Glazunov - Symphony No.8; Ballade Op.78; Slavonic Festival Op.26a

Alexander Glazunov

Symphony No.8 in E flat Op.83

Ballade in F major Op. 78*

Slavonic festival in G Op 26a*

The USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra * & The USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra

Odisseiy Dimitriedi* & Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (Conductors)

...The Eighth Symphony (1903-1905) is the main attraction, however, and the more I listen to this piece, the more I find its significance in Russian music (and music beyond Russia). It is to my mind the composer's most profound utterance, with the outer movements with some optimism though in ways that are not at all easy-going or as crystal clear. For example, listen to how the first movement begins confidently. But as the movement gets going, there's something troubling and disturbing in some of its articulacy. The level of optimism is not the same as, say, in his Fifth Symphony. Even the finale doesn't have the typical Glazunovian robustness (or rodomontade) that we're grown somewhat accustomed to (it took quite some time for it to become uplifting and even that isn't so easy going as well). Clearly the conditions and events of leading up to 1905 and beyond affected Glazunov perhaps to the point that he himself couldn't have foreseen. And you'll see that in the middle movements of the Symphony, which to my mind form the core, the very heart of the work. The gravity of anguish in the Mesto movement is profound (not as deep as in Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony, but tellingly and compellingly sombre enough) and the climax, which reprises the beginning material of the movement, is remarkable for its depth and poignancy of despair. The Scherzo (a rondo in essence), likewise, has less charm than the previous scherzi of Glaznunov's symphonies (diabolical his adopted daughter Elena Glazunov-Gunther called it)....