Serenade No.2 for orchestra, Op.11
Alexander Glazunov was one of music’s most extraordinary child prodigies. "If Beethoven were alive, he would fall on his knees before Glazunov" declared his astonished teacher Rimsky-Korsakov after hearing the 16-year old Glazunov’s First Symphony. Glazunov went on to write 8 symphonies and 3 ballets as well as nurturing the talents of two generations of Russian composers as a teacher. A kind-hearted and generous man (although reputedly rather too fond of Vodka!) by 1910 his music was scorned as conservative and outmoded even by his pupils and feeling unwanted in post-Revolutionary Russia, he spent his lonely final years in France. Posterity has been unfair to him, for his music is lush, sweetly melodious and always beautifully orchestrated. He had a wonderful gift for lyrical melody, often reaching great heights of poignant, joyous or noble emotion. The short Serenade we are to hear tonight is an early work, written in 1884, but is typical of the lyrical, somewhat nostalgic, style of this warmest of Russian composers.
R.G. Bratby, 1995
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