Glière: Symphony No. 3

Gli¨re (1875-1956) was one of the late Russian nationalists, along with Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, whose music collectively captures the waning years of Romanticism in Russia. Gli¨re's Symphony No. 3, Ilya Muromets, of 1912 takes its thematic cues from Richard Wagner, particularly Wagner's German nationalism in such tales as the Nibelungenlied. Ilya Muromets is a hero of Russia's golden age--similar to Odysseus and Achilles--and the symphony paints the tale of his moody adventures and his lifelong journeying. It is probably Gli¨re's greatest symphony, imbued with the sense of something irretrievably lost because of the rise of Communism. --Paul Cook