Firma Melodiya presents an album of concert works by the outstanding Russian composer Alexander Glazunov.
"…An incredibly wide scope, power, inspiration, lightness of mighty moods, wonderful beauty, magnificent fantasy, sometimes humour, melancholy, passion and always amazing clarity and freedom of form", this is how Vladimir Stasov, a critic and Glazunov's contemporary, defined the main properties of the composer's music.
A pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev, and a true successor of the traditions of The Five, Glazunov was also a great admirer of Tchaikovsky's works and synthesized the two major traditions of the Russian music art of the 19th century in his music.
Glazunov's Violin Concerto is among the most popular works of the world's violin literature. The other featured pieces created during the composer's late period when he lived abroad are less known.
The Concerto Ballata for cello and orchestra was ordered by and dedicated to the great cellist Pablo Casals. The Concerto for saxophone and orchestra was inspired by a performance of the National Guard orchestra in Paris. Amazed with the timbre of the instrument, then very rare in academic music, and a virtuosic performance, he created a piece where the saxophone in combination with string instruments sounds surprisingly softly and songfully in a Russian way.
Glazunov's compositions are performed by the outstanding Russian musicians such as Viktor Tretiakov (violin), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello) and Lev Mikhailov (saxophone).
