Profound Myaskovsky

[Alan Howe]

...i.e. the slow movement in particular of his Piano Sonata No.1 in D minor, Op.6 (1907-10). Not always an easy listen, this sonata contains music of real complexity and daring - quite the opposite of the sort of Rachmaninovian luxuriance I was expecting. A really satisfying piece if you're up for a bit of a late, late romantic challenge!

[Amphissa]

Many of Myaskovsky's string quartets explore the same realm, teetering on the edge of atonality and harmonically complex, without becoming overly dissonant.

Based on his biography and other information about him, although he cited Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff as great influences, Myaskovsky was quite taken with the music of Wagner and his disciples. Later, he tried hard to write within the boundaries of Soviet orthodoxy, and his symphonies are mostly in conformance. But he tended to push the bubble a bit further in his chamber music even during Stalin's reign.

I find his string quartets especially alluring. The slow movements, as in his 2nd sonata, are often harmonically complex and yet beautiful in their overall effect. The 2nd Sonata was before the oppressive Soviet strictures regarding music. It would have been interesting to know where his music might have gone in later years, had he not been required to observe the rules pressed upon composers during the Stalinist era.

[eschiss1]

Some of them, at least in their early, pre-revised forms, are pre-Soviet in any case, and I don't know if "we know" how much revision divides the original and published versions of e.g. his (so-called) 3rd and 4th quartets (originally written in conservatory, published in the 1930s; the 1st symphony (1908, 1921)...

Other works at least were published in two (of at least two) versions and it's just a matter of comparing the two (e.g. the first cello sonata, the 2nd piano sonata (I think).))

[Amphissa]

Eric, you replied before I had a chance to revise my post. You must have been just sitting at your computer *waiting* for me to post something you could correct.

hahahaha

[eschiss1]

well, ebenso , those early works we often know from later versions (which is so veryveryveryveryfun from a copyright point of view...) (though yes, even so, they're often still pre-Stalin in any case- and pre-Stalin (and post-Stalin) Soviet music had a phase and a thread that was "Revolutionary" from another point of view, true...)