GLAZUNOV: OVERTURE NO. 1 ON GREEK THEMES;...

GLAZUNOV: OVERTURE NO. 1 ON GREEK THEMES; “POEME EPIQUE”; “FINNISH SKETCHES: FROM THE KALEVALA”; “CORTEGE SOLENNELLE”; “TRIUMPHAL MARCH”; “SPRING.” Hong Kong Philharmonic conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn. Records International 700f1-1 (digital). Glazunov was both too young to meld into the Russian Romantic renaissance and too old and temperamentally unsuited to embrace the banner of modernism. The equivocation abounds in this anthology. These orchestral miniatures span the youthful appeal to classicism in the 1882 overture to the fruitless quest for a memorable melody in “Poeme Epique.” With its delicate tone-painting, “Spring” (1891) emerges the best of the lot, and “Triumphal March,” with its rewrite of “John Brown’s Body,” seems the most ceremoniously amusing--Glazunov penned the latter for the Chicago Exhibition. Middling performances, unspectacular sound.