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Concerto for Harp

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Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Glière (tr. Robert E. Clemens)


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This work bears the designation Opus 74.


General Info

Year: 1938 / 1974
Duration: c. 25:40
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Harp with Orchestra
Publisher: Manuscript
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown


Movements

1. Allegro moderato - 10:25
2. Tema con variazioni – 11:10
3. Allegro giocoso – 4:35


Instrumentation

Full Score
Solo Harp
Flute I-II
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
E-flat Alto Clarinet
B-flat Bass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Cornet I-II
Horn in F I-II-III
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Timpani
Percussion, including:

  • Triangle


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

Reinhold Glière was 63 when he decided to write his first concerto for harp in 1938. Glière was well known as a composer having received the People’s Artist of the USSR award in that same year. Glière’s use of the harp as a solo instrument was unusual because no Russian composer had written a harp concerto before. The harp concerto was written as a result of a friendship that started during rehearsals for the premiere of Glière’s ballet Krasniimak (1927). Katerina Erdeli, professor of harp at the Moscow Conservatory and harpist in the ballet’s pit orchestra, was impressed with Glière’s harp writing and discussed the idea of a concerto with him. It was not until eleven years later, in the summer of 1938, that Glière began work on the Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, completing the first movement while on vacation in Kislovodsk in the Crimea. After returning to Moscow, he worked closely with Erdeli on the second and third movements.

It was on November 23, 1938, that the concerto premiered with Erdeli as soloist and Leonid Steinberg conducting the State Philharmonic Orchestra in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. There is some misunderstanding surrounding the official premiere of the harp concerto. Some sources note that the harp concerto was premiered on the same concert as his Concerto for Horn on May 10, 1951.

- Program Note from University of North Texas Wind Symphony concert program, 27 April 2017


Glière sought the technical advice of the harpist Ksenia Alexandrovna Erdely (1878-1971). She made so many suggestions that he offered to credit her as co-composer, but she declined. The work was published as the work of Glière as edited by Erdely.

The music is immediately accessible although it breaks no new ground in terms of compositional techniques or technical demands on the solo harpist. It combines features that are redolent of both the Viennese classical style and Russian romantic nationalism.

- Program Note from Wikipedia


Media

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State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

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  • University of North Texas (Denton) Wind Symphony (Eugene Migliaro Corporon, conductor; Anne Lehman, harp) – 27 April 2017


Works for Winds by This Composer

Adaptable Music


All Wind Works


Resources

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