#myskovsky

As a grand send-off to Russian week, I wanted to share this monumental work by Nikolai Myaskovsky. The Symphony no.6 in eb minor is the most ambitious of all his symphonies (a rare case of a 20th century prolific symphonist, he wrote 27 in total), and is written in the scale of late Romanic symphonists (especially Mahler). It is an interesting mix of Post-Romanticism and Soviet Modernism, where textures and colors can get brutal and murky, or more lyrical and luscious. The intensity of emotions in the work is likely the composer’s response to increasing political hostility, and the death of his father and other family members to post-war famines. This symphony is like a large-scale memorial to the victims of WWI, and the Revolution and Civil wars, the darkest times happening immediately after each other. The first movement is a large-scale sonata form that is full of restless pulsations. The second as whirlwinds surrounding a calmer section based on Dies Irae. The third revises the main melody of the first movement into something more glorious, before falling apart and dissipating into despair. Despite the general gloominess, solemnity, and violence that happens in the music, the ending includes a chorus singing an old Russian hymn “How Soul Left the Body”, and the orchestra drifts off in a peaceful air, maybe hoping for a better future, or maybe looking back at better times.