MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950) Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op
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Nikolai MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950) Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 70 (1947) [19:48] 1 I. Allegro amabile [8:14] 2 II. Theme (Andante con moto e molto cantabile), [11:32] 12 Variations and Coda Vissarion SHEBALIN (1902-1963) MYASKOVSKY Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 51, No. 1 (1958) [21:40] 3 I. Allegro [8:09] 4 II. Non troppo vivo. Scherzando [3:53] SHEBALIN 5 III. Andante [5:02] 6 IV. Allegro [4:32] NECHAEV Vasily NECHAEV (1895-1956) Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 12 (1928) [20:52] 7 I. Vivace, appenato e leggieramente [6:51] 8 II. Lugubre [4:51] 9 III. Presto impetuoso [9:08] Violin Sonatas Total Timing: [62:27] Sasha Rozhdestvensky violin Sasha Rozhdestvensky violin Viktoria Postnikova piano Viktoria Postnikova piano In memory of my beloved father, Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1931-2018) (Sasha Rozhdestvensky) includes ℗ & © 2018 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by First Hand Records Ltd. PREMIÈRE RECORDINGS ̶ 12 ̶ MYASKOVSKY • SHEBALIN • NECHAEV Violin Sonatas The three violin sonatas on this disc are by the First World War, then served in the Red Army composers who had enjoyed a direct professional during the Civil War. In 1921 he was appointed relationship during the period between the two to the Moscow Conservatoire, his stature as world wars, mainly through their involvement on professor of composition comparable to a steady the teaching staff at the Moscow Conservatoire. output of symphonies such as led to his being More than that, however, they also testify to regarded as the ‘father’ of the Soviet symphony. their intensive effort in pursuing a viable, relevant Despite being awarded the Stalin Prize on five and communicative language for Soviet music occasions (more than any other composer), he during a time when the cultural freedoms of the was heavily censured during those anti-formalist decade after the Bolshevik Revolution had been campaigns of 1948 and a full rehabilitation was supplanted with the greater dictates of Socialist not possible until after his death in Moscow on 8 Realism. Add to these the relatively less restrictive August 1950. Vissarion Shebalin and Nikolai Myaskovsky episodes both during the Second World War and after the death of Stalin, and it soon becomes Along with 27 symphonies, Myaskovsky published Despite his considering it awkward and easeful coda. The second movement is a series of clear why these pieces combine conformism with 13 string quartets and nine piano sonatas. His intractable, Myaskovsky’s Violin Sonata is one of 12 Variations on a theme eloquent and restrained more personal expression. output of chamber music is otherwise limited to the most appealing and approachable among his by turns. These unfold with unforced purpose, two cello sonatas and this Violin Sonata. It was later works – so making its neglect in recital and gaining in impetus such that the fifth and sixth Nikolai Myaskovsky conceived in the summer of 1946 (soon after the on disc the more inexplicable. Formally the piece variations form an emotional highpoint. There Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 70 (1947) 25th Symphony which ranks with his finest works) falls into two equally balanced movements. The follows a gentle winding-down towards underlying Born near Warsaw on 8/20 April 1881, Nikolai and performed with David Oistrakh at an informal opening movement begins with a theme whose repose, but the ‘moto perpetuo’ ninth variation Myaskovsky came from a military family and did session that also brought a run-through of wistfulness is scarcely undermined by its more brings a renewed activity which is briefly held in not study composition in earnest until he enrolled Prokofiev’s (First) Sonata in F minor. Dissatisfied, searching successor. The development elaborates check before being brought to a head in the highly at the St Petersburg Conservatoire in 1906. On Myaskovsky revised his piece in 1947, with the methodically on both themes without bringing rhetorical eleventh variation; the tension duly graduating five years later, he worked as a teacher première given in Moscow by Oistrakh and Lev much in the way of expressive intensification, spilling over into a Coda which brings the work to and critic before being called up at the start of Oborin on 29th April. before a subtly modified reprise leads into the a decisive close. ̶ 2 ̶ ̶ 3 ̶ Vissarion Shebalin Trio and String Trio – along with sonatas for violin, decades from 1925 – becoming a professor of Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 51/1 (1958) viola and cello that, while written across a period piano in 1933 then head of the department for Born in Omsk on 29 May/11 June 1902, Vissarion of six years, were published collectively as their chamber music in 1937. He was made a Doctor of Shebalin was from an academic family and composer’s Op. 51. Written in 1958, then premièred Art History in 1941 and an Honored Artist of the studied agriculture before he enrolled at the in Moscow on 26 November 1960 by Rostislav RSFSR in 1946. A figure who seemed to have met Moscow Conservatoire in 1922. He graduated Dubinsky with Lubov Edlina, the Violin Sonata finds with relatively little controversy over the course of six years later with a First Symphony which was Shebalin’s language at its clearest and most direct his career, though whose music subsequently fell dedicated to Myaskovsky, his main teacher at from a time when the ‘thaw’ in Soviet culture into almost complete neglect, Nechayev died in this time and with whom he was to share a proceeded fitfully and with no clear conviction. Moscow on 5 July 1956. comparable seriousness of outlook. He worked at the conservatoire until 1935 when he was The work falls into a classically arrayed four- While he had attracted early attention as a pianist made head of composition at Gnessin State Music movement design. Despite its tempo indication, and wrote various works for the instrument, College, becoming chairman of the Union of the opening Allegro is predominantly restrained Nechayev’s output focused on theatrical and vocal Soviet Composers during 1941-1942 then director – its lilting then wistful themes being drawn into music – including three operas, numerous song- of the Moscow Conservatoire during 1942-1948. a steadily cumulative development, from where cycles to both Russian and Soviet poets, along Although removed from this latter post during the themes are restated at greater length prior to Vasily Nechaev with music for numerous plays and films. Chamber anti-formalist purges, he received the Stalin Prize a conclusive final cadence. There follows a brief music includes a String Quartet (1924), a Septet in 1951 and remained active until a series of scherzo, its rhythmically animated outer sections idea prior to an animated culmination and then a on Kabardian Themes (1942) and a Cello Sonata strokes curtailed his composing activities prior to framing a suave trio section with audible folk headlong dash to the peremptory closing chords. (1945). Folk music from across the Soviet Union his death in Moscow on 29 May 1963. inflections and then a whimsical transition back proved to be a constant source of inspiration, into the initial music. The slow movement unfolds Vasily Nechaev (Nechayev) Nechayev following on from such predecessors While he essayed two full-length operas and a yearning and rhapsodic melody such as assumes Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 12 (1928) as Reinhold Glière and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov undertook what has since become the standard the guise of a ‘song without words’, briefly allayed Hardly known outside of Soviet music circles, in writing music that was equally well-suited realization of Mussorgsky’s Sorochyntsi Fair, by the livelier central section which culminates in Vasily Nechaev was born in Moscow on 16 /28 to the Russian and Soviet eras. Written in 1928 Shebalin is best known for his contribution to a fervent restatement of the main theme before November 1895. A graduate from Alexander then premièred in Moscow by Evgeniy Guzikov abstract forms – chief among which are his five winding down towards a pensive close. With its Goldenweiser’s piano class at the Moscow (the work’s dedicatee) with the composer, the symphonies (the last of which was dedicated to no-nonsense launch on piano, the finale emerges Conservatoire in 1917, then Sergey Vasilenko’s Violin Sonata suggests Nechaev as being aware Myaskovsky’s memory) and nine string quartets. His in no mean contrast – its rumbustious initial composition class three years later, he taught of stylistic developments pursued by Bartók and output of chamber music otherwise takes in a Piano theme twice alternating with a more songful solo and ensemble playing there for over three Prokofiev in its richly whole-tone harmonies and ̶ 4 ̶ ̶ 5 ̶ its motoric rhythms. Sasha Rozhdestvensky – Violinst Rozhdestvensky was described by Yehudi Menuhin The opening movement initially exudes a as ‘one of the most talented and refined violinists nonchalant air which finds discreet contrast in of his generation’. the thoughtful theme that follows. Aspects of both these themes are drawn upon in a brief He studied at the Moscow Conservatory, the Paris while eventful development, before being Conservatory and at the Royal College of Music, heard in a suitably intensified reprise which London. Since his début at Carnegie Hall, New itself heads to a surprisingly understated close. York in 1992, Rozhdestvensky has performed The slow movement begins in like manner, its regularly as a soloist with the leading orchestras Lugubre marking (one beloved of 19th-century of the world, including the Boston Symphony, Russian composers) being heard in the sombre London Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic modal contours of a main theme, that unfolds in Orchestra, l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio- stepwise harmonies towards a conclusion of calm France and the Mariinsky Orchestra.