Symphony no. 3

The Third Symphony, in D major, op. 30, dates from 1901 and carries the title Skovsymfoni — the Forest Symphony — the only one of Glass's six with a programmatic name of its own. Nature as a subject was common currency in Scandinavian music of the period, but Glass approached it through the cyclic procedures he had absorbed from Franck rather than through picture-painting. It is the most frequently recorded of his symphonies. He wrote it while running the family music school in Copenhagen and playing viola and cello in chamber ensembles.