ALEXANDER GLAZUNOV (1865 – 1936)

For the next three successive lectures, Matthew’s subjects will be From Russia
With Love featuring Glazunov; Finland Awakes, spotlight on Sibelius; and
Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen with Carl Nielsen and his Four
Temperaments. These three share the same birth year of 1865. Sibelius has
been recognized in Britain since the beginning of the twentieth century if only
for Valse Triste and Finlandia to begin with. Nielsen was virtually unknown
before the 1950, and Glazunov was best known for orchestrating Borodin’s
overture to Prince Igor from memory; the ballet, “the Seasons”, his violin
concerto and not a lot else and that remains pretty well the case still.
Here I am setting out just a little about him. He was born in Saint Petersburg, the
son of a wealthy publisher, and began studying piano at the age of nine and
composing at 11. When he was 14 he came to the attention of Balakirev, former
leader of the nationalist group, "The Five". He in turn passed him to Rimsky-
Korsakov, a tutor at the conservatoire. Rimsky had the work premiered in 1882
and it was said to have been lavishly praised by Borodin and Stasov, and art
critic and publisher.
Glazunov was a bright new-comer, on the ball and blessed with an impressive
memory. He impressed the composers with whom he worked and he learned
quickly from them. He reproduced their sound world, a veritable Rory Bremner
of Russian composers. He helped others and most famously claimed to hear
Borodin play a piano version of the overture to Prince Igor which he
remembered in such detail that he, Glazunov, then 21, was able to score it for
orchestra, note for note, after Borodin’s sudden death. Some suggest that this
was a whopper and that he had written it himself as he could never have
remembered it all or known which instruments Borodin had had in mind. This
might have been based on a possible motive that this would get the overture,
indeed the opera, played. That might be so. On the other hand I can say that
apart from the Polovstian Dances from the same opera it was the first Borodin
that I heard and it thrills me as it is to this day. Glazunov got it so right. And by
the way, he orchestrated the Polovstian Dances as well.
Here I will also give a brief background to the Russian musical scene. It can be
found in my earlier articles, “Glinka and The Five” and also in “Rimsky-
Korsakov”. The Famous Five were led by Balakirev but banded together by
Stasov. Apart from Rimsky, the others were Borodin, Mussorgsky and Cui. Their
purpose was to write Russian music for Russians and to disparage academy
training and the West. The establishment composers were the conservatives,
led by the Rubinstein brothers, Anton and Nicolai, who headed respectively the
St Petersburg and Moscow conservatoires. In between were other Russian
composers, most notably, Tchaikovsky, who were academy trained but could
straddle the boundaries of conventional western music and write music as
Russian as Tolstoy. The five, also known as the Mighty Handful, would break
up with Rimsky, moving into academic studies for self improvement at the St
Petersburg conservatoire, and also with the early deaths of Mussorgsky (1881)
and Borodin (1887). As for Balakirev, he went into isolation for ten years. As for
Cui, well, no-one knew much about him before or after.
Glazunov would stand out in that he successfully reconciled nationalism and
the wider European scene. He took on board Balakirev's nationalism whilst
tending more towards Borodin's epic grandeur. Furthermore he learned his
orchestral virtuosity from Rimsky-Korsakov. In later years, once he was on the
staff of the Conservatoire, he developed a more conservative leaning under the
influence of Taneyev with his contrapuntal skill.
However at the outset it was Rimsky-Korsakov who promoted and taught
Glazunov as a private student. Rimsky wrote that his musical development
progressed not by the day, but literally by the hour. Their relationship also
changed and by the spring of 1881, Rimsky-Korsakov treated Glazunov more as
a junior colleague than a music student.
Apart from support from Rimsky, there was also promotion by the Belyayev
Circle. Mitrofan Belyayev. was a wealthy timber merchant and amateur
musician. In 1885 he established a publishing house in Leipzig and published
music by Glazunov, Lyadov, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. It was in fact
Lyadov who introduced him to Glazunov's first symphony. Lyadov’s own music
is not that extensive but what there is are precious gems. He too became a
professor at the Conservatoire. Belalayev took a keen interest in Glazunov’s
works and those of an entire new gathering of nationalist composers. The new
boys were quite different from the Five in that they combined professional
learning with the Russian cultural sound world.
In 1884 Glazunov accompanied Belyayev on a visit to central Europe and in
Weimar he met Liszt before whom Glazunov's First Symphony was performed.
That same year Belyayev hired an orchestra to play Glazunov's First Symphony
and an orchestral suite of his. Its success led Belyayev to mount a public
concert of works by these composers which grew into the Russian Symphony
Concerts. These were inaugurated during the 1886–1887 season. Soon other
young composers appealed for his help. Concert planning was not to be
Belyayev’s forte and he asked Glazunov to serve with Rimsky-Korsakov and
Lyadov on an advisory council. It was from this that the group of composers
that formed became known at the Belyayev Circle.
It was from this that Glazunov began to build an international reputation. He
had written his first symphonies in his teens. He then entered into and emerged
from a creative crisis in 1890–1891 with a new maturity Creatively this was his
time. He produced music of his time influenced not only by the nationalists but
by Tchaikovsky whose death in 1893 shook the houses. During the 1890s
Glazunov wrote three symphonies, two string quartets and a ballet. In 1896 he
took up conducting but that is a separate story. He remained Rimsky’s right
hand man at the conservatory and found his niche in teaching.
In 1899 he completed his ballet, the Seasons, presenting to his first audience in
Moscow all four seasons commencing with Winter and ending with Autumn. It
is a delight for a weather forecaster’s night out. It is certainly glittering on stage
and musically with the final bacchanale reminiscent to my ears of the signature
tune of BBC’s Grandstand in the days of David Coleman. It remains one of his
most popular works. In 1907 it was revived in St Petersburg. Anna Pavlova was
in both productions.
As Russia moved into the twentieth century times were changing even if
Glazunov wasn’t and didn’t realize it. 1905, saw the outbreak of an uprising in
Russia. It could be said to have been a practice run for 1917. In particular there
was the naval mutiny at Odessa on the Black Sea, famously depicted in
Eisentstein’s film “the Battleship Potemkin”. In the country there was a call for
the setting up of a Duma which did not happen. Unrest and protest was
prominent at the conservatory at St Petersburg where the students went on
strike and several tutors were suspended. Having put his signature to the
protest in order to lend his weight of authority, Rimsky-Korsakov was dismissed
and Glazunov was elected director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.
Glazunov to his credit immediately restored Rimsky but their rankings were then
reversed. This was at a time when Glazunov was at the height of his creative
powers. His best works from this period are considered his Eighth Symphony
and his Violin Concerto. He had reached the apogee of his international repute.
He conducted the last of the Russian Historical Concerts in Paris on 17 May
1907 and went on to receive honorary doctorates from Oxford and Cambridge.
To celebrate his 25th anniversary as a composer there were cycles of all-
Glazunov concerts in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. And there was the revival
of the Seasons.
With composition he went into slow motion. Still he continued to carry on from
the rostrum. Mind you, for the record, Glazunov’s reputation in this field stems
more as a result of his failures than of his successes. He had made his
conducting debut in 1888. The following year, he conducted his second
symphony in Paris at the World Exhibition. He was appointed conductor for the
Russian Symphony Concerts in 1896. In March of that year he conducted the
posthumous premiere of Tchaikovsky's overture, The Storm. It was in 1897, he
led the disastrous premiere of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No 1. A more detailed
account of that can be read in my sketch on Rachmaninoff. This triggered off
Rachmaninoff's three-year depression. Orchestral players were disheartened by
his stick technique and his secret drinking. Drunk or not, Glazunov always
found himself with insufficient rehearsal time and, while he loved the art of
conducting, he is said never to have fully mastered it. His drinking was legion
with a bottle tucked away in his desk or near his feet. Later in the early 1920’s
Shostakovich would be one of his favoured pupils, not that Glazunov gave him
lessons so much as Shostakovich’s father supplied the bottles wrapped up as
parcels.
However, give Glazunov his due. He was running a music academy which he did
dutifully for twenty five years. The fact is that you cannot have a full time job
which takes you over 24/5 and conduct and tour and find time to compose. In
that department he had done time, and time stood still.
Move on to 1909 and then a little later. That was when Diaghileff first took the
Russian opera to Europe and introduced Prince Igor and Boris Godunov to Paris
and London. He then switched to the Ballets Russes and needed a composer of
renown, able to compose speedily and there were a number of big names. There
was Rimsky Korsakov – Scheherazade was always Diaghileff’s favourite – but
Rimsky died in 1908. There was Glazunov who was the top ballet composer of
the day with the Seasons. However Glazunov was not going to give up his
duties at the conservatory, let alone be on some standby duty for Diaghileff. In
the end, Stravinsky, a private pupil of Rimsky was unknown but had the nouse
to be there and take on the task. The Russian Ballet, indeed history, would have
been different had Glazunov taken his chances. Mind you I doubt he would have
lasted the course.
Despite the hardships he suffered during World War I and the ensuing Russian
Civil War, Glazunov remained active as a conductor. He conducted concerts in
factories, clubs and Red Army posts. He played a prominent part in 1927 for the
centenary of Beethoven's death, as a conductor. After the end of World War I,
he set to in the reorganization of the Conservatory. He had no reason to seek to
depart as did Rachmaninov or Prokofiev who was not so much an emigré as
some one who took indefinite leave of absence for the best part of twenty years.
During his tenure at the Conservatory, Glazunov worked tirelessly to improve
the curriculum, raise the standards for students and staff. His new masters were
the Soviet State under Lenin where the artists were encouraged in their
modernism and freedom. Not being even a modernist, Glazunov had little to
concern him other than there being sufficient financial support for the
Conservatory.
By the time Lenin died and Stalin came to power it probably became clear to
Glazunov that change was in the air. Up till then he had established a sound
working relationship with the Bolshevik regime, especially with the minister of
education. Opposition was coming from within the Conservatory with,
Glazunov's conservatism being under attack. Increasingly, professors
demanded more progressive methods, and students wanted greater rights.
Glazunov could not live with these demands and was resistant to them. Taking
advantage of an opportunity to get away for the Schubert centenary celebrations
in Vienna in 1928, he went, never to return.
After touring Europe and America, he took up residence in Paris in 1929, always
claiming that the reason for his continued absence from Russia was "ill health";
this enabled him to remain a respected composer in the Soviet Union, unlike
Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff, who had left for other reasons. In 1929, he
conducted in Paris the first complete electrical recording of The Seasons. In
1934, he wrote his Saxophone Concerto, a virtuoso and lyrical work for the alto
saxophone.
Up till now, there has been no Mrs Glazunov around and I am not aware of there
having been any understudies for that role. In 1929, now aged 64, Glazunov
married the 54-year-old Olga Nikolayevna Gavrilova. The previous year, Olga's
daughter Elena Gavrilova had been the soloist in the first Paris performance of
his second piano concerto. She then used the name Elena Glazunova. Elena’s
husband took over managing Glazunov's professional negotiations and
matters.
Glazunov died at the age of 70 in 1936 in Neuilly-sur-Seine (it borders the Bois
de Boulogne – my wife comes from there). The announcement of his death came
as a shock to many. He had been associated with the past rather than of the
present and it had been assumed by the many that he had already been dead
for many years.