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".

Last ten years and classicizing

The next year contained the Symphony-Ballade (symphony 22) in B minor, quite likely inspired in part by the first few years of the war. The year 1941 also saw an evacuation, along with Prokofiev and Khatchaturian among others, to what were then the Kabardino-Balkar regions. This is why Prokofiev's 2nd string quartet and Myaskovsky's 23rd symphony or 7th string quartet contain themes in common — they are Kabardinian folk-tunes the composers took down. The sonata-works (symphonies, quartets, etc.) written in this period (especially starting with the 24th symphony, the piano sonatina, the 9th quartet) while Romantic in tone and style are direct in harmony and development. He does not deny himself a teasingly neurotic scherzo, as in his last two string quartets (that in the thirteenth quartet, his last published work, is frantic, and almost chiaroscuro but certainly contrasted) and the general paring down of means usually allows for direct and reasonably intense expression, as with the cello concerto and second cello sonata, the latter dedicated to Rostropovich.

Related Topics:
Symphony-Ballade - Kabardino-Balkar - 23^rd symphony - 24^th symphony - Chiaroscuro

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What there is not, is much experiment, to suggest as with some earlier works that Scriabin or Schoenberg might still be an influence. Some things may work better and some worse in a late style like this. This may have been, of course, and in part or in whole, an attempt to dodge condemnation, especially after the Zhdanov Decree. There was of course no dodging possible, and Myaskovsky was condemned in turn, only rehabilitated posthumously after his death in 1950, leaving an output of eighty-seven published opus numbers spanning some forty years and students with recollections. (There is also a recollection in Testimony, a controversial book of interviews.) Myaskovsky was awarded with the Stalin Prize six times — no other composer was awarded with this prize so often.

Related Topics:
Zhdanov - Testimony - Stalin Prize

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~