Nikolai MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950)
Complete Symphonies 1-27
USSR State Symphony Orchestra (3, 19, 22), Russian Federation Academic Symphony Orchestra/Evgeny Svetlanov
rec. 1991-93; 1965 (3); 1970 (22), Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Moscow.
ALTO ALC3141 [14 CDs: ca 21 hrs]
What we have here are Myaskovsky’s 27 symphonies (1908-49) with two overtures (Salutatory and Pathétique). The two early tone poems (one after Poe; the other, after Shelley), three sinfoniettas, one serenade, one Divertissement, one Concertino Lirico, one Slav Rhapsody and a piece called Links are not included in this Alto box although they did appear in the Olympia/Alto CDs when they were issued individually in the 1990s and early 2000s. Never included in this Svetlanov project were Myaskovsky’s two concertos (both of which have been multiply recorded) and the lovely but inexplicably neglected short works with choir (Kirov is with Us and Kremlin by Night) neither of which has been recorded commercially.
The symphonies, which are surely the essence of Myaskovsky, span more than forty years: from pre-Revolution times to four years short of the death of Stalin and of Myaskovsky’s friend, Prokofiev.
It should be noted that the Svetlanov version of the Sixth Symphony here is the version minus chorus – which in any event is marked ad libitum. If you must have the chorus - and it does make a telling if brief impact - then there’s Kondrashin, Dudarova, Stankovsky, Liss and Järvi to look to.
This cycle of 27 was recorded during the years 1991-93, with the exception of symphonies 3, 19 and 22 from 1965 and 1970.
As a project it was a formidable chapter in Svetlanov’s gargantuan-ambitious
‘Russian Symphonic Anthology’, much of which has been issued by Melodiya in three very expensive boxes. These boxes comprise in the case of volumes 1 and 2, 55CDs each while 3 - very much a mopping up exercise for choral works - contains 11 CDs. In fact, the Myaskovsky, in the volume 2 part of the Anthology, includes only symphonies 5, 7, 9, 18, 14, 21, 17, 22, 24-27.
So far as the generality of British enthusiasts are concerned the symphonies were issued by Olympia, long gone and lamented. This was the very same firm which produced the odd ex-Melodiya non-Svetlanov Myaskovsky in the 1980s, and set about issuing the cycle a disc at a time. They got as far as volume 10 and then folded. Alto then picked up the baton and steadily released the remaining Svetlanov-Myaskovskys in a series completely uniform with the start made by Olympia.
Myaskovsky’s early symphonies inhabit an intense Scriabin-like world with Tchaikovskian excursions. The
First, which evinces total Russian commitment, boasts crackling abrasive brass in the first movement. The
Second is a work from the composer’s 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, which is fairly common and appeared on LP, shudders forward with brooding aggression. Melancholy suffuses even the occasional shafts of brightness. This issue is ADD and was recorded in the 1960s. The
Fourth, like the Second and Twentieth, is very rare indeed. It was planned as a work that was 'quiet, simple and humble' but is in fact determined and stern. It moves with speed, fury and fascination in pre-echoing the first stirrings which were 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' and novices. Unfortunately, Svetlanov takes the work at a lumbering pace which, although revealing details often subsumed in drama, quite saps the work's wondrous power. This is certainly the best recorded sound and the orchestral contribution is subtle but for the real essence of the Fifth you need to track down Olympia (OCD133) which has the magnificent even incandescent Konstantin Ivanov recording.
The towering Sixth Symphony is given a furiously whipped and fleet-footed reading by Svetlanov 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 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 in excellent sound 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 and 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 with folksong. 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 'competes' with Veronika Dudarova's Moscow 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 that sense it emulates even more effective parallel moments in the wondrous Fifth Symphony.
The Twelfth 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 the music 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 of the sort captured in Glazunov’s Symphonies 4, 5 and 8.
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. Bridge, Bax and Berg are other triangulation points. Svetlanov gives us the world's first ever commercial recording and makes an expressionist success of it. This is a twenty-minute, single-movement essay steeped 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 composer’s times. Myaskovsky's use of five movements also suggest something closer to a suite. This is one of Myaskovsky's lighter efforts, as is the Symphony No. 23.
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 dawn 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 a 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; for example, 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; 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 - by far the most famous and recorded of the 27 - 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 moment 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 recall the EMI-Melodiya ASD LP of circa 1971 and the late 1980s Olympia reissue with Feigin's truly excellent version of the Violin Concerto. It is a superb work - burnished and radiant with baritonal Russian spirit. The orchestra plays with fervour. The defiant nobility of the brass deserves special mention. The echo-singing of the heaven-clawing strings in the first movement recalls his first 'war symphony' (the masterly Fifth; I say again, do hear the Ivanov version). The
Twenty-Third is another lighter work comparable with the Eighteenth but its popular 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 elsewhere. Listen also to Myaskovsky’s use of 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 (again do hear the HMV Melodiya Ivanov version) and to the sometimes rustic courtliness of the Glazunov symphonies. No 26 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 by Svetlanov’s forces 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. Along with Symphony No 6 this is a work I have heard in concert. When I first heard this composer’s symphonies and listened to the Music Magazine talk about him, I would not have believed that I would have heard two of his symphonies live.
Life often forces a compromise and there is one here, although when weighed in the balance the choice is not found significantly wanting. You have to do without the two early tone poems Silence and Alastor (one after Poe; the other, Shelley), three sinfoniettas, serenade, Divertissement, Concertino Lirico, Slav Rhapsody and Links. They can still be found on the Alto CDs issued individually in the 1990s and early 2000s
It is remarkable that all the Myaskovsky symphonies are available and so economically. For an intégrale it’s the only game in town. It is a real blessing that it is at an accessible price - all 14 CDs for £35. The discs - each in its own plain pocket - are filled to the hilt. To complete the fine effect there is a really good English-only booklet with 36 pages of expert notes - by no means perfunctory - by Per Skans and Jeffrey Davis. If you would like to research beyond the booklet then you need only go to Gregor Tassie’s 2014 book “Nikolai Myaskovsky the Conscience of Russian Music”. I should add that there is a memoir of Per Skans by Tommy Persson. I am glad it found a place here and that Jackie Campbell, who for many was Olympia, is credited as Executive Producer for Olympia.
If you want all these wondrous symphonies, at minimal price and with no need to compromise on documentation then go for this. It’s an easy choice. I should add that as if to evidence Myaskovsky’s continuity as a force in music LAWO have a Petrenko-conducted CD in the offing which couples Prokofiev 5 with Myaskovsky 21.
Rob Barnett
Previous review: Gregor Tassie
Contents:
CD 1 [77:09]
Symphony No 1 in C minor, Op 3 (1908 rev 1921) [41:48]; Symphony No 25 in D-flat major,
Op 69 (1946, rev 1959) [35:12]
CD 2 [71:01]
Symphony No 2 in C-sharp minor, Op 11 (1910-11) [46:56]; Symphony No 18 in C
major, Op 42 (1937) [23:56]
CD 3 [67:14]
Symphony No 3 in A Minor, Op 15 (1914) [46:30]; Symphony No 13 in B-flat
minor in One Movement, Op 36 (1933) [20:35]
CD 4 [79:01]
Symphony No 4 in E
minor, Op 17 (1918) [41:02]; Symphony No 11 in B-flat minor, Op 34 (1931) [34:50]
CD 5 [76:54]
Symphony No 5 in D major, Op 18 (1918) [44:05]; Symphony No 12 in G
minor, Op 35 (1931-32) [32:40]
CD 6 [78:36]
Pathétique Overture in C
minor, Op 76 (1947) [13:47]; Symphony No 6 in E-flat minor, Op 23 (1921-23, Rev.1947) [64:40]
CD 7 [66:44]
Symphony No 7 in B minor, Op 24 (1921-22) [23:50]; Symphony No 26 in C
major, Op 79 (1948) [42:45]
CD 8 [69:30]
Symphony No 8 in A
major, Op 26 (1924-25) [52:31]; Symphony No 10 in F minor (in one movement - unmarked), Op 30 (1927) [16:50]
CD 9 [68:57]
Symphony No 9 in E minor, Op 28 (1926-27) [41:42]; Symphony No 20 in E
major, Op 50 (1940) [27:06]
CD 10 [73:55]
Symphony No 14 in C
major, Op 37 (1935) [37:18]; Symphony No 22 in B minor, ‘Symphony-Ballad’ Op 54 (1941) [36:28]
CD 11 [72:15]
Symphony No 15 in D minor, Op 38 (1933-4) [36:56]; Symphony No 27 in C minor, Op 85 (1949) [35:10]
CD 12 [70:05]
Symphony No 16 in F major, Op 39 (1935-6) [46:14]; Symphony No 19 in E-flat major, Op 46 for Wind
Band (1938-9) [23:42]
CD 13 [76:48]
Salutatory Overture in C major (or
Hulpigung’s Overture), Op 48 (1939) [9:54] Symphony No 17 in G-sharp minor, Op 41 (1936-7) [48:06] Symphony No 21 in F-sharp minor, Op 51 (1940) [18:30]
CD 14 [72:41]
Symphony No 23 in A minor, Op 56 (1941) [33:52]; Symphony No 24 in F minor, Op 63
To the memory of Vladimir Derzanovsky (1943) [39:00]
Reviews of other Myaskovsky CDs:
Silence; Alastor
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/May09/Myaskovsky_ALC1042_ALC1043.htm
17; 21
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2008/July08/myaskovsky_altoALC1023.htm
23; 24
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/Feb09/Myaskovsky_alc1024.htm
15; 27; 16; 19
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/June08/Myaskovsky_11_12_ALC1021.htm
Other Myaskovsky links
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/Jan09/Myaskovsky_ALC1041.htm
14; 22
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/May03/miaskosvsky22.htm
6; 7; 26; 8; 10; 9; 20
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/nov02/Myaskovsky6-9.htm
1; 25; 2; 18; 3; 13; 4; 11; 5; 12
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Mar02/miask6olympia1.htm
27 Symphonies etc: Warner Classics 2564 69689-8 [16 CDs]
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Nov08/Myaskovsky_Symphonies_2564696898.htm
Jonathan Woolf - Myaskovsky on Record
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/nov02/Myaskovsky_survey.htm
