Customer Reviews

Gliere: Ilya Muromets (Symphony No. 3, Op. 42) / Cello Concerto, Op. 87

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Reinhold Gliere's "Ilya Murometz" Symphony and Concerto for Cello and Orchestra under Harold Farberman's baton are absolutely beautiful!!! They both deserve much more airplay---if a conductor can summon the huge combined forces of a full symphony orchestra and chorus and soloists for Jean Sibelius' "Kullervo" Symphony (another favorite of mine that also deserves much more airplay), why not the two aforementioned works by Reinhold Gliere? This recording is definitely belongs at the top of the list for any serious devotee of Romantic and early 20th century Russian symphonic music.

This performance of Glière's "Ilya Murometz" is an interminable, nearly 100-minute exercise in Late Romantic non-expression. The first hour might make for good background music, but only if one can abide a persistent drone of near-Wagnerian swelling and ebbing of massed strings -- Dramamine is not included. I realize the symphony has a program, but this might work better as a silent movie soundtrack; several grueling listens have failed to convince me otherwise.

"Ilya Murometz" has its fervent fans, but if one truly wishes to be introduced to this bloated gargantua, I'd feel comfortable in suggesting almost any other recording, apparently all of which are either appreciably amended or reinterpreted for "listening compactness". Farberman's recording is probably best left for cognoscenti...or for someone's extended sessions of morbid self-imposed sleep deprivation.