# N. Myaskovsky -- Symphony #19



## Rhombic (Oct 28, 2013)

Myaskovsky, among the greatest Soviet era composers, left us 27 marvellous symphonies where we, as listeners, can track the development of his experimental approaches to composition and how they end up emphasising the actual Russian folklore and colours instead of the more Scriabin-like approach. Therefore, we may contrast the experimental 6th Symphony and the 23rd Symphony, for example, where the differences are more than obvious. However, it should be noted that Myaskovsky has a symphony that does not actually fit the rest of them because of many reasons: the 19th symphony.

It is scored for wind orchestra instead of a regular symphonic orchestra, and the overall character of the piece is much more tonal and Holst-like than the vast majority of his compositions. In view of its dedicatory to the Red Army, the orchestration seems not only intentional, but also functional.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Heard it live maybe 20 years ago with Gennady Roszhdestvensky and the Stockholm Wind Orchestra, highlight of that concert! (They also played a bunch Soviet Marches and shorter works that seemed "formalistic" in comparison.. ) ... Remember myself thinking, I've got to investigate this composer! Ended up buying Svetlanov's Cycle then on Russian disc, haven't regretted this yet!

/ptr


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## Rhombic (Oct 28, 2013)

If you analyse the path that Myaskovsky's symphonies follow, you can see that the 19th does not actually conform to the trend and I do not think that he intended it to have many things in common with his style of symphonic compositions. In fact, it appears to be almost a symphonic poem for band at some points (especially in the second movement).


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