Myaskovsky: Symphonies Nos. 24 And 25

Description

Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky (1881-1950)Symphony No. 24 in F minor, Op. 63Symphony No. 25 in D flat major, Op. 69Remarkably many Russian composers of older times began theirprofessional lives as military men. In some cases this has left us withanecdotes, like the one about Rimsky-Korsakov falling into the Baltic from theclipper Almaz. In other cases the accounts are serious, even tragic. As alieutenant in the sappers, Nikolay Myaskovsky suffered severe shell-shock afterhaving been badly wounded in some of the fiercest fighting on the Eastern frontduring the First World War. He was sent home, but the war left its traces forthe remainder of his life.            Myaskovskywas in fact born in 1881 in a fortress, Novo-Georgiyevsk near Warsaw, where hisfather served as an officer. He joined a cadet school, and he was already alieutenant when he began his studies at the St Petersburg Conservatory at theage of 25. His main teachers were Anatoly Liadov and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov,which guaranteed him the most solid composition technique imaginable. One ofhis fellow students was Prokofiev, ten years his junior, and theircompositional debuts took place at the same concert; they were very goodfriends, and Myaskovsky even invented numerous titles for Prokofiev's works.Myaskovsky graduated in 1911, but in the middle of a promising musical careerhe had to join the army again at the outbreak of the First World War. Afterrecovering from the aforementioned shell-shock he soon moved to Moscow where hewas to spend the rest of his life. In 1921 he became a Professor of Compositionat the Moscow Conservatory.            Myaskovsky'smusical style was never ultra-modern, but may rather be placed somewherebetween the great Russian Romantics and that of his fellow student Prokofiev.It is therefore particularly absurd that he was among the composers who wereseverely criticized by the Soviet Communist Party in 1948. The official decreeused many vague terms, but it was obvious that the Central Committee wantedcomposers to write music that Donbass coal-miners and Uzbek farmers couldeasily understand, not only the Moscow, Leningrad or Kiev concert audiences.This unjust criticism probably precipitated Myaskovsky's death in 1950, denyinghim the joy of reaching the round number of thirty symphonies - but with 27 hestill stands out as one of the truly great symphonists of the last century, andhe was also very prolific in most other musical areas, opera and ballet beingthe main exceptions.            Likemost Soviet composers, Myaskovsky was evacuated during the Second World War,and thus it was in the Kirgiz capital Frunze that the news of the death ofVladimir Derzhanovsky reached him in September 1942. This was a severe blow,because he had not only been working closely together with this eminentmusicologist and publis