Symphony No. 11 (Myaskovsky)
Encyclopedia
The Russian
composer
Nikolai Myaskovsky
wrote his Symphony No. 11 in B minor in 1931/1932.
It has three movements
:
The symphony was begun three years after his 10th symphony
was completed, a symphonic pause long for him. The style of this symphony is entirely different from that of its predecessor, which was still a modern-sounding work. Symphony no. 11 sounds much more conservative. That is probably a consequence of the changing art climate in the Soviet Union
.
Too modern art started to be considered "formalistic", and artists were brought together under one aegis. Another cause is possible according to some Soviet musicologists
- that Myaskovsky and others had to leave the poorly-functioning Association for Contemporary Music. The work's premiere
was two years after completion, also. Myaskovsky had then already repaired to his symphony. A musical pointer in this symphony is two fragments in movement 2, where woodwinds turn and turn again around a fugal
motif.
The work was dedicated to Maximilian Steinberg
, whose third symphony and a symphonic poem Prinses Marlene had earlier been converted by Myaskovsky into piano reduction
.
The symphony was premiered on 16 January 1933 in Moscow, conducted by Konstantin Saradzhev
.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Nikolai Myaskovsky
Nikolai Myaskovsky
Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky was a Russian and Soviet composer. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of the Soviet symphony".-Early years and first important works:...
wrote his Symphony No. 11 in B minor in 1931/1932.
It has three movements
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
:
- Lento – Allegro agitato
- Andante – Adagio, ma non tanto
- Precipitato - Allegro
The symphony was begun three years after his 10th symphony
Symphony No. 10 (Myaskovsky)
The Symphony No. 10 in F minor, Op. 30 by Nikolai Myaskovsky is among the more remarkable of the Russian composer's large output of 27 symphonies....
was completed, a symphonic pause long for him. The style of this symphony is entirely different from that of its predecessor, which was still a modern-sounding work. Symphony no. 11 sounds much more conservative. That is probably a consequence of the changing art climate in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Too modern art started to be considered "formalistic", and artists were brought together under one aegis. Another cause is possible according to some Soviet musicologists
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
- that Myaskovsky and others had to leave the poorly-functioning Association for Contemporary Music. The work's premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
was two years after completion, also. Myaskovsky had then already repaired to his symphony. A musical pointer in this symphony is two fragments in movement 2, where woodwinds turn and turn again around a fugal
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
motif.
The work was dedicated to Maximilian Steinberg
Maximilian Steinberg
Maximilian Osseyevich Steinberg was a Russian composer of classical music born in what is now Lithuania.-Life:...
, whose third symphony and a symphonic poem Prinses Marlene had earlier been converted by Myaskovsky into piano reduction
Piano reduction
A piano reduction is sheet music for the piano that was once music for other instruments that was reduced to its most basic components within a two line staff for piano. It is also considered a style of orchestration or music arrangement less well known as contraction scoring, a subset of elastic...
.
The symphony was premiered on 16 January 1933 in Moscow, conducted by Konstantin Saradzhev
Konstantin Saradzhev
Konstantin Saradzhev was an Armenian conductor and violinist. He was an advocate of new Russian music, and conducted a number of premieres of works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Modest Mussorgsky, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Aram Khachaturian...
.