MUSIC REVIEW: Louis Glass: Symphony no: 3 - Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra.

Louis Glass (who should in no way be confused with the more contemporary minimalist composer Philip Glass) was a Danish composer born in Copenhagen in 1864. An almost exact contemporary of the more well known and lauded Carl Nielsen, Glass's works have been overtaken and overlooked by musicians and audiences alike. That's a shame since Glass does have something very different to offer. His music, unlike Nielsen and other contempories tends to look backwards rather than forwards, and as his musical influences of Cesar Franck and Anton Bruckner infuse his own composing, his music makes grandiose gestures and broad sweeps retaining very much the Late Romantic feel of his era, instead of moving forward and experimenting with more modern ideas and techniques.

Perhaps this is why he has been bypassed. His music is rather meandering - full of lyrical melodies which never seem to fully resolve; and one is never really quite sure why one particular melody should follow another; however his patriotism and his technique are solid, as his heart and writing never strayed very far from the shores of his beloved homeland. 

In the recording I listened to on YouTube, it was the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nayden Todorov who bravely tried to make sense of a symphony which is little more than a collection of orchestral ideas played together. There seems to be no real dramatic base from which all these ideas spring nor any real idea of continuity or why they are placed in the order they are and titled 'symphony'. Moreover the title of the symphony "The Forest" is also a little odd since one would expect forest nymphs, myths and legends to be explored from the pen of such a Romantic composer. But no, we are given nice tunes, but no backstory or basing the music on Danish mythology sadly.

The first movement is a very weak opener, and serves more as an 'introduction' than the first movement of a symphony. The second movement however is given both the more dramatic and the more lyrical passages and has also the largest changes in volume of the four movements too (at least in this recording). The third movement is a fanciful and exceedingly jolly scherzo, in fact you can almost imagine a magical ride through the enchanted forest at night here (my interpretation). The movement has a certain cinematic quality to it. Whilst the final movement starts well with a very Danish-sounding folk melody, the development doesn't go where you'd expect it to and rather than a loud and proud rip-roaring finale to the symphony it ends not with a bang but with a whimper.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 7/1/20