Nikolai Myaskovsky

Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky (ru: ??????? ??????????, also transliterated to Miaskovskii) (April 20,1881 – August 8,1950) was a Russian composer. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of the Soviet symphony".

Influence

While Myaskovsky had many students — in addition to those listed above there were also Alexander Lokshin, Boris Chaikovskii, and Evgeny Golubev, a teacher and prolific composer whose students included Alfred Schnittke — the degree and nature of his influence on his students is difficult to measure. What is lacking is an account of his teaching methods, what and how he taught, or more than brief accounts of his teaching; Shchedrin makes a mention in an interview he did for the American music magazine Fanfare, and that section in Testimony, if authentic, is another. It has been said that the earlier music of Khachaturian, Kabalevsky and other of his students has a Myaskovsky flavor, with this quality decreasing as the composer's own voice emerges (since Myaskovsky's own output is internally diverse such a statement needs further clarification, of course. See this biographical essay on Kabalevsky's music for a case in point) — while some composers, for instance the little-heard Evgeny Golubev, kept something of his teacher's characteristics well into their later music. The latter's sixth piano sonata is dedicated to Myaskovsky's memory.

Related Topics:
Alexander Lokshin - Boris Chaikovskii - Evgeny Golubev - Alfred Schnittke

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* This information is from Harlow Robinson's biography of Prokofiev, Viking, 1987.

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