Many years ago I read
an essay by Vaughan Williams lamenting
that critics seem unable to acknowledge
that German style is just that, and
that musicians of other countries do
and should write music in styles other
than the German style. He avowed that
German style isn’t better, it isn’t
"correct" and all other styles
"incorrect"; it’s just that
at a time when most symphony conductors
and soloists were German, this was the
music they admired most and played most
and worked at most. He called for critics
and music-lovers to be aware of other
styles and judge them according to their
own lights. This was also a rallying
cry in Russia at the end of the Nineteenth
Century against the invasion of German
Style in Russia when a native Russian
Style would be more appropriate for
Russian music. To the Russians of that
time Anton Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky
were the epitome of German style invading
Holy Mother Russia, and their works
were savaged in the Russian press for
being too German, even as they were
savaged in the German Press for being
too Russian. It’s no wonder Tchaikovsky
had anxiety problems. Dvořák’s
most “German” Symphony is his No.
9, "From the New World," which
is his most popular and widely played,
but his other symphonies in the "non-German"
style are equally masterful, and are
progressively becoming better appreciated.
It may be the current interest in world
music that is finally diluting the influence
of the German definition of well crafted
music.
The symphonies of Glazunov,
and these piano works, show that Glazunov
was the master of the whole range of
styles. As you can see above, some of
his piano works are Preludes and
Fugues, but there is a variety of
other forms as well. Anyone of any critical
persuasion could find some of his works
to love. His "German" Sixth
Symphony and Eighth Symphony have generally
been most popular in the West whereas
his Fifth Symphony has been most popular
in Russia. Like most Elgar and most
Vaughan Williams, the Glazunov Symphony
No. 5 is completely in the "non-Germanic"
style. No sonata form. No theme-development-recapitulation.
Each phrase of the symphony arises directly
from what has come before, as the circular
waves spreading on a pond, each centered
on the point where the stone hit the
water, arise from the preceding wave
and just continue until they hit the
shore. This metaphor was once used in
an essay to describe the form of a William
Byrd Fantasia. It is to be noted
that William Byrd did not write keyboard
fugues, yet his counterpoint is masterful.
Glazunov did write
keyboard fugues. With the incredible
popularity of Bach’s Well Tempered
Clavier, every pianist since the
middle of the eighteenth century has
learned to play it, learned to play
by means of it. The temptation
to try to imitate the master has for
most of them proven to be irresistible.
In fact Schubert and Wagner seem to
be the only notable exceptions. Mozart,
Mendelssohn, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Brahms,
Rachmaninov, Taneyev, Respighi, Vaughan
Williams, and Shostakovich have all
tried their hand. A few stopped at the
writing of Preludes*, writing
few if any fugues to follow, and some
wrote many more fugues than preludes,
e.g. Beethoven and Liszt. One reason
why such pieces were for a time not
played frequently is that during the
Victorian era such pieces were considered
"mere" exercises, to be sharply
distinguished from those "inspired"
compositions where God entered the composing
process** and dictated the music, compositions
where the composer’s immortal soul could
shine forth unencumbered by pedantic
artifice and fussy intellectualism.
I’m not making this up, you know.
But, pedantic artifice
and fussy intellectualism or no, I have
always been fascinated by these Bach
imitations and not solely because they
are in many cases rather good music,
or at the very least fascinating in
the insight they give as to how Bach
appeared to later generations.
Since one hears very
little of Glazunov’s piano music, it
is surprising that it is so good, receiving
here the benefit of exceptionally beautiful
performances and recordings. The Op.
62 is a substantial work, perhaps the
most accessible of the Preludes and
Fugues. You can download the score
from www.sheetmusicarchive.net.
The remaining ones require listening
through a few times to reveal their
wonders. The preludes feature extensive
runs and arpeggiation. The fugue subjects
feature stepwise harmonies which lead
to much parallel and contrary motion
chromatic passage work during the working
out, so the overall shape of the music
is much like that of Rachmaninov and
Taneyev. Quoting Shostakovich, the notes
say Glazunov was a committed contrapuntalist
in developing his orchestral textures.
But he was not really a fugue writer
like Tchaikovsky or Taneyev, but more
a creator of well woven, implicitly
contrapuntal sonic tapestries like Schubert
or Rachmaninov. Glazunov’s fugues contain
much broken counterpoint, little canon,
and rely a lot on transitions and episodes.
Chopin represents an
infusion of Slavic musical sensibility
into Western musical style, but Chopin
was so morbid, and gave rise to Schumann
who was even more morbid. What Glazunov
gives us is a Chopin, not only without
tears, but with magic and glitter, sunshine
on new fallen snow, graceful as it is
powerful. Glazunov (and Rimsky-Korsakov)
could write light music of immense profundity,
similar to the child’s vision we find
in Mozart, only looking east. First
Debussy and then Stravinsky took this
style back to Paris and revolutionized
Western music.***
By 1903 when Zimbalist
was studying at the St. Petersburg Conservatory
Glazunov was "corpulent".
His bi-polar alcoholism would lead him
to lock his office door for days at
a time, during which time the empty
vodka bottles left outside would be
regularly refilled by the servant staff.
After a few days, he would emerge, all
smiles, ready to continue working as
conservatory director. He had a difficult
and stressful job: Rimsky-Korsakov was
politically liberal and academically
conservative; violin professor Auer
(the Tsar’s personal violin soloist)
was politically conservative and academically
liberal.**** Counterpoint instructor
Liadov cut more classes than his students
did. The ever charming Glazunov moved
the treacherous line between all these
shoals and kept these temperaments working
together. Both Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov
struggled to evade the effects of the
Tsarist ban on Jews residing in St.
Petersburg so that the talented Jewish
students Zimbalist and Heifetz could
continue in their studies — free of
tuition charge — at the Conservatory.
In the midst of this Glazunov produced
his Violin Concerto; the student Zimbalist
played the premier, Professor Auer being
politically indisposed.
Glazunov could be stubborn;
when Prokofiev won the piano prize,
Glazunov flatly refused to award it,
and had to be tricked into walking on
stage with the prize. Glazunov was most
likely soddenly drunk in 1895 when he
so badly botched the conducting of Rachmaninov’s
First Symphony, leaving the orchestra
to struggle incapably on as best it
could by itself, and sending Rachmaninov
into an emotional collapse. According
to Testament, by the time Shostakovich
was a student, about 1918, Glazunov
had retired into a permanent alcoholic
haze from which he never thereafter
emerged.
Therefore we should
not be surprised that Glazunov’s music
varies widely in mood. The Triumphal
March uses the theme that was the
marching tune of the victorious Government
forces in the American Civil War, with
the words "John Brown’s body lies
a-molding in his grave..." The
Waltzes are gorgeously lilting, seeming
to float effortlessly off the ground.
The longest works, the two Piano Sonatas
and the Theme and Variations,
written at about the time of the Violin
Concerto, are the most substantial works
in the set, and all feature very free
use of form. He was a courageous explorer
in his youth, only to see others, more
daring but not necessarily more talented,
move rapidly far past him in his maturity.
By the time he had finished writing
his symphonies he was considered an
old stick-in-the-mud by the new revolutionaries
Skriabin and Prokofiev and their champions.
* Before you put Chopin
entirely in this category you should
hear his Prelude and Fugue in a minor
played on the harpsichord. Revenge is
sweet.
** Ever the Victorian
composer, Stravinsky said of Rite
of Spring, "I wrote what I
heard .... I was the vessel through
which [this music] passed." Quoted
many places, notably recently in Stravinsky:
The Second Exile ... by Stephen
Walsh. Stravinsky also said, "I
detest Beethoven," but Rite
of Spring borrows heavily from Beethoven’s
Third, Seventh, and Ninth Symphonies.
Check it out.
*** Vaughan Williams
gives the impression of being wholly
original and 100% British while there
is not a single great composer from
whom he didn’t learn something important.
**** Auer later said
that Zimbalist, his first truly great
student, became a great musician because
he cut so many classes. This and more
from the excellent biography Efrem
Zimbalist: a Life by Roy Malan,
ISBN 1-57467-091-3.
Paul Shoemaker
alternative reviews
Volume 1 Colin
Clarke
Volume 2 Colin
Clarke
Volume 3 Paul
Shoemaker
HYPERION HELIOS CDH 55221 [71:01] 
