on 19th July. Vassily Sinaisky BBC PO.  :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2007/whatson/1907.shtml#prom8
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

sound67

"Ilya Murotmetz" is a masterpiece of Romantic tone poems and quite nicely sustains its epic length (which depending on performance, can vary a great deal). I've got four recordings, the Downes (Chandos, lovely), the Botstein (Telarc, also great), the Farberman (Unicorn/Regis, the slowest but most majestic) and the Johanos (Naxos, routine).



Avoid Stokowski's truncated version which cuts the work down by half!

Also worthy is the Chandos CD containing the concertos for Harp and for Coloratura Soprano (yes, that's right):



Coupled with Ginastera's masterful Harp Concerto.

Gliere was a minor composer to be sure. His other two symphonies are not as distinguished, and of the ballet scores only "The Red Poppy"   is compelling.

Thomas
"Vivaldi didn't compose 500 concertos. He composed the same concerto 500 times" - Igor Stravinsky

"Mozart is a menace to musical progress, a relic of rituals that were losing relevance in his own time and are meaningless to ours." - Norman Lebrecht

vandermolen

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Catison

Quote from: sound67 on May 22, 2007, 11:29:37 PM
Avoid Stokowski's truncated version which cuts the work down by half!

The Botstein recording also has several cuts, but yet I still enjoy it.
-Brett

Harry

Quote from: brianrein on May 22, 2007, 06:42:14 PM
Just wanted to bump this thread up because I've been listening to Gliere again lately and still love his music.  :)  Ilya Muromets is ... well unique. In a sprawling, sumptuous, wondrous way.

I would say go for the Chandos recordings, they are much better recorded, the overall quality of music making is much better.
It needs a good recording because of the somewhat thick scoring, so you must be able to follow it all, otherwise you loose track quickly.

bhodges

Quote from: sound67 on May 22, 2007, 11:29:37 PM



I bought the Downes recording after hearing Charles Dutoit conduct the piece live a few years ago.  Loved both!  It's definitely a work that should show up in the concert hall more often. 

--Bruce

carlos

I've the classic recording of Nathan Rakhlin and
the Moscow Radio and TV 0. (1975), and I like
it very much.
Piantale a la leche hermano, que eso arruina el corazón! (from a tango's letter)

vandermolen

Gliere featured on BBC Radio 3 this week, so I thought I'd revive this old thread. Maybe he was born 50 or more years too late but symphonies 2 and 3 remain works I greatly enjoy and often return to.  Seeing the sprawling epic Ilya Murometz Symphony live in London was a great experience.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

bhodges

Quote from: vandermolen on March 27, 2009, 08:26:23 AM
Gliere featured on BBC Radio 3 this week, so I thought I'd revive this old thread. Maybe he was born 50 or more years too late but symphonies 2 and 3 remain works I greatly enjoy and often return to.  Seeing the sprawling epic Ilya Murometz Symphony live in London was a great experience.

Did you hear this recently?  (I've only heard it live once.)

PS, can't believe no one posted anything in this thread in almost two years!

--Bruce

vandermolen

Quote from: bhodges on March 27, 2009, 08:35:06 AM
Did you hear this recently?  (I've only heard it live once.)

PS, can't believe no one posted anything in this thread in almost two years!

--Bruce

Prob. about 3/5 years ago Bruce, at the Barbican Centre. I think that it was the first British performance of the work since c 1912! A great occasion.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

bhodges

Quote from: vandermolen on March 27, 2009, 08:47:55 AM
I think that it was the first British performance of the work since c 1912!

:o  Is that just a crime, or what?  (Not that the U.S. is programming it nightly either; I don't think I've seen it on a program since the Dutoit performance I heard.)

--Bruce

Dundonnell

I will join you in expressing my love for 'Ilya Murometz'(in the Chandos/Downes performance), the Second Symphony, the Harp Concerto etc but can I put in a word for the works which I don't think have been mentioned so far?

There is the Horn Concerto(coupled on Chandos with the Symphonic Suite from the Ballet "The Bronze Horseman"), the splendid Symphonic Poem "The Zaporozhy Cossacks"(the Chandos coupling for the Second Symphony), but most of all-and available on the Naxos disc of the Symphony No.1-the Symphonic Poem "The Sirens", a quite superb piece of nature portraiture whch sounds like Sibelius and Bax rolled together into an intoxicating whole :). If you haven't heard "The Sirens" then I strongly recommend it to you!

vandermolen

Quote from: Dundonnell on March 27, 2009, 05:39:56 PM
I will join you in expressing my love for 'Ilya Murometz'(in the Chandos/Downes performance), the Second Symphony, the Harp Concerto etc but can I put in a word for the works which I don't think have been mentioned so far?

There is the Horn Concerto(coupled on Chandos with the Symphonic Suite from the Ballet "The Bronze Horseman"), the splendid Symphonic Poem "The Zaporozhy Cossacks"(the Chandos coupling for the Second Symphony), but most of all-and available on the Naxos disc of the Symphony No.1-the Symphonic Poem "The Sirens", a quite superb piece of nature portraiture whch sounds like Sibelius and Bax rolled together into an intoxicating whole :). If you haven't heard "The Sirens" then I strongly recommend it to you!

Fortunately I have that CD and will play it over the weekend. Am currently listening to the wonderfully sprawlingly indulgent Harold Faberman RPO recording of Ilya Muromets on Regis (from early early digital Unicorn LPs).
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

DFO

A friend trade me a CD copied from LP with Gliere's two string quartets; No1
op.2 and No2 op.20. The first is an early piece rather weak, but the second is a splendid and very Russian one, IMO as good as any of Glazunov's. Recommended.

vandermolen

Quote from: DFO on March 28, 2009, 04:01:09 PM
A friend trade me a CD copied from LP with Gliere's two string quartets; No1
op.2 and No2 op.20. The first is an early piece rather weak, but the second is a splendid and very Russian one, IMO as good as any of Glazunov's. Recommended.

Thanks, I shall look out for SQ No 2.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Cato

Symphony #3 "Ilya Murometz" is at least on the same epic level as Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead, albeit longer!

If it does not compete e.g. with Schoenberg's Gurrelieder or Pelleas und Melisande or the Mahler Tenth in pushing tonality to the limit and beyond, one can only say that Gliere, like Rachmaninov, saw no reason for it.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

schweitzeralan

Quote from: vandermolen on April 08, 2007, 02:37:36 PM
Often derided (by Shostakovich for one) and the composer of the massive "overblown" "Ilya Muromets" symphony, I have rather a soft spot for Gliere.  I had the great good fortune to hear Ilya Muromets live in London a few years ago (the first UK performance of the complete work since 1912!) and greatly enjoyed it.  Ok, it is a sprawling epic but wonderfully atmospheric and moving in the doomed apotheosis of the final movement.  I like Symphony 2 also.

any other views on Gliere?
The 3rd is a quintessential masterpiece; much Scriabin influence but marvelously moves along on its own.  However, I am not nearly as impressed with the 2nd.

vandermolen

Quote from: schweitzeralan on April 03, 2009, 07:22:02 AM
The 3rd is a quintessential masterpiece; much Scriabin influence but marvelously moves along on its own.  However, I am not nearly as impressed with the 2nd.

Thanks. I largely agree. Symphony No 3 is Gliere's clain to posterity I think.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Cato

For all of you Gliere/Murometz junkies, some kind soul downloaded the score to the Third Symphony to the Petrucci Music Library online!!!

See:  http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.3%2C_Op.42_%27Ilya_Murometz%27_%28Glière%2C_Reinhold%29
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Moldyoldie

[Pasted from "What Are You Listening To?"]

Glière: Symphony No. 3 "Ilya Murometz"
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Harold Farberman, cond.
UNICORN-KANCHANA

This is an interminable, nearly 100-minute exercise in Late Romantic non-expression.  The first hour might make for good background music, but only if one can abide a persistent drone of near-Wagnerian swelling and ebbing of massed strings -- Dramamine is not included.  I realize the symphony has a program, but this might work better as a silent movie soundtrack; several grueling listens have failed to convince me otherwise.

Glière's "Ilya Murometz" has its fervent fans, but if one truly wishes to be introduced to this bloated gargantua, I'd feel comfortable in suggesting almost any other recording (though I've yet to hear any of them and am well-nigh loath to do so), apparently all of which are either appreciably amended or reinterpreted for "listening compactness".  Farberman's recording is probably best left for cognoscenti...or for someone's extended sessions of morbid self-imposed sleep deprivation.
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