BALAKIREV: Symphony no. 2

USSR State Academiс Symphony Orchestra;
Golovschin, Igor

8.550793

Balakirev worked on the second of his two symphonies between 1900 and 1908 and it was first performed at a Free School concert in April 1909 under the direction of Liapunov. Work on his first symphony had been resumed thirty years after the first sketches, with no trace of a change of style. Similarly the second symphony, which makes use of the Scherzo planned in the 1860s for the earlier work, is in a style that had passed. • The symphonic poem Rus, the ancient name of Russia, was originally planned as a four movement work. This scheme was rejected in favour of a second Overture on Russian Themes, which was first performed at a Free School concert in April 1864. In the 1880s Balakirev revised the work again, giving it the title Rus. Three Russian themes are used. Rus belongs to a period in Balakirev’s creative career when such complete reliance on folk material seemed a possible course to pursue. In the symphonies this attitude has been modified.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Naxos

11-04-1994

4891030507937