(Continued)

The hero of this Symphonic Poem by Glazounov is a fierce marauder, who gives the piece its name. He was a terror, with his fierce horde, over a wide area of the Volga, where his own ship sailed in more than regal splendour. The sails were silk, the oars of gold, and in the middle of its pavilion there rested, surrounded by every mark of opulence, the Princess Persane, Stenka's captive and mistress. One day she told his comrades of a dream, in which Stenka had been shot and all his band put to death, while she herself perished in the waves of the Volga.
Her dream came true. Stenka was surrounded by the soldiers of the Czar, and, foreseeing his doom, he said: 'Never, through all the thirty years of my career, have I offered a gift to the Volga. Today I give it what is for me the most precious of all the treasures of the earth'; and with those words he hurled the princess into the stream. His warriors raised a song in his glory, and then all flung themselves upon the soldiers of the Czar.
With that description in mind, the music unfolds with vivid picturesqueness. It is a subject such as Glazounov can illustrate admirably, with his command of picturesque orchestral colouring.