Classical Music Thread

[Positron]

By the time Myaskovsky was 60, in the year 1941, his health had gone considerably downwards. Just before his birthday he was admitted to a sanitorium for six weeks, and he subsequently stayed at Pavel Lamm's country house to recuperate. The restful period was cut short all of a sudden: the Nazis started bombing Moscow on 22 July 1941, and Lamm's house was in the flightpath. Lamm and Mysakovsky hurried back to Moscow for preparations. On 8 July, they were evacuated, being sent with a contingent of about 200 prominent musicians to Nalchik, Capital of what is today the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. The journey through high altitudes, by camouflaged train, was grueling for most of the people, many of whom were more than 60 of age. Still, Myaskovsky at least found solace because he was travelling with one of his sisters, and many of his friends, such as Lamm and Prokofiev (who had returned to Russia for good in 1936). Prokofiev was happy as a clam: he had ditched his first wife earlier this year and had a new girlfriend in tow. Mira Mendelssohn, half of Prokofiev's age and who would become the second Mrs. Prokofiev, endeared herself to Myaskovsky and his sister immediately. She would leave behind some very poignant accounts of Myaskovsky's last days.

Life as an exile was hard. Lodgings were small, ill-furnished, lacking basic amenities, and Myaskovsky could not find the privacy he needed to compose. Money was always short. Fortunately, the director of Artistic Affair in Nalchik, Khatu Temirkanov (the father of the famous conductor Yuri Temikanov), seeing big-name composers among the exiles, offered them commissions: Prokofiev would write a string quartet; Myaskovsky a symphony. This was to be Myaskovsky's 23th, which Richard Taruskin breezily dismissed as "the rock bottom", seemingly unware or unconcerned about the difficulty of its genesis.

The misfortunes of war compelled the exiles to regular evacuation, first to Tbilisi, Georgia and then, through a thousand mile-long journey by rail and ferry, to Frunze (Bishkek), Kyrgyzstan. They were regularly given cold shoulders and terrible accommodations. The scene that await them at Frunze was particularly horrifying: dying people lined the streets, and beggars accosted them everywhere. Unsurprisingly, many exiles soon fell ill, and Myaskovsky tried to contact everybody he could so that at least he, his sister, and some close friends could be called back to Moscow. After many frustrations, his SOS call was answered, and they were back in Moscow in mid December 1942.

Here is the map from Patrick Zuk's book, with dates of arrivals and departures added in by myself.


In Frunze, Myaskovsky learned of the death of his close friend Vladimir Derzhanovsky. He and Myaskovsky had been friends since 1910. Derzhanovsky launched Myaskovsky's career, enabling his contact with prominent musicians, and as a proponent of Western music, Derzhanovsky organized concerts that allowed young composers in Moscow to keep abreast with the latest developments. He encouraged Myaskovsky to press on when the latter felt his grueling day job was driving him insane, and during WWI, Derzhanovsky's correspondence was the life-line to Myaskovsky, stationed in the West Front constantly bombarded by artillery. Despite being born in the same year as Myaskovsky (he was not conscripted in WWI for health reasons), Derzhanovsky's temperament, politics, and musical outlook differed from Myaskovsky's. After the October revolution, Derzhanovsky soon joined the Communist Party, and, ever enterprising, he seized opportunity to improve Moscow's musical culture, importing foreign books and music scores. Derzhanovsky's chief artistic concern was to challenge the hidebound musical culture of Tsarist Russia, and for him, foreign avant-garde like Debussy served this purpose just as well as Communist-approved, "proletarian" works. On Myaskovsky's part, he experience with the War had left him no illusion with the Tsarist regime, but he found the usurpers vulgar and unprincipled. Myaskovsky was skeptical about the virtue of foreign music (He was utterly unimpressed by Ravel, Poulenc, Martinu, Hindemith, and Krenek; but liked Debussy and pre-12 tone Schoenberg), and surely he had zero enthusiasm to write for the Party. Derzhanovsky would regularly suggest that Myaskovsky to write music "for the people", but he knew his friend too much to be pushy. In his final unsent letter to Myaskovsky, Derzhanovsky urged his friend to compose something to celebrate the inevitable defeat of Nazis at the hand of the Red Army, but acknowledge that his friend had always done his own thing, like Kipling's Cat That Walked By Himself.

Derzhanovsky's last days, as it subsequently transpired, was sheer tragedy. Through out the war he and his wife stayed at the outskirt of Moscow, and starvation and the lack of fuel aggravated his fragile health. He refused to send for help (and help might not be available at wartime: around the same time, another of Myaskovsky's friend, Dmitry Melkikh, suffered a stroke and was paralyzed on the left side. He was convinced he would soon die unattended, which turned out to be true). Derzhanovsky's wife called for his composer's colleagues in Moscow when her husband is moribund, but they -- Myaskovsky's students Mosolov and Shebalin -- arrived too late. Derzhanvosky's wife was with the corpse of her husband for four days. They buried him quickly, digging the grave by themselves.

Myaskovsky's Symphony 24 was dedicated to the memory of Derzhanovsky. What strikes me the most about this work is its economy. All three movement are made up of two to three long-breathed themes, being passed from one instrumental group to another and engaging in fugal treatments. Yet the ebb and flow of dynamics is so natural it is almost like breathing.

The symphony started with a brass fanfare, which was rather incongruent. In 1939, a young conductor of military wind band called Ivan Petrov befriended Myaskovsky, and given Myaskovsky's military background, Petrov's zeal in reforming the musical groups in the military impressed him, and that reignited Myaskovsky's interest in brass music. Petrov would become a solace to the old composer in his last dark years. The brass theme is soon passed to the strings, and subsequently being weaved into counterpoint.

The second movement is even more effective. Again the ingredients are similar: lyrical themes being weaved into counterpoint -- you can criticize the symphony on the ground that the counterpoints are too insistent, but recall Prokofiev's admonition to Myaskovsky about his First Symphony: "you are writing this counterpoint to please conservatoire teachers, when you should have let the theme shine on its own lyrical beauty!" But as a mature composer, Myaskovsky could have his cake and eat it too: the themes are given space to shine, and the counterpoint would please any academic. What is impressive about this movement is how the dynamics is organized: the music progresses like cascading, mounting waves. Patrick Zuk suggests that the symphony may recall the sound-world of Vaughan Williams, and I think this is especially true for the second movement. The final movement is again very brassy, but with a dark undertone of deep woodwinds. A triumphant mood gradually establishes, and transformed into a radiant serenity that ends the work.

The mood of the whole symphony is somewhat ambivalent: is it a farewell to a enterprising friend and benefactor? Myaskovsky is too complex to be subjected to simplistic narratives, a trap that people falls in when they hear the opening brass fanfare and deem the music as "social realist response to the war". The only thing we can do is to take the music on its own terms.

Derzhanovsky and Melkikh were hardly the only close person Myaskovsky lost during the war. His niece died giving birth to a stillborn child.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Do we have any opera fans here or lurking this thread? I've been into it since I was pretty young, and it's still a big part of my musical life.

huge opera fan

I totally get it. I don't see live opera as much as I used to for similar reasons. And you can't always count on a good production or singers. I mostly stick to recordings or dvds these days. Exciting times for fans of French baroque opera though; so many fresh recordings and performances coming out.

Has Daphnis et Alcimadure been rerecorded the only copy thats easy to find is a bad recording.

 

[Positron]

After the Soviet successfully defeated the Nazi in 1946, there was a brief hope that the ideological restrictions of the Communist regime would slacken, and there were more opportunities for outside contact. This was not to be. On the contrary, the worsening paranoia of Stalin meant that anything contrary to the Party, anything suspected to be "contaminated by the West", must be curtailed. Thus came the notorious Zhdanovshchina, first affecting literature and soon stage works and film. Composers caught the wind, and in October, the Moscow Composers' Union convened to discuss the implications. It was not sure if Myaskovsky attended, but he must have gotten the message: that he was supposed to compose something that would throw the authority off his scent. Around the same time, Myaskovsky former student Alexei Ikkonikov, who had assumed the unofficial and uninvited position as Myaskovsky's ideological mentor (In his diary Myaskovsky wrote of him as a moron, but he remained affable because offending Ikkonikov would do him no favor), sent him a bad poem by a certain Sergey Vasilyev, called "Kremlin by Night". The poem described how Stalin pulled an all-nighter conferencing with farmers and mechanics, until day break, when an old woman, a personification of History, cajoled Stalin to take a sleep at his desk. Myaskovsky took the hint: he was to write a cantata based on this poem, for the upcoming 30th anniversary of the October Revolution. He estimated that the poem would be a safe choice, and would likely been been set by other people as well. He did not realize he was making a huge mistake.

Myaskovsky's cantata was banned for "mysticism" (a verdict that he marked in his diary with a big exclamation mark). So what went wrong? Under such topsy-turvy politics, one could not really say there is a right way or a wrong way of doing things, that would ensure you'd stay on the dictators' good graces. Prokofiev did all the "right" things repeatedly, but his works still got banned; all that matters is whether someone high up likes your work or not. But in the case of Myaskovsky's cantata, the problem seems to be that he had seized the notion of "night" in the poem, and wrote tranquil, restful music (the work was subtitled "Cantata-Nocturne"). Myaskovsky was disdainful of clichés, yet his strife for originality has produced a work that was at odds with the macho image that Stalin wished to portray.

The second fiasco, perhaps with worse implication to Myaskovsky's standing, concerned another former student of his, Vano Muradeli. Muradeli has written an opera called The Great Friendship about a Gegorian folk hero. The opera had a successful tour in the USSR, but the management of Bolshoi had reservations about it, and indeed when it was staged there, Stalin and Zhdanov decided they didn't like it. Zhdandov summoned Muradeli for grilling, and unlike Shostakovich in the Lady Macbeth scandal, Muradeli shifted the blame to his teachers. "When I enrolled in the Moscow Conservatoire, I was interested in folk music, but the teachers heaped scorn on these, instead they forced me to study 'modern models'." Everything knew that, by "teachers", Muradeli meant Myaskovsky.

The feeding frenzy had started. Composers, either due to jealousy, imagined slights, or simple self-preservation, went out of their way to denounce Myaskovsky and other "formalists" such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Gavriil Popov. Myaskovsky bore the blunt of the accusations, which characterized Myaskovsky as a snob who was not very talented, but had such great connections that he was able to rule the whole music scene with an iron fist, that everyone who went contrary to him got snuffed out. Even wilder rumor flew: it was claimed that Myaskovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich would hold drinking parties at the place of an American spy, who would record the secrets they disclose when drunk.

From Myaskovsky's diary we could not decipher much about how he felt about the chaos. He comments were brief, crypyic, and seems to have written with an Olympian detachment: objective and matter of fact and not at all emotional. What was certain was that he had no intention to back down and apologize. His student Kabalevsky had kneeled in front of him begging him to write a confession, and Myaskovsky point blank refused. Prokofiev, who had indeed written an apology, phoned Myaskovsky and urged him to do the same. "It is your personal decision, and you must do what you think is necessary. I have done nothing that requires me to justify myself", Myaskovsky said, and put down the phone. Khrennikov, then the General Secretary of Moscow Composer Union, also urged him to deliver a speech at the conference. Myaskovsky refused. "Deeds, not words, are what is expected of us now. That is our most important task, and we must fulfill it".

By "deeds", Myaskovsky certainly meant writing music. Despite the stress he faced and his further deteriorating health, the years that followed Kremlin by Night -- the last three years of Myaskovsky's life -- was remarkably productive: three piano sonatas, two string quartets, a sonata for cello and piano, an overture, and two symphonies. Myaskovsky's last symphony, his 27th, might be regarded as his valedictory statement. Patrick Zuk finds it "a work of compelling structural cogency. The flaws that mar Myaskovsky's less persuasive scores -- diffuse tonal organization, sectionality, longueurs, a tendency to overstate and overdevelop material, are altogether absent".

The First Movement is indeed organized very compactly: especially when compared to his earlier scores, it sounds almost like the development is telescoped. Yet even more notable in the music is the lightening of texture: it has a chamber music-like clarity, which brings up Myaskovsky's beautiful writing for woodwinds in the best light. Yet this strategy comes at a price: the more emotional sections, such as what ends the movement, now has a feeling of holding back. It is as if Myaskovsky is observing human drama at a remove, with an Olympian detachment.

The Second Movement, likewise woodwind dominated, opens with a poignant yet noble first subject.

A restatement of the theme by solo clarinet ushered in a turbulent, dissonant second subject. A struggle ensued, and its eventual resolution is announced, this time by the cor anglais. A blossoming of strings and brass swell up, yet the music eventually returns to a serene, noble consignment to fate.

The Third and final Movement is relentless jubilation, and it has a playfulness in its arpeggiated woodwind figures.

Unlike the previous two moments, which seems to be casting a gaze to the past, the music in the finale keep moving forwards. One can criticize some of Myaskovsky's finales for overexerting their energy from the start and flagging long before the finishing line, but the forward momentum in the Finale of 27 is paced perfectly. The victory is hard-won, but what a victory!

Patrick Zuk singles out Svetlanov's recording of Symphony No. 27 as one of the highlights of his Myaskovsky cycle.

---

However much Myaskovsky wished to maintain a stoic reserve, the ceaseless criticism and character assassination must have undermined his self-confidence, which was never strong to begin with. His health continued to deteriorate, and he worried about money -- especially how his sisters and their dependents could support themselves once he is gone. In the dark hours, Myaskovsky's truest friend Pavel Lamm continued his unstinting support, together with his students Shebalin and Khachaturian, and Ivan Petrov, the conductor of military wind band that I mentioned in the last installment. In late 1948, Shostakovich paid him a visit and showed him some works that he's written "for the drawers" -- the First Violin Concerto and the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. The elder composer must have seen Shostakovich's gesture as a token that, like Myaskovsky, he would stay true to his artistic calling regardless, that he too would answer with deeds, not words. The torch has passed on.

For Myaskovsky's part, he supported Prokofiev and help him prepare the score of the third Romeo and Juliet suite. It must have struck Myaskovsky that it was just like back in their youths, students at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, when they would help each other copy the scores for performances. Prokofiev was in a very hard place: while Myaskovsky still had a little savings, Prokofiev was in debt, and his health was so bad that he could not perform as a pianist. His final attempt at appeasement, the opera Story of a Real Man, was immediately banned. His ex-wife was sent to the Gulag for made-up espionage charges. and his relationship with his sons turned sour. In 1949, Prokofiev turned up in Pavel Lamm's country house apparently in a state of nervous breakdown, voicing fear that his music would no longer be performed.

Between 1949 and 1950, Myaskovsky was beset by health problems: anemia, colon polyp. and gallbladder inflammation. His developed nauseous aversion to food, and his weight dropped precipitously. He might have suspected that death is near, and some time during early 1950 he destroyed much of his diaries, leaving around 200 hand-copied pages. In mid-April 1950, the chief cause of his ailments was discovered -- stomach cancer, already too advanced to operate. He remained in hospital between April to June, then transferred to Pavel Lamm's country house to recuperate, yet he was so ill that he could not even leave his room. He remained with the Lamms until 28 July. According to Mira Mendelssohn, Myaskovsky, as he waved goodbye, said, "Give my regard to Seryozhenka (Sergei Prokofiev). I'll visit again when I can... get... a little strength back." Back in his Moscow apartment, Myaskovsky did not have the strength to walk up the stairs, so Ivan Petrov carried him up in a chair.

When Pavel Lamm came to Myaskovsky's home one week later, Myaskovsky was slipping in and out of consciousness. The last words his sister was able to make out was "I tried and tried all my life, but to no avail", and "Human dignity must be respected".

Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky died on 8 August 1950, aged 69.