Bbc Philharmonic: Discovering Glazunov

Martyn Brabbins         conductor
Stephen Johnson        presenter

Glazunov                      Autumn from The Seasons
Glazunov                      Symphony No. 4

History can be unkind to composers. It was Alexander Glazunov’s misfortune to be remembered more as the (allegedly) inebriated conductor who ruined the premier of Rachmaninov’s first Symphony, rather than as a supremely gifted composer in his own right. His mentor Rimsky-Korsakov said of the young Glazunov that his ‘development progressed not by the day, but literally by the hour’. He went on to become a highly influential figure in Russian music with an impressive body of innovative and cosmopolitan orchestral works and a gift for glorious melodies.

This concert offers a welcome opportunity to discover more about this unjustly neglected composer. Broadcaster Stephen Johnson will present an insightful introduction to Glazunov’s engaging and tuneful Fourth Symphony with live musical illustrations from the BBC Philharmonic, before a performance of the complete work. The concert also features one of his most popular ballet scores: the joyful bacchanalian Autumn from The Seasons has become known to millions of TV viewers from its use as the theme tune to the Richard Dimbleby Lectures.