Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season September-October 2015 | Page 23

However, though he went on to enjoy
an honorable career as a composer and
director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory (both Prokofiev and Shostakovich
studied with him), Glazunov, like
many prodigies, did not quite fulfill his
early promise. He remained a staunch
conservative, wedded to the lyrical
Romantic style of late-19th-century
Russian composers, especially Tchaikovsky. However, like Tchaikovsky,
he was a master of heartfelt, expressive
melody, and his finest works—such as
his Violin Concerto—have remained
popular with performers and audiences.
Written in 1904, the Violin Concerto
is an immensely appealing work, full of
marvelous tunes, sparkling orchestration
and the kind of virtuoso pyrotechnics top
violinists love to sink their bows into. In
true Romantic style, its three movements
flow together continuously. Moreover,
its first and second movements are, in
the manner of Liszt, completely fused,
sharing the same thematic material.
Movement one: Over the throb of
clarinets and bassoons, the violin immediately sings a soulful Slavic melody that
favors its warm low register. Sweeter still
is its second theme, which opens with
a pensive four-note descent, but then

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@3:30PM

CHAMBER MUSIC BY
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SEPT 27, 2015
Boris Slutsky & Friends

Featuring members of the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

SEPT 20, 2015

OCT 11, 2015

Barbara Dever & Phillip Collister

eption

NOV 15, 2015

Free Post-Concert Reception

Duo Baldo

NOV 01, 2015
NOV 22, 2015

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All concerts take place at the Second Presbyterian Church, 4200 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD

Photo by James Bartolomeo

Over the throb of clarinets
and bassoons, the violin
immediately sings a soulful
Slavic melody.

SUNDAYS
@7:30PM

Rec

First Symphony was premiered to great
acclaim at a major professional concert
in St. Petersburg, and later that year he
introduced his First String Quartet as
well. The Russian arts patron Belyayev
was so impressed he founded the Russian
Symphony Concerts in St. Petersburg
to promote the music of Glazunov
and other, not quite so young, Russian
talents. In 1884, Belyayev brought the
teenager to meet Franz Liszt in Weimar,
and Liszt, too, promoted Glazunov’s
reputation in western Europe.

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SEPTEMBER– OCTOBER 2015 |

O v ertur e

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