Perhaps one of the lesser-known Soviet composers, Reinhold Moritzevich Glière is nonetheless respected within the musical world and was an important figure during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in 1874 in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire, Glière was the son of the German wind instrument maker Ernst Moritz Glier and his Polish wife Józefa Korczak. Although it has been suggested that Glière’s family were of French or Belgian descent, this legend came about through Glière’s own doing — around 1900 he changed the spelling and pronunciation of his own name, perhaps reflecting the Francophilia of the Russian elite. The young Glière began his musical studies at the Kiev school of music from 1891, studying violin with the Czech violinist Otakar Ševčík. He later went on to study at the Moscow Conservatoire from 1894, coming under the tutelage of Sergei Taneyev (counterpoint) and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (composition). He graduated with flying colours in 1900, receiving a gold medal for his one-act opera Earth and Heaven after Lord Byron, and the following year took up a teaching post at the Moscow Gnessin School of Music.

It was around this time that two of Glière’s four pieces, the Intermezzo and Tarantella were written, being published together as Deux Morceaux op. 9 in 1903 and dedicated to Serge Koussevizky. It was not the first time that these two Soviet musicians crossed paths, and it would certainly not be the last. Glière and Koussevitzky first met in Moscow during Glière’s period as a student there, and the two formed a friendship that was to endure throughout their professional lives. It is speculated that Koussevitzky commissioned these two pieces from Glière to fuel his burgeoning career as a solo double bassist, having given his first public recital on the instrument in 1901 but being held back by the scarcity of solo works. Koussevitzky was evidently impressed by the two pieces, and it is often said that he enlisted the help of Glière in writing his own double bass concerto in 1905. Despite the widespread nature of this legend, there is little evidence to support it. Koussevitzky’s biographer Moses Smith has suggested that the concerto was actually written in 1902, and besides, the clumsy orchestration of the work is quite unlike that of the more delicate Glière.

The remaining two pieces, the Praeludium and Scherzo, were published together in 1908 as Deux Piecès op. 32, also dedicated to Koussevitzky. In January of that same year, Koussevitzky had conducted the premiere of Glière’s Symphony no. 2 in Berlin as part of his very first public appearance as a conductor, in the city where he had received his first critical acclaim outside of Russia. It is clear that the friendship between these two musicians was still strong, and these two pieces for solo double bass play on Koussevitzky’s strengths as a virtuoso performer, remaining a key part of the double bass repertoire even today.

The Praeludium, the first piece heard in this four-piece collection, opens with a section for solo double bass which introduces the main theme: an ascending arpeggio pattern and a sequential rising and falling scale. Throughout this short piece this idea is reworked by Glière with extreme motivic efficiency, exploring the material in ever more chromatic ways and constantly trading phrases between the double bass and the piano. The next piece, the Scherzo, opens with a flourish from the piano before leading into a dance-like rondo theme in F major. A contrasting middle section in D flat major follows, moving to a more thoughtful mood and a singing legato melody in the double bass. This slowly gives way to the original dance theme before the contrasting section is recapitulated in the coda, first in D major and then in D minor. The music accelerates towards a final brief presto, ending in a flurry of notes as the dance theme returns to close the movement.

The Intermezzo opens with calm, measured chords in the piano, soon joined by a tranquil, elegiac melody in the double bass that floats above the accompaniment like leaves on water. Soon following this is a more agitated section, with dramatic leaping dotted figures perhaps foreshadowing some of the more operatic sections in the outer movement of Koussevitzky’s own concerto. The open melody returns, this time with a richer, more chromatic harmonisation, but soon dissolving back to the tranquility of the opening, ending on a series of harmonics in the upper register of the double bass. The Tarantella is a virtuosic tour-de-force, with frequent chromatic harmonies and more than a healthy dose of cheekiness at times. Hidden amongst this is a yearning, anthemic melody reminiscent of some of Rachmaninov’s best tunes, which appears in a lucid moment of respite from the constantly moving quavers. The tarantella atmosphere soon reappears, with the piano reprising the anthem theme under a busy chromatic double bass line before the tarantella theme proper is recapitulated. Towards the end, the anthem bursts forth once more in full grandeur before the piece concludes in scurrying arpeggios that build in intensity right to the final bar.

Richard English