HMR Project: History of Music & Modern Recording

Alexander Glazunov

Born in Saint Petersburg on 10 August 1865, Alexander Glazunov (Алекса́ндр Глазуно́в) was the son of a rich publisher whose major claim to fame would include eight symphonies. He also composed works for chamber, stage, piano and voice along with concertantes and various instrumentals. He began piano at age nine and composing a couple years later. Glazunov's interests were much aligned with Tchaikovsky's toward the internationalization of Russian music, also finding much to be gained in Western Europe. Even so, he was a firm romantic for whom modernistic approaches to composition that arose during his career were "cacophonic" at best. In 1879 he became protégé to Rimsky-Korsakov.

Glazunov's Op 1 is assigned to 'String Quartet No.1' in D major composed in 1882 toward publication in 1887. Glazunov wrote six more such quartets to as late as Op 107 ('Hommage au Passé') in C major in 1930, published in Leipzig in 1931. Glazunov's 'Symphony No.1' ('Slavonian Symphony') in E major Op 5 was composed at age sixteen with a dedication to Rimsky-Korsakov toward premiere in St. Petersburg sometime in 1882.

'String Quartet No.1' Op 1 in D minor Alexander Glazunov

Comp 1882 Pub 1887

Dedicated to Lyudmila Shestakova (sister of Mikhail Glinka)

Shostakovich Quartet

IMSLP Wikipedia Français

'Symphony No.1' ('Slavonian Symphony') Op 5 in E major Alexander Glazunov

Comp 18801882 Premiere 1882 Pub 1887

Dedicated to Rimsky-Korsakov

USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra / Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

Alan Beggerow IMSLP Wikipedia English

Glazunov quickly came to note internationally due to falling in with the Belyayev Circle, a loose association of composers gravitating about publisher, Mitrofan Belyayev. The Belyayev Circle was successor to the Moguchaya Kuchka (the Mighty Bunch aka The Five) led by Mily Balakirev whose interest had been in developing a distinctive nationalistic Russian music. Belyayev's circle owned the same purpose with the additional task of taking Russia west to Europe, which Belyayev and Glazunov did in 1884 toward the performance of 'Symphony No.1' in Weimar, Germany, in 1885, inaugurating Belyayev's greater project of staging symphonies in Germany by Russian composers in 1886 and 1887 following his establishment of a publishing house in Leipzig in 1885. Though Glazunov was an immediate success in Germany he didn't begin conducting until 1888. He began teaching at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory [Wikipedia] in 1899.

Among Glazunov's most favored works is 'Violin Concerto' in A minor Op 82 which premiered in St. Petersburg on 15 February 1905. Glazunov had dedicated that to violin virtuoso, Leopold Auer, who performed it.

'Violin Concerto' Op 82 in A minor Alexander Glazunov

Comp 1904 Premiere 15 Feb 1905 in St. Petersburg Russian Musical Society

Pub 1905 in Leipzig

Dedicated to violinist Leopold Auer

WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln / Semyon Bychkov

Violin: Hilary Hahn

IMSLP Calum MacDonald Wikipedia English

Glazunov became director at the Petrograd Conservatory in 1905 until 1928 during which latter time he championed young Shostakovich who became a student there in 1919 at age thirteen. Glazunov's 'Symphony No.8' in E flat major Op 83 which is considered by some his best had been composed in 1905 toward publication in 1907.

'Symphony No.8' Op 83 in E-flat major Alexander Glazunov

Comp 1905 Pub 1907

Royal Scottish National Orchestra / José Serebrier

IMSLP Wikipedia English

Glazunov was honored with an honorary doctorate at both Oxford and Cambridge in 1907. His prestige at St. Pete's among international peers made his a smooth transition from Imperial to Bolshevik Russia upon the Revolution of 1917-1922. There was no problem with his music and the new regime could use a well-regarded world-class composer. Glazunov may have completed 'Piano Concerto No.2' Op 100 about eight months into the Revolution in autumn of 1917.

'Piano Concerto No.2' Op 100 in B major / E major Alexander Glazunov

Comp 1905 Pub 1907

Symphonia ASSAI / Wouter Lenaerts

Piano: Philippe Lamouris

IMSLP Francis Pott 日本語版ウィキペディア

In 1928 Glazunov left Russia for Vienna, never to return. He toured Europe and the States, then settled in Paris in 1929. The next year he finished his seventh and last string quartet which he titled 'Homage to the Past' and dedicated to the Gordon String Quartet. Among Glazunov's more excursive compositions was per an instrument relatively new and not used a lot in classical composition, that being 'Saxophone Concerto' in E flat major Op 109 premiered in Paris by German saxophonist, Sigurd Raschèr, on 25 November 1934.