Glazunov: Rêverie Orientale, for clarinet and string quartet (Op.14 No.2, 1886)                         

Glazunov is not a composer whose music is discussed with any great enthusiasm these days – if it is discussed at all, for it is certainly performed with very little regularity (with the exception of the wonderful violin concerto, Op.82, which is worthy of a place alongside the more celebrated Dvořák or Bruch). At a very early age Glazunov possessed the gift of an extraordinarily quick and brilliant musical mind, so that his first symphony was performed – with great success, and the approval of Liszt – before he was seventeen. His talents were cultivated by such teachers as Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov into a formidable technique, and the resulting effortlessness with which he was able to compose characterises virtually his entire vast output.

Should his fate be to be remembered chiefly for his masterly realisations of Borodin’s unfinished compositions (notably the opera Prince Igor and the third symphony), or as Shostakovich’s teacher at the Leningrad Conservatoire, this would be to devalue grossly the appeal of his own richly rewarding music. Composed in March 1886, with the experience of two of his seven string quartets already behind him, this haunting little piece actually grew out of an Adagio for two clarinets. Although it was orchestrated the following month the composer retained a preference for the more intimate chamber version: firmly in the Russian tradition, sounding at times more Borodin-like than Borodin! – a style at once so recognisable that the national characteristic supposedly evoked by the title barely adds a foreign accent: the colourful imagination of a confirmed Russian, dreaming of far-off lands.

© Alan George
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