This is number 35 in Warner Classics’ totally admirable Svetlanov
series and a thunderously large instalment it is too.
What we have here
are Miaskovsky’s 27 symphonies with two overtures, two early
tone poems (one after Poe; the other, Shelley), three sinfoniettas,
one serenade, one Divertissement, one Concertino Lirico,
one Slav Rhapsody and a piece called Links. It’s
all the music for orchestra apart from the two concertos and
choral works with orchestra (Kirov is With Us and Kremlin
by Night). Note that the version of the Sixth Symphony here
is the version minus chorus – which in any event is marked
ad libitum. The symphonies span forty and more years
from 1908 to 1949 – from pre-Revolution Tsarist times to post-Great
Patriotic War Communism - four years short of the death of Stalin
and of Myaskovsky’s friend, Prokofiev.
This cycle was,
with the exception of symphonies 3, 19 and 22 from 1965 and
1970, recorded during the years 1991-94. The project formed
the single largest chapter in Svetlanov’s gargantuan-ambitious
‘Russian Symphonic Anthology’. It arrived just as the Melodiya
of yore was losing its footing and as its links with the State
were being severed. A few of the symphonies were issued on individual
Melodia SUCD discs but these were no more than a handful. They
were then released en bloc in a very limited and lightly
documented box by Records International. Then Olympia, which
had produced the odd ex-Melodiya non-Svetlanov Myaskovsky in
the 1980s, set about issuing the cycle a disc at a time. They
got as far as volume 10 and then folded. Russian Disc issued
the symphonies complete in four boxes in the early 2000s but
those sets were scarce outside the Russian Federation and not
exactly common inside. They disappeared almost as quickly as
the four preciously rare Eshpai boxes. That said, the RD Myaskovskys
do surface from time to time on ebay - often at a hideous price.
For the last twelve months Regis-Alto in the UK have, in the
most unpredictably unlikely and admirable move ever, picked
up the baton let slip by Olympia. Alto are now steadily releasing
the remaining Svetlanov-Myaskovskys in a series completely uniform
with the start made by Olympia. So far they have reached volume
13.
The early symphonies
inhabit an intense Scriabin-like world with Tchaikovskian excursions.
The First is played with total Russian commitment with
crackling abrasive brass in the first movement. The Second
Symphony is a work from his time in Moscow at the end of
his formal studies. It was premiered in 1915. The music has
a swooning hysteria and craggy gait so characteristic of the
composer and redolent of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead
and Tchaikovsky's Fifth. The Third shudders forward aggressive
and brooding. Melancholy suffuses even the odd shaft of brightness.
This issue is ADD and was recorded in the 1960s. The Fourth
is very rare indeed. It was planned as a work 'quiet, simple
and humble' but is in fact determined and stern even when it
moves with speed and fury. It holds fascination in reflecting
the first stirrings of material to be developed in the tragic-heroic
Fifth. Speaking of which Svetlanov’s Fifth, newly recorded
strikes me as the only real miss-hit in the cycle. The Fifth
is the Myaskovsky work I would propose to 'unbelievers'. Unfortunately
Svetlanov takes the work at a lumbering pace which, although
revealing details often subsumed in drama, rather saps the work's
wondrous power. This is certainly the best recorded sound and
the orchestral contribution is matchless even in subtlety. But
for the real essence of this piece you need to track down Olympia
(OCD133) which has the Konstantin Ivanov recording. Only slightly
behind that comes a Balkanton CD 030078 at c 38.00. Then there
is the excellent Marco Polo 8.223499 - BBCPO/Edward Downes.
This is the quickest of all at just short of 36.00 and is much
easier to get.
The towering Sixth
Symphony is given a furiously, whipped and fleet-footed
reading at the sort of clip you might have expected from Golovanov
on an impetuous day. Would that Svetlanov had found this pacing
for his recording of the Fifth. The Dudarova (on a previous
Olympia OCD510) is better than serviceable and well engineered
but lacks the imaginative heft to be found in the other recordings.
Kondrashin's mono Sixth on and Melodiya is revered but its mono
tracking and sound quality renders it of historic value rather
than being recommendable in the face of this Svetlanov, the
DG Järvi and the still surprisingly good Stankovsky (Marco Polo).
If you want the work with the choral finale then go for Järvi;
if you are content with the orchestra-only version then Svetlanov
on Olympia is the one to opt for.
The 25 minute Seventh
is dwarfed by its mighty predecessor. It too rattles cages but
the darkling pages are this time alive with distressed shreds
of Ravel's La Valse and distorted reflections of Tchaikovsky's
Fifth. The work opens in an uncanny image of the start of Bax's
Second Symphony. Bass accented strings shudder, pregnant with
bleak tension. The work plunges and charges along. The work
ends with a snarl and a lump in the throat.
Between the gloomy
harmonic complexities of the Seventh and before the dissonances
of the Ninth the Eighth represents an innocence and folk-like
character shot through the essence of folksongs. After a stormy
scherzo there comes a Ravel-like Adagio - a real gem
with a succulent role for the cor anglais. The song, which is
of Bashkiri origin, is sad and lovely perhaps rather Bax-Irish
too.
The Ninth was
dedicated to Nikolai Malko. The Andante sostenuto depends
on one of those wide-ranging and yearning melodies played surgingly
and with flowing, tender and sombre power by the strings.
The one-movement
Tenth was premiered by the conductorless Persimfans orchestra,
on 2 April 1928. Myaskovsky wrote it after his one and only
journey outside the USSR when he went to Vienna to sign a contract
with Universal Edition. It radiates stress and turmoil, struggle
and dissonant violence.
The Svetlanov Eleventh
Symphony 'competes' with Veronika Dudarova's Moscow SO version
on another time-expired Olympia (OCD133 issued in 1987!). Dudarova's
Eleventh goes at a smarter clip than Svetlanov's (31.09 rather
than 34.46). The Symphony is certainly worth having and Svetlanov
does it very well indeed. He breathes ruddy life into the work
which is written in Myaskovsky's most accessible style. The
horn-lofted theme at 3.45 is tossed from section to section
of the orchestra with confident abandon and it works ... in
spades.
The Twelfth Symphony
was premiered in Moscow under the baton of Albert Coates. This
is in the usual three movements rather than the Fifth's four.
It has been recorded once before on Marco Polo with Stankovsky
and the Czecho-Slovak RSO (8.223302) but Svetlanov makes more
of this than Stankovsky. A dancing and sometimes poetic
Slavonic folksiness plays through the big first movement It
is not top-notch Myaskovsky but it is attractive enough if you
are into 20th century celebratory Russian nationalism.
The Thirteenth
Symphony is a soul brother to No. 3: equally gloomy but
tonally adventurous - so much so that, clarity of orchestration
aside, it suggests Bernard van Dieren in the Chinese Symphony.
Frank Bridge, Bax and Berg are other triangulation points. Svetlanov
gives us the world's first ever commercial recording and makes
what I take to be an expressionist success of it. This is a
twenty minute single movement essay in contemplation and stormy
hammerhead clouds.
After the morose
and gloomy Thirteenth the Fourteenth's folksy artlessness
was more in keeping with the political correctness of the times.
Myaskovsky's use of five movements also suggested something
closer to a suite. This is one of Myaskovsky's lighter efforts.
The Symphony
No. 15 is radiant with the composer's trademark nostalgia
and rip-roaring cavalry charges. You get both in the first movement
while in the second there are reminiscences of the catastrophic
nightmare world of the Sixth Symphony including some really
eerie music. The third movement is a fast-moving waltz with
the emphasis on Tchaikovskian excitement rather than the voluptuous
sway of the dancers.
Composition of the
Sixteenth Symphony began shortly after the crash of the
giant eight-engine Soviet passenger aeroplane Tupolev Maxim
Gorky. The first movement is full of intrepidly heroic and exciting
music. The third movement has the reverent pace of a funeral
march with the emphasis on the sound of the wind section. The
finale makes use of the composer's own popular song The aeroplanes
are flying in the sky.
The epic Seventeenth
Symphony softens into smiling kindness in the finale. The
brass throughout are idiomatically Russian with that glowing
part warble - part bloom. The heroic aspects have a leisurely
majesty – listen to those agonising and agonised trumpets and
the superhuman striving of the massed brass in the first movement.
The mood of the
Eighteenth Symphony is rambunctious like a boozy country
fair with echoes of Balakirev's concert overtures and Mussorgsky's
Neva melancholy. The idyll of the long lento gives
way to a return to folksy capering and the gentle musing of
the silver birch trees. The work was very popular in the Soviet
Union and travelled far and wide carrying its dedication to
the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution. It was
even arranged for military band - a version that so impressed
the composer that the Nineteenth was actually written for military
band.
The Nineteenth
Symphony has been recorded several times before; most recently
with Rozhdestvensky and the Stockholm Concert Band (Chandos).
The music of the first movement moves between a Prokofiev-style
brusque quick-march and a sound very reminiscent of Vaughan
Williams' Sea Songs and the Moorside Suite by
Holst. There is none of the bombast you might have been expecting
from a soviet military band piece. Playful, gleeful, romantic
and even a shade heroic but as for empty gestures not a one.
The vibrant Twentieth
has one of those gifts of a theme, wholly Russian, haunting,
exultant, nostalgic, plangent, sad and poignant with an exalted
spirit lofted high by a blaze of strings and a supreme brass
choir. This recording session must have left everyone exhausted
and amazed.
The wartime Twenty-First
is also superbly done and is allocated a single track. Svetlanov's
command of atmosphere is immediate. I had forgotten how the
introduction before the ‘cavalry charge’ figure was so close
to the expressionist angst of symphonies 7 and 13. After a moments
of skirling power and tramping fugal character the music rises
to a peak of tortured triumph. The work settles into a Sibelian
shimmer at the close with some plangent bass-emphasised pizzicato
writing.
The Twenty-Second
(also termed ‘Symphony-Ballad’) will be known to Miaskovskian
old hands from ages gone. They will know it from the EMI-Melodiya
ASD LP of circa 1971 to the late 1980s Olympia reissue with
Feigin's excellent version of the Violin Concerto. It is a superb
work, burnished and radiant with baritonal Russian spirit. The
orchestra plays with fervour. The gripping playing of the strings
and defiant nobility of the brass deserve special mention. The
echo-singing of the heaven-clawing strings in the first movement
recalls his first 'war symphony' (the masterly Fifth). The Twenty-Third
is another lighter work comparable with the Eighteenth but
its lighter touch is set in sharp relief by the tragic and beetling
power of the Twenty-Fourth.
Symphony No.
25 has a real charging attack in the allegro impetuoso
third movement. This vigour is offset by a lovely melancholy.
Listen also to the calamitously screaming trumpets emulating
garish bugle calls.
The Twenty-Sixth
Symphony looks back to Balakirev's Overture on Three
Russian Themes, to Borodin's In the Steppes of Central
Asia to Rimsky's Antar and to the rustic courtliness
of the Glazunov symphonies. This is termed a symphony 'on Russian
themes' rather along the lines of the Twenty-Third and Prokofiev's
Kabardinian string quartet (No. 2). It is played with fiery
flair.
The Symphony
No. 27 is better known and has been recorded several times
over the years. Svetlanov brings out the autumnal, meditative
and melancholic colouration of the first movement with its remarkably
Finzian gravity. Towards the end of the movement another ‘signature’
‘charge’ topped off with a stomping dance 'tail' is excitingly
done. The central adagio demonstrates Myaskovsky's art of placing
and shaping woodwind solos with the after-tone of sadness and
lustrous grace.
As substantial bonuses
one also gets Svetlanov’s massed forces versions of the Serenade,
Concertino Lirico and Sinfoniettas and the overtures,
tone poems and some ballet music but the focus is quite naturally
on the symphonies here.
The present set
is available in the UK for £43. In sheer grocer’s terms that’s
just over £2.50 per disc. Documentation with the Warner set
is skimpy by comparison with the palatial notes on Olympia and
now on Alto by the late Per Skans. Another writer, Jeffrey Davis
has taken over where Skans set down his pen.
It is miraculous
that all these Myaskovsky works are available so economically.
For an intégrale it’s the only game in town. It is a
real blessing that it is at such an accessible price.
The Alto-Olympia
cycle is only available as of today in four volumes. The ten
Olympias can be had but often at fearful prices. If you are
looking for the fully documented Svetlanov-Myaskovsky recordings
and perhaps you already have all ten Olympias then Alto-Olympia
is the way to go. It delivers a sequence that is completely
uniform with Olympia.
On the other hand
if you want all these wondrous works in a hurry, at minimal
price and can settle for minimal documentation – perhaps supplemented
by a secondhand copy of Ikonnov’s 1940s study - which covers
many but not all the symphonies - then you need look no further.
Rob Barnett
Complete Contents
List:
CD 1 [76:46]
Symphony No.1, C minor, op.3 (1908) [41:30]; Symphony No.25,
D flat major, op.69 (1945-46) [34:53]
CD 2 [75:07]
Symphony No.10, F minor, op.30 (1926-27) [16:43]; Symphony No.11,
B flat minor, op.34 (1931-32) [34:29]; Symphony No.19, E flat
major, op.46 (1939) [23:23]
CD 3 [78:46]
Symphony No.9, C minor, op.28 (1926-27) [41:30]; Symphony No.14,
C major, op.37 (1933) [36:58]
CD 4 [76:12]
Symphony No.7, B minor, op.24 (1922) [23:44]; Symphony No.8,
A major, op.26 (1924-25) [52:12]
CD 5 [76:38]
Symphony No.5, D major, op.18 (1918) [33:47]; Symphony No.12,
G minor, op.35 (1931-32) [32:26]
CD 6 [77:41]
Symphony No.4, C minor, op.17 (1917-18) [40:41]; Symphony No.15,
D minor, op.38 (1935) [38:31]
CD 7 [75:01]
Symphony No.17, G sharp minor, op.41 (1936-37) [47:49]; Symphony
No.20, E major, op.50 (1940) [36:52]
CD 8 [79:04]
Symphony-ballad No.22, B minor, Ballade, op.54 (1941)
[36:23]; Symphony No.26, C major, op.79 (1948) [42:30]
CD 9 [74:03]
Symphony No.24, F minor, op.63 (1943) [38:44]; Symphony No.27,
C minor, op.85 (1949) [34:54]
CD 10 [79:37]
Symphony No.3, A minor, op.15 (1914) [46:31]; Symphony No. 23,
Symphony-Suite, A minor, op.56 (1941) [33:15]
CD 11 [79:48]
Symphony No.16, F major, op.39 (1935-36) [35:46]; Symphony No.18,
C major, op.42 (1937) [23:39]; Hulpigung’s Overture (or
Salutatory Overture), C major, op.48 (1939) [9:49]
CD 12 [79:01]
Symphony No.2, C sharp minor, op.11 (1910-11) [46:46]; Symphony
No.13, B flat minor, op.36 (1933) [20:26]; Slavonic rhapsody,
D minor, op.71 (1946) [11:32]
CD 13 [78:19]
Symphony No.6, E flat minor, op.23 (1921-23) [64:11]; Pathetic
Overture, C minor, op.76 (1947) [13:40]
CD 14 [77:45]
Symphony No.21, F sharp minor, op.51 (1940) [18:15]; Sinfonietta,
A major, op.10 (1910) [20:11]; Silence, F minor, op.9
(1909-10) [21:26]; Serenade No.1, op.32 (1933) [17:19]
CD 15 [78:58]
Sinfonietta, B minor, op.32 No.2 (1930) [27:05]; Sinfonietta,
A minor, op.68, No.2 (1945-46) [29:46]; Concertino lirico,
G major, op.32, No.3 (1929) [21:24]
CD 16 [77:37]
Links of a Chain – six sketches for orchestra, op.65 (1944)
[22:43]; Divertissement, op.80 (1948) [25:49]; Alastor,
C minor, op.14 (1912) [25:16]