Alexander Glazunov - The Seasons, Op. 67, No. 3 Autumn

ALEXANDER GLAZUNOV
Born St. Petersburg, 10 August 1865, Died Paris, 21 March 1936.
THE SEASONS, OP. 67, NO. 3 AUTUMN
Composed in 1899, and first performed on February 7, 1900 in St. Petersburg. The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, harp, timpani, percussion, and strings. The work lasts approximately 10 minutes.

Alexander Glazunov grew up and built his music career through the turbulence of Russian unrest and revolution. As a young composition student who wrote his first symphony at the age of sixteen, he impressed his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, who said that he seemed to improve by the hour. Later, as the director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he impressed his students by his mastery authorities - for example, he refused to report the number of Jewish students enrolled - and his astounding musical memory. When a student played a composition for him to apply to the conservatory, after having been turned down years earlier, Glazunov listened patiently until he finished, went to the piano, and commented that the secondary theme of the composition he had auditioned with last time had been quite good. He then played the student's previous music from memory. The incident soon entered the annals of conservatory lore. Glazunov could also frustrate his more progressive students, most notably Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev, with his musical conservatism. He resisted the innovations that were to transform the music of the new century, but even when he brusquely disagreed with them, he continued to tirelessly support and promote his students.

Glazunov's ballet, The Seasons, is written as a set of four tableaux, each of which represents a season of the year. The scenario for the Autumn section of the ballet begins with a bacchanal, a rousing music depicting a drunken revel to celebrate the grape harvest. The music calms as the seasons, Winter and Spring, appear on stage, followed by the Bird, and the Zephyr. The dance resumes, increases in intensity, and ends in a shower of autumn leaves. Darkness descends, and the stars emerge, showing us the timeless beauty of the universe that hangs motionless above us, and beyond the constantly changing seasons.