Reinhold Glière

Dismissed by some as being stuck in the past, Glière was nonetheless blessed with a rare melodic gift and fine technique, says Erik Levi  

- Erik Levi  

Reinhold Glière was one of those composers whose allegiance to tradition either courted controversy or, more often than not, neglect. Regarded as a great musical icon in his native Ukraine, his reputation elsewhere remains mixed. Detractors accuse him of being an epigone, writing music in the style of Tchaikovsky well into the 20th century. The American scholar Richard Taruskin went even further, describing him as ‘a doddering relic’.

Such disparagements ignore some incontestable aspects of Glière’s achievement. A convincing melodist and a superb technician, writing extremely attractive music, he was also one of the great survivors of the first half of the 20th century. Despite living through a period of political turmoil, he somehow managed to carve out a consistently successful career, both in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. In the later part of his life, he was hailed as an ideal exponent of Socialist Realism, composing works that not only had an instantaneous appeal but, to the delight of the Soviet bureaucrats, also avoided any unwarranted contamination with Western modernism.