Classical Music Thread

[x10r4]

Johann Melchior Molter; Gottsauer Ensemble; Recorded Asamsaal (Asam hall), Schloss Ettlingen (Ettlingen Palace), Ettlingen, Germany 26-28 November 2014

Clarinet Concerto in A Major, MWV 6.41: III. Allegro
Lisa Shklyaver is playing her period clarinet pictured.

Oboe Concerto in G Minor, MWV 6.22: III. Allegro
Georg Siebert, Oboe

Flute Concerto in G Major, MWV 6.16: III. Allegro assai
Stefanie Kessler, Traversflöte

Johann Christian Schickhardt: Concerto No. 2, Op. 19 for 2 recorders, 2 traversos (originally 4 recorders), and basso continuo transposed to A minor
La Rêveuse; Recorded Christuskirche - Église protestante allemande à Paris, France October 2019
I. Allegro

II. Adaigo

III. Vivace

IV. Allegro

 

[x10r4]

Jan Dismas Zelenka; Kammerchor Stuttgart, Barockorchester Stuttgart; Recorded Evangelische Kirche Peter und Paul, Gönningen, Germany 2022
Missa Gratias agimus tibi, ZWV 13
IIIa. Credo in unum Deum

IIId. Et resurrexit

Beatus vir in C Major, ZWV 76
I. Beatus vir

II. Gloria Patri

III. Amen

 

[Positron]

I know only of Johann Friedrich Fasch's Concerto for 2 Oboes da caccia, FaWV L:G11 but I have yet to find good a good recording for it.

Let's hope the group Tempesta di Mare would record it for Chandos in the future. I only have one volume of the four released so far and they are very idiomatic and delightful to hear.

I'm eyeing this CPO CD of Heinichen in the used store. The store asks US $5 now but I hope to wait until they drop the price to $2.5.

---

Myaskovsky's Symphony No.3 was written on the eve of WWI. Myaskovsky has already been conscripted and he would spent the last free days making a fair copy. Afterwards he would be sent to Galicia (around present day Ukraine and Poland) to supervise military reinforcements. Patrick Zuk pieces together this period of Myakovsky's life through his correspondences with music critic Vladimir Derzhanovsky -- who doubtless was his main source of strength and encouragement in those three dark years -- and paints a heartbreaking story of deprivation, frustrated plans, and shadows of death and disease.

The symphony itself, however, was so well-received, as Derzhanovsky wasted no time informing Myaskovsky, that people were comparing it with Tchaikovsky's Pathétique. From the expressive point of view it is indeed a major progress. The opening drum roll and trumpet call are almost Mahlerian (Myaskovsky despised Mahler for incorporating vulgar material in his symphonies, but he surely learned something from the later). The first movement then flows very organically, without a trace of motif-noddling that beset his earlier works. The ending of this movement is an expansive, peaceful coda, which is an improvement to the all-too-short ending of Silence.

The second movement plunges us back to the Slavic word of Tchaikovsky. More spasmodic and full of struggle than the first movement, it however ends with something very Mahlerian -- as opposed to the uneasy peace achieved at the end of the first movement, the second ends with an utter defeat, reminiscent of how Mahler 6 ended, just without the histrionic hammer blows.

Two-movement, completed symphonies (i.e. not counting Schubert) are extremely rare. The only examples I can think of are Nielsen 5, and Hovhaness 53 "Star Dawn", the latter is atypical for having been scored for wind band, not symphony orchestra. Both Microsoft Copilot and Google AI bullshitted me: the former gave me Sibelius 7 (single movement) and the latter suggested Shostakovich 14 (dubiously a symphony and definitely not in two movements). The two movement form seems ill-suited for the goal of a symphony -- the balance between unity and variety. Listening to Myaskovsky 3 I imagine he is writing a diptych: telling the same story from two perspectives -- I cannot help thinking back on the official autobiography that Myaskovsky required to write for the Soviet authorities, and the more complex, variegated account that Patrick Zuk now presents.

 

[Positron]

Over an hour in length, Myaskovsky's Symphony No. 6 in E-flat Minor is his longest work, and probably the one that has the deepest personal significance. Posterity nicknames it "The Revolution Symphony", and indeed it is about the October Revolution. But rather than glorifying the working class yada yada, it is a deeply tragic personal reminisce, a process of picking up a broken psyche, struggling to find the opportunity for mourning amidst the turmoil. Patrick Zuk calls it "a symphonic requiem meditating on personal and collective experience of upheaval and calamitous loss".

Contra what Stravinsky ostensibly claims, Myaskovsky thinks music can express emotions; he just denies that he is doing so through his work. Myaskovsky rarely discloses the "hidden program" of his works, partly out of his temperament, and partly because of political pressure. The only sources of inspiration for this symphony he was willing to disclose was his hearing the speech by the Bolshevik leader Nicholay Kilenko, "Death, death, death to the enemies of the Revolution", which made an "indelible impression" on the composer. The "impression" was no doubt abject horror. Myaskovsky's father, Yakov Myaskovsky, a retired military engineer under the Tsarist regime, died in the early months of the Revolution under mysterious circumstances. Zuk's research drew up a blank: no material about Yakov's death could be found, and if the composer wrote about the tragedy to his family or friends, the letters have all been destroyed. The only account we have is from Olga Lamm, the daughter of Myaskovsky's close friend Pavel Lamm, who claim that Myaskovsky told Pavel that, sometime during 1919, Yakov was ripped apart by a mob when they saw he had his general's great coat on in the depth of winter.

Two years later, Myaskovsky's paternal aunt Yelikonia died of a sudden illness. Myaskovsky's mother died when he was 8, and the unmarried Yelikonia became the family's childcarer. She was strict and a bit of a religious nut, but she was loving caretaker, and the one who discovered and encouraged Myaskovsky's passion for music. When Myaskovsky visited his childhood home for Yelikonia funeral, he was struck by its dilapidated state.

Patrick Zuk guides us through the psychodrama of the work, likening it to the process of grieving. When an overwhelming, unbearable tragedy befalls a person, he develops coping mechanisms, trying to protect the psych, holding the pain at bay so he can carry on in life. But such psychological band-aids eventually falls out: only when the tragedy is properly dealt with, the overwhelming emotions brought back into consciousness to be properly experienced, the irrevocable loss properly mourned, then the psyche can really heal. In Myaskovsky 6, such psychodrama is played out through a long, tortuous journey towards the home key, E-flat minor.

Two motifs are the main players to the psychodrama. The first is a thunderous, tempestuous, tonally ambiguous theme announced at the outset. Zuk likens it to the "Death" oration of Kilenko.

The second is a gracefully arioso theme in Dorian mode (starting at 2'33" in the above video). The Dorian theme repeatedly attempts to establish itself, but is repeatedly undercut by the first theme.

In the second movement, Presto tenebroso, tonal stability is likewise fleeting, and the tempest holds sway.

The Dorian theme in the first movement transmutes into something very interesting: a trio scored for strings and flute (25:12 in the recording) which feels positively Elysian. Celesta icily announces the Dies Irae theme, suggesting the idea of mourning. But it is, as Zuk observes, not a real mourning, because the music sounds so disembodied and unreal: it is "mourning as an idea" rather than a lived experience.

The struggle between turmoil and solace continues in the third movement.

At first it seems the music is on a secure tonal ground; the energy of the violent dissonant theme is transferred to the arioso theme of solace, and there are three beautiful passages of slow music in this long movement. Indeed to my untrained ears it seems a resolution has been reached and the symphony can end here. But no, the key established is not the home key E-flat minor: but the unrelated B major. True mourning remains elusive.

The final movement of the symphony is extremely peculiar and ultimately to a heart-breaking effect.

Myaskovsky's umbrage at Mahler notwithstanding, he opens the movement with two songs associated with the French Revolution, "Ça Ira" and "La carmagnole". The melodies are not distorted or rendered grotesque (as would be if Prokofiev or Shostakovich were to use them) but played very straight. Given the (false) solace that ends the previous movement, the effect is extremely jarring. Why these two songs? The lyrics are full of mob violence and sadistic glee at the fate of the disposed aristocrats, the "enemies of the people". One can imagine that, at this point of the grieving process, Myaskovsky is facing the horrible death of his father face on. The mobs are grotesque enough as they are, there being no need to cariature them, The lyrics of "Ça Ira", in addition, hold the false promise that "it will be all right". Musically, these "mob themes" twice try to impose E-flat major by fiat -- "I told you it will be all right!! I told you it will be all right!!" -- but are themselves rendered incoherent in the process; in the end they are wholesale rejected. What comes after is the heart of the symphony. After the stentorian restatement of Dies Irae and its abatement, comes a choral passage of an Russian Old Believer chant (58'50").

What have we seen?​

Marvel of marvels​

Marvel of marvels.​

A dead body.​

How that soul​

Parted from the body,​

Yea, bade it farewell.​

You, soul, to go​

To God's judgement​

And you, body,​

To damp mother earth.​

The key is indeed E-flat minor. The text emphasizes how one must "see", to face the enormity of the tragedy head on, before one can find closure. The past is irrevocable, but one must move on, and one can only move on when he has the opportunity to piece up and organize the broken pieces of his soul. This is also why Myaskovsky could only afford to write this symphony in 1921, when his material situation improved after a long decade of deprivation and soul crushing work, when he got jobs in the music publishing press and the Moscow conservatory, was entitled to a "scholar provision" which is extremely sumptuous by contemporary standards, and -- perhaps most importantly -- was able to resume private music-making with a group of like-minded friends.

The Old Believer chorus is marked ad libitum; my Svetlanov recording omits it and therefore puts itself out of the running. Zuk highly recommends the Kondrashin recording, and this is what I present here. Neeme Jarvi made a modern recording (with chorus) under DG that sounds great. I normally prefer modern sound, but as you can see below, Youtube is a jerk.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Janacek is really nice:

I really enjoy the string quartet version of this.

 

[Positron]

I've always enjoyed Leif Ove Andsnes playing "On an Overgrown Path" and it is on Youtube, but hey! See what I found? An ECM recording (András Schiff) that is not paywalled!

 

[Positron]

The name "Shylock" is in the news, so here is Fauré's incidental music for the play Shylock, Edmond Haraucourt’s adaptation of The Merchant of Venice for the French audience.

You can say it is not very characterful music; sort of like a slowed down baroque divertissement in proto-impressionistic half light. I don't think there is depiction of Shylock in the music at all. The two vocal numbers are billing-cooing trifle (Wikipedia has the lyrics and translation, if you insist), but who can resist Gedda's singing?

 

[Lovely Kin]

Scriabin's music is undeniably beautiful

 

[Positron]

Just seeing the cover makes me scream I MUST HAVE IT!!!!!

 

[Lovely Kin]

 

[Trimalchio]

I don't think this is a genuine recording of Scriabin. Technology of the time was too limited. There are, however, piano rolls made by Scriabin in 1908 and 1910, although it's debated how accurately piano rolls reflect a player's style. (There are some existing ones of Mahler's playing, if you're interested.)

 

[Positron]

Myaskovsky's Symphony No. 10 (1927) is in one movement and inspired by the Pushkin poem The Bronze Horseman. This poem, especially the illustration for it by Alexandre Benois, is as iconically Russian as the Kremlin palace. The tale speaks of the helplessness of the average person against the power of the state, symbolized by the statue of Peter The Great coming to life to chase a half-mad poor clerk who hurls his grievances at it.

As a rule Myaskovsky did not diverge the program or inspiration of his works, but he noted it in his diary and put down lines of the poem in the manuscript. The work is in strict sonata form, so it is no mere tone poem. The style is typical of Myaskovsky so far: somber, turbulent, densely dissonant, and counterpoint-rich. Patrick Zuk calls it the "high point of the Expressionist tendencies of Myaskovsky's oeuvre to date" (Symphony No. 13 would be another single movement "Expressionist" score, but the mood is completely different). The Communist Party would find fault in its "bourgeois individualism".

Important though Patrick Zuk regards Symphony No. 10 is, I bring it up chiefly as a foil to Symphony No. 11, composed 5 years later in 1932. That had been a very eventful five years. On the plus side, Myaskovsky was at long last working full time on music; being teacher of the Moscow Conservatoire and the State Music Publisher. His works were gaining international attention; his symphonies were performed by internationally eminent conductors like Stokowski abroad; while Bruno Walter and Toscanini have expressed interest. Myaskovsky signed a contract with Universal Edition to have his works published (the contract was not to last, however, Myaskovsky felt UE was being negligent which costed him several performances). Dark specters were rising, however. The Bolsheviks were demanding ideological conformity. The conservatoire were put under the management of toadies ignorant of music. Compositional teachers were increasingly pressured to take up proletariat or farmer students totally ignorant of music -- and these student got to dictate how their teacher should think and compose (100 years later, America will repeat the same mistake in the name of DEI. Why are ideologues so stupid?). There have been several rounds of purges of students and staff in the conservatoire. Elsewhere, abuse of power was rampant; friendships were severely tested. The consolation in this turbulent time was that the multiple Bolshevik committees were unstable and wasted their time bickering against each other.

On the personal side, just after his 50th birthday, Myaskovsky almost succumbed to the same fate as Scriabin. While vacationing at the outskirts of Moscow, a boil on his face turned septic, and from the description I think he might have developed full-blown septic shock. He was lucky that a doctor, a specialist in bacteriophage therapy, was vacationing nearby and went to take care of him. His convalescence was extremely protracted, and his constitution was permanently weakened, but he got to live for almost two more decades.

Compared with the Symphony No.10, it almost seems Myaskovsky shed a skin in his next symphony. Intricate, dense textures gave way to lean lines and, most notably, hummable melodies. Especially telling is the pastoral, light-suffused music in the Adagio, with wistful woodwinds -- Myaskovsky can write sensual music, after all. The "old Myaskovsky" is still there; note the relentless, dramatic gestures at the developmental section of the first movement, but is tempered by lyricism. Even the peaceful Adagio is troubled by eddies of dissonance. Less convincing, however, is the supposedly uplifting final movement. My feeling of this movement is that Myaskovsky wanted to pull a Beethovenian finale, but simply cannot muster the enthusiasm for celebration.

It is tempting to suggest that Myaskovsky felt the next to tone down his "formalism" to keep the Bolsheviks ideologues at bay, but formally Symphony No. 11 is as robust as any of his previous symphonies. The urge to simplify his style was entirely his own. The turmoil and confusion of the intervening years have not been conductive to creative work, especially since Myaskovsky was temperamentally prone to depression. After Symphony No. 10, he wrote a set of three Divertissements, Op. 32, for small orchestra, and two string quartets (a genre that he did not touch upon since his student days). The Divertissements, as Myaskovsky wrote to Prokofiev, were meant to be "cheerful, uncomplicated, and accessible". This might sound like ideological compromise, but the Divertissements' forms were finalized in 1926, before the demands of the Bolsheviks for "simple, understandable music", started in earnest. If there were an "external" impulse for Myaskovsky's stylistic change, it would be Prokofiev's own turn for simplicity, for example in the ballet The Prodigal Son (1929). The relationship between the two composers was very strange: Prokofiev was savage in his criticism of the older composer, his former classmate and mentor, but to Myaskovsky, Prokofiev could do no wrong. He regarded Prokofiev as the light of Russian Music, his adoration bordered on hero worship.

Myaskovsky's newfound simplicity is also important in understanding his controversial Symphony No. 12, but that is a story for another day.

 

[Trimalchio]

Schumann's late music is very special to me. This is the last complete piece we have from him. At this time he was suffering from severe mental and auditory hallucinations. He starting hearing unearthly sounds, angelic voices singing "wonderful" music and howling demons threatening him with hell. According to his wife Clara, Schumann woke up in the middle of the night and claimed to receive this chorale-like theme from the spirit of Schubert. In his confusion, Schumann seems to have forgotten that he had written and used it himself years earlier. He quickly wrote the first four variations on the theme. However, his delusions became so acute that he attempted suicide by throwing himself into the icy Rhine, but was rescued by concerned onlookers. He was then lucid enough to complete the fifth and final variation, before surrendering himself to a mental asylum, where he died over 2 years later in 1856.

I think it's very moving that even in such deep distress, Schumann was able to find this gentle and peaceful music. I love the third and fifth variations in particular. I wish I had my piano again to play through these.

 

[Positron]

While it goes without question that the Soviet Community Party had a strong mandate to artists to create artwork that served the revolution and be understandable to the proletariats, the extent of state control was erratic until the notion of "Soviet Realism" was formulated in 1932, and war against "formalism" started in earnest circa 1936. Before that point, different collectives fought each other for ascendance, and when a new group gained power, the art policy overcorrected. The year 1929-31 was such relative halcyon days as far as music was concerned. The State announced competitions and prizes for composers, and more notably, a commission scheme. Under this scheme Myaskovsky was commissioned to write a symphony -- itself an important gesture of the State, that not only agitprop and mass choruses were acceptable, but absolute music, such as symphonies, can serve revolutionary purposes too, provided that it comes with a suitable, edifying program.

The commission, of course, came with strings attached. Myaskovsky was to write about the glory of Collective Farms. While a contract of the commission did not survive, Myaskovsky's diary was quite clear. That task was of course odious to the extreme -- how could one extol Collective Farms when famine still scourged over much of Russia, causing millions of deaths? Worse, a disaster happened to Myaskovsky's family: his brother-in-law was sentenced to labor camp under made-up charges of espionage. Such a fate would not only jeopardize the livelihoods of Myaskovsky's sister and her child, but would open Myaskovsky's own life -- father a Tsarist general who was likely murdered by the Bolsheviks; himself having served in the Tsarist army; promulgated foreign and modern music in his youth; continual communication with émigrés like Prokofiev -- to unwanted scrutiny. Myaskovsky pulled a Rube Goldberg's worth of personal connections, starting with Anton Chekhov's widow, and the crisis was averted. But you can imagine Myaskovsky was hardly in the mood for music; even his health suffered.

When he did write the symphony, slowly, he found that a student called Marian Koval was breathing down his neck. Koval was a proletariat diversity hire who, by his own admission, entered the Moscow Conservatoire still grappling with basic counterpoint. But, like all diversity hires, he is not afraid to boss his elders and betters around. Anxious that Myaskovsky did not supply a descriptive breakdown of each movements, he went on to suggest one for his teacher. Myaskovsky's reply is typical of how he dealt with official pressures. Unfailingly polite and humble, he thanked Koval for his excellent suggestion, but stated that his symphony was almost finished so he could not make use of his counsel. And at any rate, Myaskovsky admitted that to fully realize Koval's scenario would far exceed his creative abilities.

So you see Myaskovsky had his own cunning. In an earlier incident, The Bolshoi Theatre urged Myaskovsky to write an opera about the building of a hydroelectric plant amidst counter-revolutionary saboteurs. Again, Myaskovsky said thank you, the scenario was great, but felt it is better suited for literature than music. At any way, Myaskovsky pointed out, that his student Mosolov has just finished something very similar and he didn't want to steal his limelight.

It is remarkable that, despite the endless political upheaval and Myaskovsky's assuredly "formalist" stance, he was never shortlisted for purge from either the Moscow Conservatoire or the State Publishing House (he repeatedly tried to resign from the latter and was always refused). He always treated people with kindness and patience. He was self-effacing and unassuming (thus perhaps not perceived as a threat). He was also one of the few living Russian composers of international renown. Perhaps more importantly, Myaskovsky was efficient at his teaching and administrative job, so even people who saw him as a rival had a grudging respect to him.

Back to the Symphony, which is Myaskovsky's 12th. Patrick Zuk could not ascertain whether Myaskovsky did supply a program or not (a German-language synopsis exists, but it was doubtful it was authorized by Myaskovsky). What is sure is that the title "Collective Farm" never appeared in any published material -- it was simply Symphony No. 12 in G Minor, Op. 35. It was Myaskovsky's pupil, Dmitry Kabalevsky, an early member of the Communist Party, who promulgated the "Collective Farm" narrative, in order to show that his teacher has really "reformed" from his misguided "formalist" stance.

A work written under such circumstances is unlikely to be a masterpiece, but one should be glad that Myaskovsky's 12 is not simply far from being banal agitprop: it has many nice moments to savor. The opening movement is pleasantly pastoral, with the development section in the form of an elegant peasant dance (5:38) that mounts in vigor.

The Presto is brassy and bombastic, perhaps enough to fool the censors into accepting it as "affirming", but it is never so relentless as to be tasteless. and it is suitably tempered with respite. One can also note how keen Myaskovsky is with solo woodwinds. The final movement. supposedly to be jubilant, is far less successful. Like the finale of Symphony 11, it simply does not have enough forward momentum to be truly jubilant -- perhaps reflecting the composer's mental state. What energy it has is expended at the movement's onset, leaving its conclusion a hoarse howl of a fatigued sloganeer.

All in all, this symphony is indeed "easier" and more approachable than all the others Myaskovsky has written, but one has to be reminded that Myaskovsky has been streamlining his style for several years. Patrick Zuk compared the style of this symphony and the three Divertissements, Op. 32 and found little irregularity. And as if to contend Kabalevsky's argument that he has capitulated, his next Symphony would be an extremely gloomy, fatalistic work.

 

[Trimalchio]

All in all, this symphony is indeed "easier" and more approachable than all the others Myaskovsky has written, but one has to be reminded that Myaskovsky has been streamlining his style for several years.

These posts are very interesting. I'm not familiar with Myaskovsky, and Russian classical music is something of a gap in my knowledge, besides Scriabin and Alfred Schnittke, and the more popular warhorses.

 

[Positron]

These posts are very interesting. I'm not familiar with Myaskovsky, and Russian classical music is something of a gap in my knowledge, besides Scriabin and Alfred Schnittke, and the more popular warhorses.

Thank Patrick Zuk, whose biography of the composer is excellent: well-researched and very touching. I'm thinking of buying a copy myself.

Myaskovsky's Symphony 13 is a deeply somber, expressionist score. Zuk likens it to "the dark night of the soul, passed in weary, fretful wakefulness awaiting a dawn that never breaks". This is the last "Expressionist" score that Myaskovsky would write, although extreme, unresolved dissonance remains within the composer's toolkit, as in the Third Movement "Malinconia" in his Sixth String Quartet.

The short symphony is divided into four sections. After the ominous timpani taps (fate knocking at the door? It seems to presage Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, composed almost 30 years later), the hushed, woodwind-dominated music hangs like a miasma. Some vitality and coherence is picked up during the second section, marked Agitato molto e tenebroso, but it is still very downcast music, and whatever upward momentum is eventually defeated with heavy timpani blows. The third section is denoted Andante nostalgia, and had the character of a scherzo, not as grotesque as Mahler's but still has something very uncanny about it. This section then evolved into a very noble-sounding fugue with brass instruments. In the final section, dissonant material from the onset of the Symphony recurred and further developed. The ending is very tragic: the sound of the oboe seems to depict the last glow of a dying flame, while the hushed strings hover like tendrils of smoke.

Symphony 13 is a work of deep desolation, but it is a different kind of desolation from Myaskovsky's early score Silence. Silence depicts a kind of ontological, supernatural negation of human experience, but the picture is distant from human experience and thus hypothetical. On the contrary, Symphony 13 is about the isolation, fear, remembrance, and extinguishment of hope -- experiences that are all too human. After hearing a piano playthrough of the Symphony, Myaskovsky's long-time friend Boris Asafiev comment that he was struck by its tragic atmosphere. His comment flustered Myaskovsky, and he wrote his friend a very circumspect apology, claiming that he had no intention to write sad music, that he was merely tinkering with themes and organization, that the result turned out to be sad must be due to some contamination in Myaskovsky's soul.

Myaskovsky was not being upfront. Of course he knew how the music would come across; he admitted such to Prokofiev. To understand why Myaskovsky confabulated, we must learn more about this Asafiev chap. He was a classmate of Myaskovsky in St. Petersberg Conservatoire in 1906 and the two grew especially close. Asafiev came from an even more impoverished background than Myaskovsky, but he was very ambitious; what's more, he was very neurotic and quick to take offense at real or imagined slights. Myaskovsky knew it well and made peace with that, just like he accommodated Prokofiev's arrogance and tactlessness. As students, they both joined Vladimir Derzhankovsky's music journal critics, but of course both wanted to establish themselves as composers, not as critics. Myaskovsky was impressed by Asafiev's critical acumen, but was disappointed that his friend could not exercise the same level of discernment in his own music: Myaskovsky kept his dissatisfaction in his own diary entries, for fear of offending his friend's feelings.

Still, the slow but sure rise of Myaskovsky's standings in Russia (and to a much lesser extent, international) music must have been corroding Asafiev's heart. By the time the Bolshevik came to rule, Asafiev had put composing behind and focused on musicological research. His grudge against Myaskovsky was quite evident by 1924, judging from the letter Asafiev wrote to others. Around that time, Asafiev wrote a series of articles condemning Myaskovsky's music for its gloom (i.e. counter-revolutionary) and attempted to psychoanalyze the composer (which reads like projection). Ever ambitious, Asafiev curried the favor of Anatoly Lunacharsky, People's Commissariat for Education, by writing a propaganda article entitled "Composers, Hurry Up!", in which he urged composers to engage with the masses, and not to shut themselves up in their studies and pretend to be "high priests" or "aesthetes", writing conservative music for the select few. In a letter to a student, Asafiev wrote that "[Myaskovsky] flees from life, he fears the street", and "inside him -- it is dark, he's afraid".

Myaskovsky disagreed with Asafiev's assessment, but he still treasured their friendship. He answered Asafiev in a cordial letter that music for the proletariats does not necessarily mean easy stuff, because the minds and tastes of the proletariats can grow with education and exposure, and with it, their thirst for more substantial music. (Asafiev, whose family was at one time reduced to begging, should understand and agree). Asafiev sent a clumsy reply, claiming Myaskovsky misread him, but in his own circle he threw a hissy fit. The two composers were based in different cities: Myaskovsky in Moscow and Asafiev in Leningrad, and their acquaintances had enough tact not to gossip.

So when Myaskovsky showed his friend his Symphony 13 in 1933 and learned of his impression about the work, the "Composers, Hurry Up!" episode must have flashed in his mind. Soviet art politics have been unstable for more than a decade by then, and it must occurred to Myaskovsky that should Asafiev made another denunciation, his compositional freedom would suffer.

The two friends, unfortunately, continued to drift apart. Asafiev would spent the rest of his days deploring that he talents went unnoticed (which was not true: as a composer of ballet music, Asafiev got a lot of performance opportunities. He was also the first musicologist to be appointed to the Russian Academy of Science). When Myaskovsky had been repeatedly awarded the Stalin Prize and eventually sat at the Prize Committee, Asafiev seethed, claiming that Myaskovsky deliberately stymied his chance of getting the Prize (the opposite was true). In his more sober mood, Asafiev would write to Myaskovsky about feeling increasingly isolated from his colleagues. Myaskovsky would confide that he felt the same as well.

Isolation: this is the sentiment that Symphony 13 extrudes. Perhaps this was why Asafiev responded to it instinctively. In the trying Stalinist times, to be isolated means to fall prey to doubt and fear, and letting one's psyche die, like the flickering candle depicted at the end of the symphony. The two composers, once close friends, would drift apart because of Asafiev's personal defect. This is an everyday story, but no less tragic wherever, whenever it happens.

Asafiev would die one year before Myaskovsky. The latter called his death "an end of an entire epoch of my life".

 

[Trimalchio]

Myaskovsky's Symphony 13 is a deeply somber, expressionist score.

What an intriguing, mysterious piece. I quite liked this.

I'm on a Schumann kick, so here's a work from sunnier times: 6 Studies in Canon Form for Pedal Piano. Since pedal pianos aren't common at all anymore, it's rarely heard on the instrument it was written for. Debussy's arrangement for 2 pianos seems to be the most common way to perform and hear it; I've also heard it played on the organ. This performance is Anderszewski's own arrangement for solo piano. Not much else I can say other than it's gorgeous music.