Reinhold Gliere - Symphony No 3 "Ilya Muromets"

Reinhold GLIERE (1875-1956)

Symphony No.3 in B minor Op. 42 "Ilya Muromets"

BBC Philharmonic

Edward Downes 

Glière (1875-1956) was one of the late Russian nationalists, along with Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, whose music collectively captures the waning years of Romanticism in Russia. Glière's Symphony No. 3, Ilya Muromets, of 1912 takes its thematic cues from Richard Wagner, particularly Wagner's German nationalism in such tales as the Nibelungenlied. Ilya Muromets is a hero of Russia's golden age--similar to Odysseus and Achilles--and the symphony paints the tale of his moody adventures and his lifelong journeying. It is probably Glière's greatest symphony, imbued with the sense of something irretrievably lost because of the rise of Communism. 

Paul Cook