14th Symphony (Myaskovsky)

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14th symphony
key C major
opus 37
Sentence names
  • I Allegro giocoso
  • II Andantino, quasi allegretto
  • III Quasi presto
  • IV Andante sostenuto
  • V Allegro con fuoco
Total duration about 37 minutes
Composed 1933
occupation Symphony orchestra
premiere On February 24, 1935 by the orchestra of
the Moscow Bolshoi Theater
under the direction of W. L. Kubatzki
dedication "For WL Kubatzki"

The Symphony in C major, Op. 37 is the 14th symphony by the composer Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Mjaskowski .

History of origin

The symphony was written close to the 13th , but can hardly be compared with the previous work. With this symphony, Myaskovsky made a radical change in his tonal language and thus met the demands of the new Soviet style of music. He began work on the work and the subsequent 15th symphony after he had completed the sketches for the 13th. When he had already composed the finale, he decided to use the material for the first movement of the 15th symphony and to write a new final movement for the 14th. According to S. Gulinskaja, the symphony arose out of "Myaskovsky's endeavors to make the interests of his homeland his own, to penetrate the deeper meaning of the pleasant changes that had taken place before his eyes and to express these changes in his music" . However, whether he actually found these “changes”, ie the restructuring of the music industry and its censorship, pleasing, has to be doubted on the basis of the propaganda-influenced sources.

analysis

The work is the composer's only five-movement symphony. Mjaskowski tried to keep things simple and only used easily accessible motifs such as the Kazakh folk song The Two Elderly or a lullaby . The tonal language is accordingly happy and dance-like, most passages are in fast tempos . The mood is full of light and dynamic and paints the picture of a peaceful spring landscape in lyrical and narrative passages.

Reception and criticism

Myaskovsky was extremely dissatisfied with the work. As with the twelfth symphony, he wrote here that it was a "failure". The new and possibly imposed style caused him great problems, he wrote to Prokofiev : “My attempts in the 'mass genres' are a certain type of attempted assassination with extremely unsuitable means, [...] but less with regard to success or failure, recognition, etc. than out of the feeling of having committed a certain immoral act against yourself. ”Prokofiev attested at least the first three movements“ youthfulness and freshness ”, but he did not consider the finale to be successful either. The score was published in 1937, well before the 13th symphony. It was the first work in a longer creative period that was characterized by simplicity and awareness of tradition (use of folk songs, conventional harmony ). From the 1930s, Mjaskowski often suffered from depression , caused by "suppressed, negative feelings", according to the author Maya Pritsker . This led to the fact that there are many melancholy passages in his music too, especially in his later works.

literature

  • CD supplement Warner Music France 2564 69689-8 (Miaskovsky: Intégrale des Symphonies, Evgeny Svetlanov (cond.))
  • Soja Gulinskaja: Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Mjaskowski. Moscow 1981, German Berlin 1985

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