Glazunov: Piano Music Vol 3: Preludes and Fugues

This recording, the third in the series of Glazunov's solo piano works, features the six Preludes and Fugues which the composer wrote between 1899 and 1926. Op 62 is the earliest set and is conceived on a grand scale, also existing in an alternative version for symphonic organ. The piano writing is of great complexity and is clearly intended to show off the performer's technical prowess, with the musical lines written sometimes in thirds, sixths and even chords.

The four Op 101 Preludes and Fugues data from 1918 and are a quite remarkable achievement: proof to a sometimes mocking world that Glazunov could still triumph in this most intellectual of genres many years after others had given up trying. Something of the same could be said of the 1926 Prelude and Fugue in E minor: there is a great confidence in the musical material which, like the Idylle, Op 103, written in the same year, is surprising considering Glazunov's poor health and general difficulties at the time.