performed by the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia under Yevgeny Svetlanov

Photo by Tsuyoshi Kozu on Unsplash

I haven’t the faintest idea what possessed me years ago to:

1. Start so early with writing about Myaskovsky as early as I did on the blog, as in, where did I first come across his name, what possessed me to give him any of my extremely inexperienced attention
2. Why on earth, after having done so, I would choose to write about the second and third symphonies but completely ignore the first. 

Perhaps if I (or you) went back and read the articles on either of those pieces (the first ones or the revisits), I (or you) would learn/remember how I got there, but for purposes of writing this article afresh, I shan’t be going back to look. 

After spending weeks writing an article about his sixth over on my Substack as part of the concert program series I do there (and much more time spent score reading, listening, etc.), I am completely and wholly obsessed and have decided it’s time to go back and give this man more attention. 

The sixth is by a long shot the composer’s most famous symphony, and as I wrote in the article, I would confidently put it alongside the greatest symphonies of Mahler, Bruckner, and Shostakovich as an epic, grand journey with an urgent, weighty message and intense/immense passion and feeling. 

But it’s only his sixth of 27 symphonies, and only his opus no. 23, which means that more than a quarter of his published works up to that time were symphonies, and mind you, they ain’t small, so it’s really a monumental achievement. 

All of that is to say that this is a man who either very quickly became exceptionally symphony adept or there was some kind of innate gift he had for symphonic logic. Whichever you decide, the question is compelling enough to move me to start from the beginning and do some study from here. 

(I won’t be (well, I might be) writing a third article about the second and third symphonies, but I’ll at the very least be revisiting them for some listens and score reading. I wouldn’t put it past me to give them YET another visit and dig in that mine a bit more.)

Context

All that prefatory material aside, what are we looking at here and/or why does it matter? Well, Myaskovsky would go on to become “the father of the Soviet symphony” and won the Stalin Prize FIVE times. And why does that matter?

This symphony’s inception dates from 1908, when Shostakovich was two years old, 15 years after Tchaikovsky’s death. This is an interesting time. Why?

Classical music people are generally pretty familiar with the genealogy of the German-based symphonic baton (literally and figuratively) being passed from Haydn to Mozart to Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler and then sort of kind of onward toward the Second Viennese School and the abandonment of the form, more or less. Notably, though, Shostakovich picked up that baton and wrote 15 symphonies of epic grandeur and enormous impact (along with a few others, like the second and third…) 

So how do we get from Tchaikovsky to Shostakovich? The answer, obviously, is Myaskovsky. 

There isn’t a world in which Shostakovich wouldn’t have known about Myaskovsky’s works, but I’m not claiming that Myaskovsky influenced Shostakovich, just that Myaskovsky fills the chronological or genetic gap between Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, and I think his music (or this symphony, for starters) bears that out in a very interesting and relevant way. 

The other big player in filling that gap, in making that transition, and very different from Tchaikovsky, is Scriabin, and I feel both influences are noticeable here, although the ghost of Tchaikovsky dominates much more. 

Tchaikovsky penned his final symphony in 1893, and it was a performance of this very work in 1896, under the baton of Arthur Nikisch, that inspired Myaskovsky to become a composer. (Also, Scriabin’s first was written in 1899-1900.) So that’s where I’m coming from with this piece:

• What key position Myaskovsky fills in the anthology of the Russian symphony
• Where he came from in the family tree of Russian composers, so to speak
• Why his very earliest symphony of a huge body of 27 is significant

Background

In 1902, Myaskovsky completed his engineering studies. In 1906, he enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and studied under Anatoly Lyadov (who I was certain I’d written about and that must be remedied) and Rimsky-Korsakov. He was a late starter and thus one of the older if not the oldest in his class, but became friends with the youngest, a very obscure, unknown, neglected, untalented composer named Sergei Prokofiev. They got up to some shenanigans. 

Wikipedia says that Myaskovsky’s first symphony dates from 1908 and was his graduation piece but in the same breath says that he graduated in 1911. That’s all of his bio that’s relevant for the purposes of this article. 

So, again, it’s 1908: Shostakovich is still breast feeding, Tchaikovsky’s been in the grave for a decade and a half, and Scriabin has just finished his fifth sonata and is preparing to return for good to Mother Russia where he’ll write his latest, weirdest piano sonatas. 

Even at Tchaikovsky’s darkest, he’s still a Romantic. His bleakness doesn’t reach into the fin de siècle stretched-to-breaking harmonic vocabulary of people like Bruckner. Scriabin does, though, and his symphonies, which I at this point (despite literally being the third result on Google for his first symphony) am now no longer terribly familiar with, so what would we expect this Scriabin/Tchaikovsky proto-Soviet symphony to feel and sound like? Let’s find out.

Music

The work is in three movements, with a substantial first and second movement and shorter finale. Listed timings are for the Svetlanov recording.

1. Lento, ma non troppo (17:13)
2. Larghetto, quasi andante (15:17)
3. Allegro assai e molto risoluto (9:15) 

The first movement begins with an idea that permeates, or perhaps riddles, the symphony. NM gives us this key figure, in two parts, and his treatment of it throughout the entire symphony shows that he has a very clear grasp on symphonic architecture. His treatment of sonata form here, though, is a bit more Tchaikovsky-esque in that it’s sort of adapted, molded, adjusted for local purposes. The two themes we deal with here aren’t in conflict with one another, and if we weren’t paying much attention, the second could easily feel like the natural extension of the first. They’re strongly unified, sort of two sides of the same coin, the same view from different vantage points or times of day. 

There are phrases here that all but directly quote Tchaikovsky: the open, exposed cries of low strings in their lowest register recalling the bleakest moments of the Pathetique, some of the more anxious passages with emphasis on the offbeats, moments of glorious rich melody. All of this has PT’s fingerprints all over it. 

Whence comes this more modern feel, the unstable, more tense harmonies, the sense of unease that betrays no Tchaikovskian tinge? Listen for the trumpet solos in Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy or the first two symphonies (according to my recollection) and you may see some resemblance. 

The first movement begins with a dark, brooding, ominous figure from low strings. This is a good sign. It’s dramatic, instantly gripping, very Russian, all the things you are probably hoping for if you’ve made the proactive choice to put on a Russian symphony from this era. Great so far.

This long-ish introduction builds to the first theme, which is in effect just a more energetic, nervous recasting of the motif from the introduction. It has that urgent, unsettled forward motion we hear from Tchaikovsky sometimes, for example in the first movement of his fourth symphony.

If you’re familiar with Myaskovsky’s work (his sixth symphony, likely, which I recently wrote about here), you may identify this specific flavor of syncopated rhythm, dotted and/or repeated notes as a kind of pseudo-paranoia that doesn’t quite reach Shostakovich’s level of public, grand neurosis or despair. There’s still a Tchaikovskian sheen over Myaskovsky’s more turbulent later voice.

Speaking of sheen, the second subject here really is very secondary, paling in scope against the vast introduction and first theme. It’s indeed calmer, softer: listen for clarinet and flute to finally give us something different from that opening motive and everything spun around it. Even here, though, it feels related or derived from that central idea. We can’t get away from it.

While there’s a lot of Tchaikovsky (full-voiced string climaxes, overall drama) and Scriabin (more colorful harmonies, soaring/searing/singing trumpet (or just general brass) lines), there are distinctly Myaskovsky elements in this first symphony, things that already in this opus 3 seem to be early trademarks of his voice.

Overall, though, for a grand 17-minute first movement, we hover pretty tightly in the web of the motif introduced right from the outset, so I wouldn’t call it a spoiler, but we’re offered that idea on a platter from the get-go. Fine. It doesn’t get boring or tedious structurally or thematically because it’s dressed in its finery, but it doesn’t achieve as much as the movement’s scale may suggest. No criticism, I find myself enjoying this piece as I listen repeatedly to it for this article.

The second movement also begins directly with an important theme, one that is obviously related to or derived from the first movement’s motif. Myaskovsky’s string writing is on point here: chromatic, layered, melancholy, colorful. On top of that opening, throw in the warm, tender solos from an oboe or clarinet that seem to be so characteristically Russian and always effective, and you’ve got this middle movement figured out.

Again, it’s beautiful scenery, but it doesn’t change much. This middle movement is in ternary form, with a central section that features a line introduced by a flute, but we again are hugging pretty closely to the theme that opened the work (which is itself a cousin of the first movement’s theme). Myaskovsky dresses his ideas well, so they are functional and satisfying and do what they say on the tin, but it does feel a bit like he’s working with the primary ideas themselves rather than covering a lot of ground with them, if that makes sense. Again, that’s not a criticism, but this is an early work. I guess my only real criticism with all of this content so far that’s all appealing and interesting is that it doesn’t feel like it’s leading us anywhere, just showing us the landscape around us.

The third movement is by a long shot the shortest, about half as long as the first movement (which itself is only a few minutes longer than the second movement, so those two together give us over half an hour of playing time).

Now here’s the good stuff. We’re nervous and agitated, but not in the more subtle or even tight-lipped way from earlier. This is outward, open unease: offbeats, dotted rhythms, angular contours, voices in canon, Myaskovsky’s (I say) characteristic (even though I’m only familiar with his first six symphonies…) triplet figures. It’s confident, assured. It reminds me of the breaking-out arrival of the finale of Mahler’s first symphony.

That work, as much as I love it, is sort of a patchwork in the first three movements of things he’d already written, themes he could borrow or use, and only in the finale does he sort of break free and we get this incredible, fiery finale that stands out so much from the rest of the symphony.

That’s what this feels like.

Anyway, the second movement, again in what feels very Russian (or at least Tchaikovskian and Myaskovskian), is led by a theme from a solo clarinet. It’s a sort of… navy blue colored tone, if that makes any sense at all: warm and rich and handsome, but understated, even a bit melancholy still. Oboe picks up and we get a very satisfying, refreshingly different second theme. Everything about this movement just satisfies: listen for how the bass voices handsomely pick up that clarinet theme. Beautiful.

We get a repeat of the exposition (from Svetlanov at least. I can’t imagine that anyone would skip that in a nine-minute movement that’s already had a half-hour’s playing time). There’s more layering in this movement; sections of the orchestra come alive and feel freed from their ‘you belong to this group’ borders. Everything about it is exhilarating. I even feel, like, proud of the composer for already writing a finale that shows he’s so clearly on his way toward the immense achievement that is his sixth.

The development goes places. Our two themes of this movement, as I’ve said, are already standout ideas, and the development is when a composer shows what he can do with his material. While the previous two movements have felt almost monothematic, there’s such color and eventfulness here. Themes are fragmented, broken down; we’re going somewhere, and all of that builds up to the satisfying, identifiable arrival of the recapitulation.

Myaskovsky suddenly shows an outstandingly transparent, effective use of form and structure where things develop and grow and change without becoming overworked or muddy. This movement breathes. The second subject first appears in the recapitulation from bassoons and cellos this time, and horns echo them. Even the coda seems to need to serve more developmental purposes, because both themes are played almost fugally, and it seems to have distinct (albeit short) sections of its own. The overwhelming sensation is that this finale has made up for any lack of ground covered in the previous two movements.

And they then also serve as excellent setup for this explosive, extremely compact nine-minute epic finale. Again, there’s already so much here that will be fully explored and worked out in the sixth symphony that this finale is extraordinarily exciting and promising.

So… Is this a standout, unqualified, remarkable, wonderful symphony? I wouldn’t say so. But I also certainly wouldn’t dismiss it as juvenilia. As discussed above, it holds a really interesting, unique place in the Russian symphonic repertoire, and there are remarkable things about it. For example, to my ear, the composer does a wonderful job with the balancing act of using interesting material and dressing it in interesting ways. They’re there, they’re identifiable, and they don’t accomplish as much as they would even a few symphonies later, but he’s still thinking leanly and logically, not sprawling and disjointed, and that in itself is exciting. And the crowning achievement of this first symphony is definitely the finale, when everything seems to crystalize in a compact, perfect, transparent, shimmering form.

There’s so clearly a connection to Tchaikovsky’s voice, but also without sounding imitative or like some starstruck pastiche. This is already unmistakably the Myaskovsky who would very quickly go on to compose the sixth symphony. 

But enough about that for now. We have finally, after something like 14 years, covered the first symphony. I’m sure we’ll revisit the next two before eventually getting to 4 and 5 and then moving on to 7. But we won’t see Myaskovsky again for a minute. We’ll be moving on to Scriabin and some of his works that I’ve needed to check off my list here for some time.

Thank you so much for reading.