Miaskovsky Silentium, Op.9

[Alan Howe]

...a symphonic poem, conducted by Leon Botstein (download only):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003XND332/ref=sr_1_556_rd?_encoding=UTF8&child=B003XNHRZM&qid=1426879075&sr=1-556%3C/a%3E

[mjkFendrich]

.... available in somewhat better quality (mp 320) and MUCH cheaper here:

http://play.google.com/store/music/album/American_Symphony_Orchestra_Miaskovsky_Silentium_S?id=Bbbhle5v7aoqa35msfectpst4ju

Thank you for bringing this work to our attention!

                                                             mjkF

[sdtom]

I went ahead and downloaded from the google site. I have this on a Marco Polo and will play both to determine which I like better. Thanks for the tip.
Tom

[jerfilm]

Also to listen to on Spotify:  https://play.spotify.com/search/miaskovsky%20silentium

J

[sdtom]

That is the same recording Jerry and having to listen to it on my computer is not a pleasant experience. I transfer files to a CD and listen to them that way. The sound quality through my ancient stereo system is far better.
Tom

[sdtom]

I just started listening to my Marco Polo #8.223302 with the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and the first thing I noticed is the timing is 27 minutes compared to 18, quite a difference. I can also tell you that the sound of the newer one is far superior. Can anyone shed light on this time difference?
Tom

[eschiss1]

a full score downloadable in the US and Canada is available here. (Not yet in EU-related copyright zones; the composer died too recently.) The reason might be clearer on reading through the score with both recordings; I don't know what else to suggest. (It seems composed 1909-10, premiered 1911, published ca.1925-28 or so. Inspired I think by "The Raven" or something else by Poe? I forget again, unfortunately...)

[sdtom]

It was from the poem "The Raven" and I had the opportunity to review it https://sdtom.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/silencemiaskovsky/. I will download the score and try and figure out what was cut from the newer Botstein reading. Will keep you posted.
Tom

[Gareth Vaughan]

I am sorry to contradict you, but I don't know why you should think this piece has anything to do with The Raven. It is called "Silentium" - Silence - after a short tale (more of a prose poem really) by Poe of the same name. The text of this, in German, is printed in the published score. No wonder you couldn't detect any tapping of the raven's beak.

[sdtom]

Miaskovsky wrote his First Symphony in 1908, while still a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The following year he wrote the symphonic poem Silence, based on the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. First performed in 1911 in Moscow, the work was followed by a second symphonic poem, this time based on Shelley's Alastor. In Poe's famous work the poet sits in his study on a bleak December night, remembering his lost beloved Lenore. There is a tapping at the window, and a black raven steps in, with its oneword, an ominous message, ¡§Nevermore¡§, the only answer to the despairing cries of the poet. Nevermore shall he see Lenore and nevermore shall the shadow of the bird of ill-omen cease to fall on him, depriving him of all hope.

I did a cut and paste from the liner notes which are from the marco polo #8223302. If it's not about the poem I am really confused. Please explain to me.
Tom

[Alan Howe]

From ASO's website:

The poetry of Zinaida Gippius, the siren of Russian symbolism, found its way into a number of Miaskovsky's songs. Among other favorites was the poet Konstantin Bal'mont, an admirer and translator of Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's prose and poetry was known in Russia since the 1860s, but his widespread popularity, which soon reached a cult level, began in the mid-1880s, when a collected edition of Poe tales in Russian translation was published for the first time.

With his innate pessimism, Miaskovsky felt very close to the psychological horrors of Poe's tales. Silentium, in Bal'mont's opinion the best of Poe's tales, captured his imagination in 1908. He mentions in a letter to Prokofiev "a very good plot." He writes in another one that he is "enormously enthralled with the plot," adding that it will be an "orchestral tale" for a very big orchestra and that the whole piece will be devoid of any light note—"only darkness and horror."

Silentium, completed in 1909, was the first of Miaskovsky's compositions to be publicly performed, though a year before his First Sympony was written. The premiere of Silentium took place on June 12, 1911, on the summer stage in Sokolniki (Moscow) under the direction of Konstantin Saradjev, who became a friend and an avid advocate of Miaskovsky's music.

Miaskovsky called Silentium his much-beloved child, and rightly so—it is one of the most sincere and passionate of his pieces, remarkable in its combination of spontaneity, originality and well-thought technical mastery. (The composer polished and edited it up to the mid-1920s). Its twenty-minute one-movement structure follows Poe's tale very closely—a dark parable about the unbearable horror of eternal silence, told through a symbolic figure of a man, tired and full of sorrow, longing to be alone. He sits on a gray rock amidst a sad landscape of desolation, taking in stride terrifying noises and whispers, dangers of wild animals and tremendous storms, but runs in horror when a sudden deadly silence falls, bestowed by demons. The composer realizes all of this with emotional and visual precision in a sonata-like structure, which he, following the narrative, transforms into a natural flow of images both picturesque and deeply touching, creating one of the earliest and finest examples of Russian musical expressionism.

Here's a link to Poe's tale:
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/eapoe/bl-eapoe-silence.htm

[Alan Howe]

...seems like the MP notes have got the wrong Poe tale. Wouldn't be the first time that liner notes turned out to be nonsense...

[sdtom]

You're right on Alan. Now the piece does make some sense to me. Thanks Alan.
Tom

[ken]

Silence - Symphonic Poem Op. 9 also was released on Russian Disc RDCD 00652-00667 - State Academic Symphony Orchestra - Yevgenii Svetlanov conducting.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Some of the Marco Polo liner notes were very sloppy and full of errors. I'm not surprised they misled you. Who wrote them? I am familiar with Poe's tales and Silence is one of his most powerful vignettes. It is really a prose poem.