Ilya Muromets was a (12th century) Russian hero or champion
(bogatyr) and his story is told in a tale (byliny)
from the past. We find him just as he is being released from
sitting motionless (the opening of the work is slow and still)
for the past thirty years. This act is by two passing pilgrims
as they blow a horn call. His two saviours then proceed to send
him on his way with a series of dangerous tasks. The first is
to mount a winged horse and seek out the hero Svyatogor. Together
they deal with danger in the Holy Mountains until Svyatogor
(unaccountably) climbs into an open coffin and, because of his
enormous weight, cannot climb out. Having divested himself of
his powers he dies and Muromets rides off to Kiev, a city ruled
at that time by Prince Vladimir. On the way (in the second movement)
he encounters the brigand Solovei in a dense forest. This unsavoury
character, by imitating the call of a nightingale (three flutes)
and, with the aid of three sirens, lures humans into the forest
where he kills them. His attempt to do so to Muromets (like
Odysseus tempted by the sirens) fails when he is shot in the
eye by an arrow from Muromets’ strongbow, taken prisoner and
lashed to the pommel of his horse as he continues his journey
to Kiev. This slow movement provides plenty of opportunity for
Glière’s skills as a glorious melodist (Rachmaninov) and a gifted
colourist in orchestration where the impressionist sounds of
Daphnis by Ravel or Forest Murmurs (the Woodbird in
Wagner’s Siegfried) seek to tempt Ilya or as dense
low instruments, such as bass clarinet, double bassoon and bass
trombones with tuba thicken the textures, show Solovei in his
true evil colours and recall the Wagner of the lethal dragon
Fafner. In the scherzo, Prince Vladimir is entertaining guests
in his castle in Kiev when Ilya arrives Solovei whistles like
a nightingale, the palace shakes and the guests fall dead. Only
Vladimir survives and, upon seeing Ilya cut off Solovei’s head,
he welcomes the hero and gives him place of honour at his table
in gratitude for saving his life. The music here is packed with
energy but for the section in which Solovei once again takes
centre stage. Elsewhere the jubilation and merry-making is portrayed
by tunefully spirited music full of vibrancy and colour, very
reminiscent of Borodin’s second symphony. The finale is of the
same proportion as the first two movements: long and massive
in scale. It is entitled ‘The heroic deeds and petrification
of Ilya Muromets’ and within its programmatic context bears
the hallmarks of a composer’s traditional struggle with the
finale form, resolved in part by revisiting material from earlier
movements, adding counterpoint (the obligatory fugue) and depending
heavily on the listener’s ability to recognise motifs and associate
them with the characters or events they depict. Muromets is
engaged in an epic battle with the wicked Tartar Batygha and
eventually succumbs to overwhelming odds. His two guardian pilgrims
return whereupon he is eventually returned to his still motionless
state as we found him at the start.
Glière’s third (and last) symphony was dedicated to Glazunov
– so that in itself tells us much about its style. The harmonic
language is highly chromatic and post-Tristan unlike
some of its fellow newcomers in 1911 which included Stravinsky’s
Petrushka, Sibelius’ fourth symphony and Schoenberg’s
Gurrelieder. However Glière made no attempt to move
with the times and relied heavily on folksong and the strength
of melody (a Russian clone of Bruch one might say). This disc
with this pairing has already appeared under the Regis label
(Regis
RRC 2068) in 2004 but for the Alto label it has been re-mastered
by Paul Arden-Taylor. The symphony has an auspicious recording
pedigree. Its engineer Bob Auger was described in his 1999 obituary
in the Independent by Lewis Foreman as ‘a pioneer of
digital recording who was responsible for [this 1978 recording
for Unicorn of] Glière’s expansive third symphony’. Unlike previous
recordings since 1940 which range in length from around forty
minutes (virtually just a taster) to seventy-odd minutes by
such conductors as Stokowski, Fricsay, Scherchen, Ormandy, Rachlin,
Talmi, Botstein
or Edward
Downes, there are no cuts here at just over an hour and
a half. According to James Murray’s booklet note it was recorded
in four straight takes, one for each of its four movements.
With three of them each lasting nearly half an hour and the
scherzo eight minutes, that in itself is staggering considering
the forces involved The orchestration is enormous at quadruple
woodwinds, eight horns, quadruple trumpets and trombones, tuba,
timpani and a battery of percussion, two harps and strings.
These days we have many more live recordings than ever before,
so living dangerously is not so uncommon. It keeps brass players
on their toes, or should that read lips!
That Glière made no attempt to move with the times is even clearer
in the cello concerto written 35 years later. While there is
an element of dissonance in places, essentially his writing
for the cello is lyrical and, like his concertos for horn or
coloratura soprano, the musical language readily accessible
to the admirer of tuneful material. Sudzilovsky takes a muscular
approach to the technical demands of a work which was written
for Rostropovich. Like the symphony, it has a substantial first
movement and a melodious Andante in which his Russian
forbears, in particular Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade,
are clearly heard.
There is however no doubt that the greatest accolades must go
to conductor Harold Farberman and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
whose brass section give an amazing account of themselves. If
the movements were recorded in one take the result is incredible
and truly to be admired. Only very occasionally are there tiny
lapses in ensemble at tempo junctions. It’s good to have an
uncut version of Ilya Muromets even though the composer
himself was clearly running out of ideas during the finale and
might well have done some judicious pruning of those sequential
chromatic rising and falling scales for multi-divided muted
strings. It’s no wonder then that concert performances are comparatively
rare but should one occur in a concert hall near you, my advice
is to go and hear it.
Christopher Fifield
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Harold Farberman (Symphony)