Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was born on August 10, 1865. This year we are marking the 155^th birth anniversary of the prominent Russian composer and conductor Alexander Glazunov. It is noteworthy, that the 120th anniversary of the famous ballet The Four Seasons (Op. 67) of his authorship is marked the same year.

Similar to the anterior ballet by A. Glazunov, “The Aristocratic Servant girl”, created the same year, “The Seasons”, according to the conception the Imperial Theaters director Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the ballet was to become the performance in the spirit of the French court ballets of the 16th-17th centuries. The famous Russian choreographer of the late 19th century, Marius Petipa, worked on the libretto of this ballet, already having sixty years of experience on the stages of St. Petersburg. There is no consistent plot in the script, nor is there any interconnected dramatic action. This ballet is a kind of dance suite. The famous music critic and musicologist Boris Asafyev called the music of the ballet "The Four Seasons" - a "symphonic poem-ballet".

Hence, Glazunov had his own special concept of this work - he was “captured by the idea so inherent to his talent and so natural for the younger colleague of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin, - to embody one of the mankind favorite myths in musical and choreographic performance: the myth of the nature resurrection from winter dormancy and the sun life-giving power".

Glazunov implemented multifarious descriptive techniques in his music, skillfully applied them in his composition - all colors and variety of seasons are felt, in which the sound of hail, the flight of snowflakes, and the languor of hot summer day are heard. Today, the ballet "The Seasons" is often performed by symphonic orchestras on academic stages

"Little Adagio" from the ballet "The Four Seasons" created by the composer in 1900, is posted in the museum Sound Library to commemorate Alexander Glazunov birth jubilee. It was recorded on the player piano "Berdux Welte Piano", (Valentin Berdux Pianofortefabrik, M. Welte & Söhne G.m.b.H., 1912) from the Welte-Mignon paper music roll.

Ref.: Belcanto.ru