Alexander Glasunow

3 Miniatures op. 42

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov (1865-1936) trained under Rimsky- Korsakov and became the most illustrious Russian composer and conductor immediately succeeding Tchaikovsky. Glazunov's close affinity with the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, of which institution he would later become Director for more than two decades, placed him ideally to assist in the Institute's transition to the Petrograd Conservatory in the immediate wake of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. For the last six years of his life, Glazunov left the USSR, feeling hemmed in by propagandist restrictions and at the same time out of kilter with the Modernist movement.

He lived in exile for a time, touring the USA, before eventually settling in Paris, though his stoical brand of Russian Romanticism never waned. Despite being partly remembered for having taught Shostakovich, Glazunov was never known as a revolutionary composer, more inclined to align himself with 19th century ideologies than with the thrusting new compositional paths forged by Prokofiev and others. Indeed, the nationalistic movement so successfully espoused by Balakirev found a new energy in Glazunov's hands, and he discovered an opulence of scale which leaned more in the direction of Borodin.

There can be no doubting Glazunov's technical mastery, which successfully drew together contrapuntal, lyrical and virtuosic skills, and which were admired by the likes of Liszt. Glazunov steered a steady course at a time when it was most sorely needed; one need only hear the marvellous Violin Concerto in A minor to experience the full power and authority of his writing, though he possessed an enviable touch with more intimate forms too, such as those readily to be heard in these three charming Miniatures Op.42, originally composed for piano.