Glière Symphony No.3 'Ilya Murometz'

[sdtom]

I still have a Philips CD recorder that allows direct recordings from my turntable so I've done a 100 or so. It uses a special kind of CD from Sony which I still have 200 or so of. I suppose I could run it through Adobe Audition and get rid of the horrid pops but with the Downes I seem to be happy. I was introduced to the work by the way through the Stokowski recording with the Houston Symphony.
Tom

[Amphissa]

I am pretty sure I own a copy of every recording of this symphony.

Choosing a version to gift can be hard. The only complete version that actually follows all the tempo markings of the composer is Farberman's. This is my favorite recording, but admittedly, it is a long haul and some people get antsy listening to it.

Even though it is not complete, the Rahklin performance is very good. The audio of the original LP is also very good. Unfortunately, the audio quality of the CD transfer on Russian Disc is unpleasant.

I don't really care for the Downes much. It is not really complete, but close, so that's okay. But the best can be said of it, IMO, is that it is polite and proper. It is rather flavorless, lacking in character or depth.

Both of Stokowski's recordings are chopped to pieces and completely worthless. Talmi also suffers a lot of cuts, although the audio is very good. Golovchin's recording is bland and uninspired. Johanos is equally disappointing. I haven't seen the Ormandy recording around for a long time. It's not one I'd recommend anyway.

I really like the recording by Scherchen. It was complete, musical and had a depth of character. I have only heard the LP. It is available on CD from Naxos, but I don't know how good their transfer is. It is also available complete on YouTube, if you want to preview the performance.

Botstein is a real mystery to me. I'm not sure what he was trying to do in his interpretation, but the final result is not really convincing to me. He really distorts tempi a lot, and although it claims to be uncut -- well, maybe he was looking at a different score than everyone else.

So, I won't make a recommendation. If I were gifting, I'd be choosing between Farberman, Scherchen and I guess Downes as a fall back.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I must say, I agree with Amphissa about the Farberman recording. I have always liked it and it is both complete and, as far as I can make out, pretty faithful to Gliere's tempo markings. Not everyone likes it, however. I'm afraid I have only the cassette recording. I don't know what the sound is like in its CD reincarnation - but I have been thinking recently about buying it. Any views? The Scherchen I regret to say I do not know - it is mono, I believe, but I'm not knocking that.

[Alan Howe]

Farberman sounds absolutely fine. It is, after all, an early digital recording originally issued on Unicorn LPs. If you want Ilya Murometz absolutely uncut and played at tempi faithful to the score, this is the recording to get. However, be aware, an uncut score at the right tempi = 93 minutes of music.

Here's Rob Barnett's summing-up at MusicWeb:

<<This is a real treat for those who like to venture around the periphery of Russian nationalist repertoire and there are plenty of rewards to be had. Audio 'archaeologists' should also snap up this bargain price set. The recording of the Symphony is one of the very first digital recordings and was made by Bob Auger using hired Sony PCM-1 machines. Entire movements were recorded each in a single take! It still sounds wonderful. It is of the wide-open spaces school rather than the close-up microphone approach.>>
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Oct05/Gliere3_RRC2068.htm

[mbhaub]

Yes, but...Farberman takes glacial tempos to play it safe in my opinion, knowing that editing digital in those early years would be difficult. And so, there are some small and really huge gaffe in the playing. One really obnoxious one occurs in the 1st movement at the end of a climax in (naturally) the brass. Every time I play that recording I find myself getting tense as that moment approaches. The recorded sound is absolutely first rate even by today's standards.

Don't be so quick to dismiss Ormandy; he had a real affinity for the Russian school and both of his recordings are wonderful, IMO. The first, on an older Columbia LP, is more youthful and energetic. The later RCA shows he mellowed a bit, but the playing of the fabulous orchestra makes up for it.

Another older, mono, and hugely cut version worth hearing is the Jacques Rachmilovich with a scrappy Italian orchestra. Fabian Sevitsky's mono, cut, with the Indianapolis Orchestra is also quite thrilling.

One other thing: the Rahklin recording is not only slightly cut, but he augments the orchestration such as adding tubular bells in the first movement at the chorale. Naughty conductors!

[Alan Howe]

This is composer and musicologist Avrohom Leichtling's (critical) take on the Botstein recording, which also commends Farberman:

<<I have known this work in score (all 413 pages of it) for nearly 50 years now - and have been attentive to every recording that has surfaced. Some performances cut the guts out of the piece making a mockery of Gliere's carefully crafted architecture. Others come close to the mark. The only recording to follow GLIERE's markings accurately is still available and is conducted by Harold Farberman. The only recording which, if not entirely accurate tempo-wise, is sonically quite spectacular, and that is Sir Edward Downes'.

The present recording is a colossal disaster from every perspective. When a recording announces itself as being "complete and uncut" and yet, in this case, has a performance time of 72 minutes, you know something is terribly wrong. I was antipating a solid performance from Leon Botstein, and spectacular sonics from Telarc. Neither is the case. Telarc's engineers have totally missed the boat on this recording: The LSO sounds like it was recorded in a Turkish bath house, the acoustics are so terrible. There is no definition, no balance, everything sounds muffled and totally out of kilter. This is astonishing given Telarc's past record of superlative orchestral recording.

The LSO plays at its usual high level - but is totally sabatoged by Botstein's absolute dismissal of Gliere's tempo markings, either specifically or conceptually. The architecture of the four movements of this work are very carefully constructed - such that the first, second and fourth movements each have performing times between 27 and 28 minutes: yet Botstein manages the first in 22 minutes, the second in 20! and the last movement in 22. Botstein's tempi in the first movement are often not even in the same universe as Gliere's - i.e. the all important bits of liturgical chant at Rehearsal #8 are completely wrong, first measure to last. The materials given here are critical to the rest of the piece and are blown away as if they were a bit of meaningless trivia. The fourth movement, for example, begins in a "slower" tempo, progress through a series of accelerating tempi and then arrives at allegro - but is, rather, played at the arriving tempo - you know the conductor either does not know the score, or has totally misread it. The second movement builds entirely out of the "creepy" sul ponticello augmented triad blurr with which it opens - and the progression is supposed to be very, very slow. Gliere gives only one tempo marking for the movement: quarter=54. There are no accelerandi marked anywhere in the movement, and only one very brief retardando. Many of the complex figures are unplayable if the tempo is too fast - the result here is a hideous kind of sloppy rhythmic hyperventilation, not the orgasmic agitation which is, in fact, what is in the score. Here, it is all matter of fact without any feel for the "geist" of the music. The third movement lacks clarity and projection altogether. It is unlistenable. The long peroration at the end of the fourth movement, itself a very ingenious recapitulation, al roverso, of the materials that preceded it, is meaningless when it happens too soon. (See "accelerando" above). For all these (and many other reasons) I would have hoped that Mr Botstein, who is also known as a musicologist, would have paid more attention to the score. Certainly, he could have followed Gliere's markings "more closely." That he did not gives us this egregious bit of interperative charlatanism. The power of this music is fully revealed in that most fundamental of musical attributes: time. The piece works because things happen "at the right time" as much as a result of "what" happens. Gliere knows his business - and it is totally indefensible to tell the composer "you didn't write the correct tempi" in your score. Such arrogance! Such chutzpah!

Avoid this recording like the plague. It is absolutely, totally wrong and negates, at virtually every point, everything that's in the score.>>

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gliere-Symphony-No-Ilya-Murometz/dp/B00007GZAT/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387492010&sr=8-1&keywords=ilya+murometz+botstein

[Amphissa]

The newer (2004) release of the Farberman on Regis label is remastered and quite good audio.

Farberman's tempi are not "playing it safe," but playing it right. He follows the tempo markings of Gliere. Other conductors tend to introduce cuts and/or pull around tempi to accommodate their own sensibility.

By the way, there exist recordings of all three Gliere symphonies conducted by the composer himself. I bought the LP of him conducting his 1st Symphony from a Moscow retailer. I've never run across the other two, either LP or a digital rip. I would love to hear how Gliere himself approached the 3rd!

I was not aware of a recording by Fabian Sevitsky with the Indianapolis orchestra. Is it a commercial CD? Where would I obtain it? I'm not having any luck with Google.

[mbhaub]

Argh! I mis-spoke. I meant Stokowski - his first on 78's. What was I thinking?

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Naxos recording from Falleta and Buffalo, they've done some really good stuff over the years. Better yet, I want Neeme Jarvi with OSR on Chandos in SACD!

[sdtom]

I am pretty sure I own a copy of every recording of this symphony.

Do you have the Naxos recording #8.550858 with Johanos and the Slovak Radio Symphony?

Tom

[Amphissa]

I am pretty sure I own a copy of every recording of this symphony.

Do you have the Naxos recording #8.550858 with Johanos and the Slovak Radio Symphony?

Tom

Yes. I was disappointed with it. The audio is good, but to me the performance really lacks any sort of spark or energy or depth. Just a read-through of the score.

[chill319]

Unlike Amphissa I only have two versions of Glière 3: Faberman and Downes. Both are wonderful, committed performances, but if I had to choose, I'd keep the Faberman. I played the second movement of the Faberman for someone who didn't know Glière; they were properly overwhelmed and within weeks were trying to convince the music director of an Australian orchestra to program it. So I'm confident that the Faberman would make a wonderful gift. But so would the Downes. I'm a big fan of Downes's Glière 1 and 2 also.

[Amphissa]

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Naxos recording from Falleta and Buffalo, they've done some really good stuff over the years. Better yet, I want Neeme Jarvi with OSR on Chandos in SACD!

Do you know which Falletta performance(s) they'll be using for the Naxos CD? I have an off-air recording of Falletta with the Buffalo Symphony performing it at Carnegie Hall in May 2013, but they performed it twice in Buffalo before going to Carnegie Hall with it. It is not a complete version (70 minutes). The Buffalo band is not a real powerhouse, so they cannot really provide the kind of weight and depth that the symphony possesses. Some of the passages lack spark, mystery and musicality, and the lack of weight leaves it seeming without passion, but the orchestra does play with good concentration and the performance is better than many of the recordings that have been made.

If it turns out to be like the off-air of the live performance, it will not be a challenger to Farberman or Scherchen by a long shot, but at Naxos prices, one cannot expect perfection.

[Amphissa]

By the way, the Scherchen recording is available from Naxos *outside the U.S.* as a download. There is, to my knowledge, no commercial version of the Scherchen available in the U.S. at present, other than used LPs.

This is the only challenger to Farberman, and IMO it is in some ways preferable to the Farberman. The Vienna orchestra is spectacular, of course, and Scherchen has always been one of my favorite conductors. This recording captures the scope and amazing color of this remarkable symphony. It is actually a better performance than Farberman's, although not as polished. It's more like a live recording, with a few cracks in the brass. Although it is complete, Scherchen chooses somewhat faster tempi than Farberman, thus completing the performance in about 10 minutes less time.

If the Scherchen were readily available, it would be an easy recommendation. Although it was recorded in 1952, the Naxos download audio is quite good (if not up to today's standard). If you have access to the Naxos download, it is a worthy recording for any collection.

[Mark Thomas]

All these comparisons led me to download the Faberman performance. I had only heard the old Ormandy reading on an RCA LP, the Downes on Chandos and the Johanos on a Naxos CD (which is greatly inferior to them both). I must say that I have been completely wowed by Faberman's interpretation. His tempi are broad, certainly, but then if they are what Glière indicates in the score then I have no problem with that and the faster sections, when they come, are all the more pointed and exciting as a result. My overriding impression, though, is of watching some glorious Hollywood epic like the Lord of the Rings, unfolding in unhurried splendour. One really gets a feeling for the architecture of the piece too, those great arcs which Glière built into those three massive movements, each almost half an hour long. I read Martin's comment about the orchestral gaffes but, to be honest, I'm not really aware of them. Pre-Faberman I loved Ilya Muramets, but regarded it as no more than a self-indulgently gorgeous apotheosis of Rimskian Russianness. I still think that, but I can now see for the first time the breadth and depth of Glière's vision and find it tremendously impressive.

[DennisS]

I have been following this thread with close attention. I only have the Downes performance and was happy with it. Reading of the comparisons between the different versions available and listening to soundbites, I was already thinking that I might acquire the Faberman performance as well. Reading Mark's posting just now has convinced me to also buy the Faberman performance, especially as it is uncut and is obviously thrillingly realized! I have just ordered the double CD on Amazon (I prefer to have actual CDs wherever possible but am going to have to move over to Internet downloads as space becomes more and more limited!).I will look forward to hearing the symphony in the New Year. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread.