A Punched Card Controls The Kremlin

Amongst the treasures of volume two you will find a little gem called The Kremlin. First movement, guts. Second movement, quiet introspection. Third movement, glory. It has it all. It may not be quite as extroverted as, say, Capriccio Espagnol, but it definitely has backbone and bottom, as Chief Whip Francis Urquhart would say. And that’s more than a lot of music has. Certainly more than you’d think Glazunov to have, if you listen to the “conventional wisdom.” Conventional nonsense, more like. (People say Ravel was a master of orchestral color—well, just listen to the tolling-bell effect in the second movement and tell me Glazunov wasn’t a genius of orchestration!) This is perhaps the last of the great 19th century Russian musical postcards and a very fitting end to the tradition. Out with a bang, not with a whimper.