MUSIC REVIEW : Season Ends on Epic Note

Conductor Yoav Talmi stabled the warhorses for the San Diego Symphony’s final program of the season. No Beethoven, no Mahler.

Instead, he brought out the “real” thing. Audiences at Copley Symphony Hall Thursday evening heard a musical rendition of the epic tale of Ilya Murometz, a superhuman hero whom the composer described as a “gigantic steed galloped as the falcon flies, took lakes and rivers at a bound, and razed cities with the swish of his tail.”

This Russian legend, with giants, giant horses, brigands, battles, and exploits of Arthurian proportion, was told in Reinhold Gliere’s prodigious, if not sprawling, Symphony No. 3.

The work is not unknown, although it is little heard. Talmi and the San Diego Symphony are intent on changing that, having chosen the musical saga for the orchestra’s first major recording project. More thrilling than poetic, the 75-minute symphony seems fitting for the San Diego Symphony’s forces under Talmi’s direction.

And in the scheme of musical history, particularly the study of modern Russian masters, Gliere’s composition, completed in 1911, rightly has its place, following “unashamedly the passion of Tchaikovsky” as Talmi commented from the podium before the performance.

Gliere has been placed as the “last of the great Russian nationalists,” or as a modern composer in the “central” tradition, aligned with those who incorporated the Soviet Union’s diverse folk heritage into their music. He is remembered for his students as much as his own work--he taught Prokofiev and Khachaturian, among others.

Because he spent many years living and traveling throughout Europe before returning to Kiev to teach and compose, his work was influenced by many beyond Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and Scriabin. Debussy’s ideas and French Impressionism, for example, are evident in his music. Gliere wrote only three symphonies, but his compositions numbered over three hundred, including operas, chamber music, songs, symphonic poems and piano works. He died in 1956.

“Ilya Murometz,” his third symphony, is bold, but not daring, even for its time. Although mighty, cinematic and alive with bombastic climaxes, this is not the greatest story ever told. It lacks the melodic beauty and pathos of Prokofiev’s score for Eisenstein’s 1926 film “Alexander Nevsky.” Still, it has high drama, orchestral color, and long, looming, Romantic pans across expanses.

Fortunately, Gliere’s four “movements” are not an absolutely literal account of Ilya’s awakening into the heroic realm and his ultimate demise, when excessive pride turns him and his band of warriors to stone.

Under Talmi’s direction, the orchestra delivered abundant, vibrant sound at peak moments and avoided sogginess in the brooding swells between. Surprisingly, such repetitive dynamic extremes over long stretches did not get boring, but were amusing--in the way the tall tale itself amuses. Unfortunately, the composer’s notes on the legend of Ilya were only sketched out in the program. Those listening for raging howls of the wicked robber in the woods would not have known that the seductive trills of the nightingale, played by the piccolo, were also evil doings.

In 1927, Gliere wrote incidental music to Beaumarchais’ “Marriage of Figaro.” Comparing his version to the classicism of Mozart’s 1780s operatic treatment, particularly to the overture, which the San Diego Symphony performed to open the program, would have been a curious history lesson. One wonders whether Gliere’s version has been recorded.

The orchestra followed the overture with Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D Major featuring Damian Bursill-Hall, Principal Flute with the orchestra since 1975. A compact three movements, the concerto delights in the “conversation” between flute and orchestra as much as it showcases the character of the instrument.

Bursill-Hall’s performance was neat, agile and light-hearted when appropriate, though not especially warm. He does not overload his delivery with bravura, thankfully, but plays it straight, even with understatement--as a musician, and not an entertainer.