The Isle

In his Opus 55, Reinhold Glière (1875–1956) a Russian composer of German-Polish ancestry, creates two quintessentially Romantic part-songs, featuring dreamy Romantic poetry and evocative chromatic harmonies, stirred by great surges of musical emotion. Both choruses use poetry by Konstantin Balmont (1867–1942), one of the most prominent poets of Russia’s “Silver Age”—the first, a portion of a love sonnet, and the second, Balmont’s translation of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Virtually unknown, Glière’s choral music makes a wonderful addition to the repertoire of part songs for women’s voices.