MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW
RECORDING OF THE MONTH


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CDs: Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

Nikolai MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950)
Salutatory Overture in C major op.48 (1939) [10:02]
Symphony No. 17 in G sharp minor op. 41 (1936-37) [48:27]
Symphony No. 21 in F sharp minor op. 51 (1940) [18:40]
Russian Federation Academic Symphony Orchestra/Evgeny Svetlanov
rec. 1991-3, Moscow Conservatory Great Hall, DDD
ALTO ALC1023 [77:14]
Experience Classicsonline

Taking the ten volumes of the now deleted Olympia series (see reviews: 1-5, 6-9, 10) with the Alto label’s continuation of that series (see review) it will take only one further disc to have all the Myaskovsky symphonies available on individual CDs. The present disc is No. 13 in the series.
 
This disc includes one of Myaskovsky's longest symphonies alongside the Third and Sixth. It shares a disc with an exuberant singing overture and the most recorded Myaskovsky work - the Symphony 21. Recorded by Ormandy and Morton Gould (now on the Bearac label) in the USA and by various Russian conductors. Svetlanov's is the most recent.
 
The Salutatory Overture (also seemingly known as the Hulpigung’s Overture) is so much better than its title and circumstances - the 60th birthday of Stalin - might suggest. It encapsulates much of the Myaskovsky manner: the tragic grandeur and the singing dignified melancholy. It is not the brash pot-boiler that we might have expected from Shostakovich's Festive Overture or the various examples by Kabalevsky. It is heroic and carries a sense of striving. Surprisingly its assertive lyricism has a distinct Rawsthorne flavour about it. There’s even an episode that recalls Hanson's Second Symphony.
 
The Seventeenth Symphony is an epic piece although the epic side softens into smiling kindness in the finale. The brass throughout are idiomatically Russian with that glowing part warble - part bloom (I, 5:00). The heroic aspects material is acutely judged and has a leisurely majesty – listen to those agonising and agonised trumpets at 4:20 in I and the superhuman striving of the massed brass at 12:03 and 14:50 – all in the first movement. The long Lento is intensely romantic to the danger point of sentimentality - it's a sensationally affecting and delicate piece of writing, complete with jewelled harp highlights. In this movement Myaskovsky is as close as he ever came to the second movement of Rachmaninov's Second Symphony. I recall this movement being used (Gauk recording now on Classound if you can find it) to illustrate Robert Layton’s Myaskovsky profile on Radio 3 in the early 1970s. The short allegro third movement uses the sort of chevauchée charge motif that we know from the symphonies 21, 24 and 25. However Myaskovsky astonishes with some writing of a delicacy very close to Ravel but with a folksy accent. The finale features a typically emotional Myaskovsky cantabile and writing which enchants through its expression of attentive kindness rather than grandstanding drama. The easygoing and lissom confidence of this movement also recalls Vaughan Williams in his sunny ambling mood. Myaskovsky in this work might be seen as the successor to Tchaikovsky - his writing is that effective.
 
The wartime Twenty-First Symphony is also superbly done and is here allocated a single track. Svetlanov's command of atmosphere is immediate. I had forgotten how the introduction before the ‘cavalry charge’ figure (5:27)) was so close to the expressionist angst of symphonies 7 and 13. After a moments of skirling power (5:45) and tramping fugal character (9:24) 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 Seventeenth was issued previously on Melodiya (SUCD 10-00472) shortly after the recording was made.
 
It's sad to note the death of Per Skans for whom Tommy Persson provides an obituary in the booklet. Skans wrote the annotations for the Olympia volumes and all the Altos up until now. His mantle is now assumed by the capable and extremely well-informed Jeffrey Davis who furnishes the note for these two symphonies. Skans' notes have been a distinctive strength of the Olympia and Alto project but Jeffrey Davis seems in every way a worthy successor.
 
All the Svetlanov Myaskovsky symphonies are now available in a Warner box but the documentation for that bargain basement box is scant to put it mildly. If you want your Myaskovsky meticulously documented then the Olympia-Alto series is the one to go for.
 
Wonderful playing of music that has been locked away for far too long.
 
Rob Barnett
 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.