Reinhold Glière, a traditionalist composer, was showered with state prizes, including being named People's Artist of the Soviet Union and receiving the Stalin Prize three times, as his music conformed to the authorities' expectations during Stalin's repressive regime.
Compositional Technique
Glière's Harp Concerto stylistically recalls both Viennese Classicism and Russian national Romanticism, similar to works like Tchaikovsky's 'Mozartiana' Suite.
Composition History
Reinhold Glière's Harp Concerto, the first harp concerto by a Russian composer, was written with the advice of Russian harp virtuosa Xenia Erdely, who even suggested the idea to Glière.
Interpretation
Xavier de Maistre, the harpist, arranged Tchaikovsky's 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' for harp because he felt the original celesta part struggled with arpeggios and would sound more brilliant on the harp.
Composer Biography
Alexander Mosolov, a pupil of Glière and composer of the Harp Concerto on this album, was a modernist whose anti-Romantic style led to his expulsion from the Union of Soviet Composers and a sentence of hard labor for 'counterrevolutionary activities'.
Composer Biography
Reinhold Glière, composer of the Harp Concerto, was the son of a wind instrument maker who emigrated from Saxony to Ukraine, and he studied at the Kyiv School of Music and Moscow Conservatory.
Performer Biography
Xavier de Maistre, the French harpist on this album, has a diverse discography, including Venetian Baroque music, Spanish duets, and his own arrangements of Haydn's keyboard concertos.
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