Nikolai Myaskovsky
Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky (
ru: Николай Мясковский, 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".
Myaskovsky was born in
Novogeorgiyevsk, near
Warsaw, and moved to
Saint Petersburg in his teens. He was discouraged from a musical career, instead joining the military. However he did enter the
St. Petersburg Conservatory in
1906 and eventually resigned his military commission. At the Conservatory he met
Sergei Prokofiev, and they remained friends throughout the older man's life
[This information is from Harlow Robinson's biography of Prokofiev, Viking, 1987.]. In Conservatory, they shared a dislike of their professor
Lyadov which came out in Myaskovsky's choice of a theme by
Grieg for the variations with which he closed his
third string quartet [The quartet was probably not his third in order of composition, but eventually it was so published.], since Lyadov disliked Grieg. Prokofiev and Myaskovsky worked together in Conservatory on at least one work, a lost symphony, parts of which were later scavenged to provide material for the slow movement of Prokofiev's
fourth piano sonata. They both later produced works subtitled
From old notebooks using materials from this period — in Prokofiev's case the third and fourth piano sonatas; in Myaskovsky's, other works, such as his tenth string quartet and what are now the fifth and sixth piano sonatas, all revisions of works he wrote at this time. The
first of his surviving symphonies (c, op. 3,
1908/
1921) was his Conservatory graduation piece.
Drafted into
World War I, his stint in the 'Great War' produced
shell shock, and while recovering he produced two diametrically opposed works, his
fourth symphony (op. 17 in E minor) and his
fifth (op. 18 in D). (His
third of 1914 has a
Scriabin-influenced sound.) The next few years brought ascents and reversals — the death of his father from the anger of a revolutionary, and his appointment to the teaching staff of the
Moscow Conservatory and membership in the composers' union.
The years
1921 –
1933 were years in which he most often experimented in music, producing works such as the
tenth and
thirteenth symphonies, fourth piano sonata, and first string quartet — also some of the suites of piano pieces — whose harmony is very much stretched, and the first years of his teaching at the Conservatory. Perhaps the thirteenth symphony stands alone even among them for experimentation, written in a single atmospheric and strange movement complete with
fugato. It was the only work by the composer premiered in the United States. (In passing, note that the third and fourth string quartets, though they share
opus 33 with the first two, were first published together with them in the collected edition published after the composer's death, whether or not they were first published around the same time. These works — #3 in d, #4 in f — are mid-1930s revisions of works written in the last years of the
1900s, not new works as are the other two; so their style is quite different. Whether they sound worse is a matter of opinion, though they have a very high level of craftsmanship.)
His pupils were eventually to include such composers as
Khachaturian,
Rodion Shchedrin,
Dmitri Kabalevsky,
Vissarion Shebalin. The
sixth symphony (
1921–
3, rev.
1947 — this is the version that is almost always played or recorded) his only choral symphony and the longest of what eventually became twenty-seven, sets a brief poem (in Russian though the score allows Latin alternatively — see the
American Symphony Orchestra page below on the origins of the poem, — the soul looking at the body it has abandoned.) The finale contains quite a few quotes — the
Dies Irae theme, as well as French revolutionary tunes.
The next few years, after 1933, showed primarily a retreat from that style, though with — again mostly — no general retreat in craftsmanship. The
violin concerto dates from these years — in all he was to write two concerti, one for violin and also a
cello concerto (several times recorded by
Mstislav Rostropovich), or three if we count the
Lyric Concertino of op. 32. Another standout, besides the violin concerto, of the years up to
1940 is the one-movement
symphony no. 21 (in F-sharp minor, op. 51) produced in that year and recorded by
Morton Gould, a compact and mostly lyrical work, very different in harmonic language from the thirteenth.
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 7
th 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 9
th 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.
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.
While Myaskovsky had many students — in addition to those listed above there were also
Alexander Lokshin,
Boris Tchaikovsky, 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.
*
A Myaskovsky website*
Myaskovsky opus list*
American Symphony page on Myaskovsky's 6th Symphony*
detailed article about Myaskovsky and his works*
Nikolai Myaskovsky took lessons in harmony from Reinhold Gliere*Alexei Ikonnikov,
Myaskovsky: his life and work. Translated from the Russian. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1969, ISBN 0837121582.
*Harlow Robinson,
Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography, ISBN 1555535178 (new paperback edition) — referred to in main text.
*David Fanning, liner notes to
Myaskovsky: Symphony No.6, Deutsche Grammophon 289 471 655-2.
*Philip Taylor, liner notes to
Myaskovsky: Symphony No.27, Cello Concerto, Chandos 10025.
*Andrew Huth, liner notes to
Tchaikovsky & Myaskovsky: Violin Concertos, Philips 289 473 343-2.
