Miaskovsky Work Catalogue & Biography

[eschiss1]

Re 16, has anyone ever (relatively legally, I guess- well, has anyone) remastered Ivanov's LP recording of the symphony on CD/mp3? (I have it, just wondering if there's been more general release.)
I'd disagree in my relative weightings (I don't favor no.8 over no.7, for instance or no.27 over say no.20 (or even better no.2 or no.13- hrm- yes, definitely no.13), and would sneak no.5 in there also... no.13 in b-flat is, I know, not to the taste of 99% of the forum members, but
(1) that's -not- its problem, let's just say...
(2) quite a well-done, and (like no.10) premonitory work...

[Alan Howe]

Listened to No.16 earlier today - well, until I was interrupted. It has a very fine slow movement indeed. More when I return to it...

[adriano]

@eschiss1
Good news! Myaskovsky's Little Bird has flewn over from Moscow to Switzerland - I still can't believe it. It's from a collection without opus number entitled "Flofion" - Frolics, Part IV.
Don't put it into a cage :-)
How can I send this PDF to you?

[eschiss1]

If you wish to send it to me over email or a mediafire-like thing, details can be sent by personal message, but we should be specific. If it's in the public domain in the US and Canada (from publication* and editor information) my first inclination will be to repost the scan, but I will  respect expressed wishes that I not do so (specific, not implicit ones, not that that has usually been a problem here. Still, generally, I am, I say without sarcasm but as bald fact, an unusually poor mindreader (viz. "theory of mind" ))
Anyhow, thanks!!

*Determining first date of publication, and actual date of publication of the edition available (assuming the latter date, anyway, isn't on the score; sometimes one lucks out...), of the Frolics series - hrm. I can think of some useful tools that may provide some results in estimating those (Worldcat + frolicky word translating; Hofmeister @ ONB searching; Muzgiz plate tables; &c &c &c) but...

hrm!

[adriano]

Hi eschiss1, sorry, but it is a bit difficult for me to understand the first paragraph of your message...
Instead, your e-mail address would have been more useful. Can you send this trough a personal UC message?
This 2-page scan is but a simple PDF from a volume of the edition of Myaskovsky's Collected works by the State Music Publisher, whose editorial details can be easily find out by professional librarians.

[adriano]

Still reading Gregor Tassie's magnificent Myaskovsky biography, published by Rowman and Littlefield two years ago.
This is a higly recommendable and very informative 395-page book, both as far as biographical and composition's datas are concerned. It also contains a detailed work catalogue, a discography, bibliography and a very helpful search index (subjects, works).
The only big spoiler of this book is the binding form. The book cannot remain open alone; in fact it even cannot be fully opened in order to have a single page photocopied. Reading requires a continuous and tiresome, strenghthy "holding it open" with both hands, since the pages are strongly glued to a totally unflexible back ridge. I have never encountered so far such an unprofessional and "reader fiendish" feature! The hardover binding makes all this more than difficult; a paperback would have been a bit better, especially by using thinner paper. Some publishers seem not to be readers at all, seeing what they produce!

The Google Books version can be seen here:
https://books.google.ch/books?id=mQmLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PR8&lpg=PR8&dq=tassie+myaskovsky&source=bl&ots=FuZ3Czp0SB&sig=zmQXAq1AEc2ZzL5QBvM1dVWl-dw&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqqfqKoIPLAhWCuRQKHa3PB604ChDoAQg0MAc#v=onepage&q=tassie%20myaskovsky&f=false

Will come back later for recommendations on the Symphonies. This morning I re-listened to the one movemented 13th Symphony, which I find one of his more "modern sounding", fascinating most "intimate" and even tragic ones - on which the composer said it dealed with an "intimate diary not to reveal". It was written, apparently, during an illness period and in one stroke. He also considered this work as "fatalistic and bizarre" - or even "weird and wonderful".

[eschiss1]

With Google Books links one can usually stop after the PR(x) or PGx or whatever; the rest is search highlight and personal session tag material, I think. So in this case, I believe,

https://books.google.ch/books?id=mQmLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PR8&lpg=PR8 - hrm, no, that goes to the preface.

Maybe

https://books.google.com/books?id=mQmLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PG175&lpg=PG175?

[vandermolen]

Melodiya released Ivanov's great performance of Miaskovsky's 16th Symphony (wonderful slow movement) a while back (2014) as part of a three CD set of the symphonies (also including nos. 22,17,21,25 and 27). Look under 'Myaskovsky selected symphonies' on Amazon and it should appear. My one regret is that they reissued Svetlanov's version of the valedictory Symphony 27 rather that issuing the even more moving earlier recording by Alexander Gauk which has never appeared on CD. Still, it's a great CD set.

[adriano]

Myaskovsky, as I read in Tassie's splendid biography/study, was mostly dissatisfied with Gauk. He liked Mravinsky, Ivanov and Kondrashin. He also could not cope with Golovanov's too personal ideas. From European conductors, he had very good performances, apparently, by Scherchen, Klemperer, Walter and Kleiber; one of the biggest frustration came from Eric Coates! In the USA, Frederick Stock also seemed to be one of the most appreciated.
And there was Bernard Herrmann and his CBS Orchestra, to whom the composer wrote an infuriated letter (with copy to CBS Radio) about their horrible performance of the 22nd Symphony, reproaching the conductor's egotism, wrong tempi, instrumental "adaptations" and various cuts!
On Svetlanov's recordings on Melodyia it is known that the company wanted to cut down this project once it was already being produced for a while (unsufficient sales), and that it could be completed only because the conductor himself offered private sponsorings out of his own pocket,.

[eschiss1]

Interesting! I was aware of some letters by Prokofiev to Myaskovsky about early US performances by Stokowski and others of (M's) symphonies (haven't seen Myaskovsky's responses though), but not any of that...
Herrmann/CBS -the 22nd in B minor, -not- the (more-often-recorded) 21st in F#?...

[adriano]

@eschiss - I asked the same thing to myself, but in the book it is fully written out: "Twenty-Second" Symphony".
Stokowski and Kussevitzky were two other conductors who liked performing NM's Symphonies.
Withe the Royal Philharmonic onducted by Benny Herrman I once had a rare acetate disc of 1963 (now transferred to an audio file) of the 2nd movement of NM's 6th Symphony.
I am actually trying to get in contact with the author of the biography, to ask him whether I would be allowed to extract his separate analises of the Symphonies and other orchestral works and group them together for music listeners - since the Svetlanov box libretto is useless. A kind of "virtual booklet" to be published online...

[matesic]

I find it hard  to imagine Miaskovsky being conducted by Eric Coates, even badly! Tassie writes that Myaskovsky "was disturbed by the fact that the English conductor Albert Coates.." (born in Russia of British parents, of course) "... was offered a permanent contract to work in Moscow".

[adriano]

Yes, In a way, Coates was a similar artistic weirdo like Golovanov - but I still admire both! I just remember his 78rpm recording of Sciabin's "Poem of Ecstasy", which was quite exciting...