VOICES FROM THE EAST Boris Lyatoshynsky SYMPHONY NO. 3 • GRAZHYNA Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Kirill Karabits Courtesy of Tatyana Gomon of Tatyana Courtesy Boris Mykolayovych Lyatoshynsky, 1930 Boris Mykolayovych Lyatoshynsky (1895 – 1968) Symphony No. 3, Op. 50 (1951) 44:35 in B minor • in h-Moll • en si mineur ‘Peace shall defeat War’ To the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the October Revolution 1 I Andante maestoso – Poco meno mosso – Tempo iniziale – Allegro impetuoso – Pochissimo meno mosso – Andante – Sostenuto e tranquillo – Più mosso – Allegro – Meno mosso – Allegro – Meno mosso – Allegro – Meno mosso – Andante – Più mosso – Allegro – Meno mosso – Andante – Più mosso – Allegro – Meno mosso – Andante – Più mosso – Allegro – Molto sostenuto e tranquillo – Allegro maestoso – Allegro maestoso 14:40 3 2 II Andante con moto – Meno mosso – Tranquillo – Andante con moto – Minacciando – Poco meno mosso – Meno mosso – Tranquillo – Lento 13:30 3 III Allegro feroce – Poco meno mosso – Allegro molto – Allegro feroce (Poco meno mosso) – Più mosso 5:52 4 IV Allegro risoluto ma non troppo mosso – Poco più mosso – Pochissimo più tranquillo – Più mosso – Ancora più mosso – Poco meno mosso, ma sempre allegro – Poco meno mosso e maestoso assai – Più tranquillo ma sempre allegro – Poco meno mosso, marciale assai – Maestoso – Doppio movimento – Tempo precedente – Doppio movimento – Trionfante 10:24 4 5 Grazhyna, Op. 58 (1955) 18:38 Symphonic Ballad after Adam Mickiewicz Andante sostenuto – Allegro risoluto – Poco meno mosso – Con moto e poco agitato – Andante – Allegro – Poco sostenuto – Allegro – Allegro tumultuoso – Meno allegro – Tempestoso – Meno mosso – Ancora meno mosso – Andante – Lugubre, alla marcia funebre – Andante con moto – Tempo dell’comincio TT 63:23 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Amyn Merchant leader Kirill Karabits 5 Kirill Karabits © BSO Lyatoshynsky: Symphony No. 3 / Grazhyna Introduction Shchors (1937); chamber and instrumental Boris Mykolayovych Lyatoshynsky was born works, of which the Violin Sonata (1926) and in Zhytomyr, northern Ukraine, on 3 January Piano Trio No. 2 (1942) are notable; and vocal 1895 (old style, 22 December 1894). A pupil works, which include remarkable cycles for of Reinhold Glière at the Kiev Conservatory, unaccompanied chorus. he became the most significant Ukrainian Having absorbed the music of the composer during the middle decades of the Russian tradition and late-nineteenth- twentieth century, laying the foundations of century western European romanticism, modern music in his country. Also a renowned Lyatoshynsky developed a personal teacher, he taught at the Kiev Conservatory voice that was shaped by twentieth- from 1919 until his death, becoming a century modernist movements such as professor in 1935, as well as teaching expressionism, as well as Ukrainian folk orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory. music. Given its time and place, his music Valentin Silvestrov and Ivan Karabits were was tempered by the political necessity of among his pupils. He died in Kiev on 15 April adhering to the dogma of the Soviet state, 1968. especially in the post-World War II period. Lyatoshynsky’s compositions include Like Shostakovich and Prokofiev, he fell foul five symphonies (the first completed in 1919, of the authorities, particularly in relation to the last in 1966), which have programmatic the finale of his third, and arguably finest, aspects and have been described as symphony, to which he gave the epithet philosophical dramas. Among other ‘Peace shall defeat War’. orchestral works are the Overture on Four Ukrainian Themes (1926), the symphonic Symphony No. 3 ballad Grazhyna (1955), and the Polish Suite The Third Symphony, composed in 1951, (1961). Lyatoshynsky also composed the reflects his personal creed as a creative artist: first Ukrainian music drama, The Golden Ring A composer whose voice does not read (1929), which was followed by the opera the heart of the nation has less than no 7 value. I always felt myself to be a national composer was accused of being unpatriotic, composer in the fullest sense of the word, and the finale, especially, was dismissed as and I will remain a national composer, ‘bourgeois’. Rather than letting the authorities proving this not through words but deeds! have the last word, and effectively seeing his It was due to be premiered at the Congress of symphony banned, Lyatoshynsky adopted the Union of Ukrainian Composers that year; his own form of defiance: he would compose however, the authorities deemed its concept the finale to their specifications, so that they anti-Soviet and the work was dropped could not prevent the work from being heard. from the programme. Nevertheless, in a His ploy worked and thenceforward, until remarkable act of defiance, the conductor the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Natan Rakhlin performed the symphony at an symphony was performed with the revised open rehearsal, attended by the composer’s finale. Since then, as on this recording, friends, supporters, and public, on 23 October the original version has been increasingly 1951. Despite a triumphant reception and a favoured, and a critical edition of the score standing ovation, any hopes of a concert published in 2015 includes the revised finale performance were dashed until Lyatoshynsky as an addendum. could refashion the last movement to accord Kirill Karabits (whose mother, Dr Maryana with strictures of the Communist Party. Four Kopytsya, is the leading Ukrainian authority years later a new finale was approved, and on Lyatoshynsky) is convinced that the an ‘official’ premiere, given in Leningrad on composer’s original finale is the correct one 29 December 1955 under the prestigious to perform; the first three movements do not forces of the Leningrad Philharmonic resolve the tension inherent within them and Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky, Lyatoshynsky conceived the structure of the sealed the symphony’s acceptance. finale as a means to achieve this, conflict Why did Lyatoshynsky’s symphony so giving way to optimism. offend the arbiters of taste of the Soviet The symphony’s epic character, embracing regime? The premise expressed in the a welter of emotions – tragedy and despair music, that ‘peace’ would ultimately gain pitted against hope and reconciliation – was ascendancy over ‘war’, hardly accorded with the composer’s response to World War II in the policies of a belligerent post-World War II which Ukraine suffered grievously under Stalinist Soviet empire; consequently, the the Nazi occupation. Kiev was occupied 8 for two years; at the Babi Yar ravine, within bristling with semitones follows in the cor the city’s boundaries, more than 100,000 anglais. Trombone, winds, and horns wail people were murdered in a series of infamous chords across the orchestral landscape, atrocities, committed against different while unison strings emphasise the sinister segments of the population, during that war. second bar of the opening motif. The scene is As a compassionate, powerful statement set for the drama to come. about the reality of war, Lyatoshynsky’s Third The Allegro unleashes turbulent, Symphony bears kinship with Shostakovich’s impetuous forces of destruction, initially with Seventh and Eighth Symphonies and Britten’s an edgy, rhythmic theme, which is followed, War Requiem. on first violins, by the re-emergence of the The symphony follows a traditional four- cor anglais melody from the introduction. movement pattern, its outer movements The unbridled mood abates and the sombre, cast in sonata form, a slow movement folk-like main contrasting theme is heard with an arch-shaped ABA structure, and a on low flutes and bassoons, the endings of scherzo with trio. Its melodic conception is its phrases having the resonance of deep predominantly monothematic, the musical tolling bells. Strife breaks out again as the threads originating in the slow introduction fast tempo returns, and the ideas of the to the first movement. As in other works, introduction are developed in a vivid portrait Lyatoshynsky offsets complex harmony with of struggle. A series of climaxes occur melodies and harmonies of the simpler, modal before the folksong melody is heard once character of folksong. Here the chromatically more, on strings, then brass, at which point charged material of the introduction and it is combined with the material from the the folk-like theme that emerges as the start of the Allegro. A review of the thematic contrasting second subject in the following material leads to a massive climax, and the Allegro impetuoso are used symbolically to third appearance of the folksong, before the represent ‘war’ and ‘peace’, respectively. movement dies away inconclusively. The work opens in an atmosphere of After this maelstrom, the slow movement brooding menace and violence, as horns, seems at first to offer tranquillity: a trombones, and tuba share a portentous gentle rocking ostinato (derived from the two-bar motif to which syncopated trumpets symphony’s opening) on harp and violas, add discordant harmony. An ominous melody cool flute chords, and the cor anglais theme 9 from the introduction to the first movement, first movement ‘folksong’ into a seemingly transformed into a tender, consolatory cello different melody. Introduced by the oboe, and melody. The return of the folksong theme set against a translucently scored backdrop, from the first movement also seems to offer it is delicate and laden with sadness. Heard balm. twice more, the melody finally emerges as a However, all is not