Listened to Svetlanov's 1991 recording of this work - Nikolai Myaskovsky's sixth symphony in E♭ minor, opus 23, from around 1922 - which (the recording) was broadcast on a syndicated program out of Chicago (Henry Fogel's Collector's Corner) awhile back and released first on Russian Disc, then on Olympia (a now defunct British label). A description of the work and its history can be found
here, and a review of Svetlanov's recording
here (OCD 736 - Olympia Compact Disc, not Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). One of the more often recorded works by this less known 20th-century Polish-born, Russian-trained, Soviet composer - I count five recordings:
- Kirill Kondrashin's,
- Robert Stankovsky's (which I have, and will talk about),
- Veronica Dudarova (she did well by other works of this composer but I haven't heard this one...),
- this one! and
- Neeme Järvi's, the most recent one.
(See also a comparative review
here!)
This is Myaskovsky's only symphony to use voices, with a brief choral part in the finale, and Svetlanov's recording omits the chorus entirely (I believe that's actually an option, but only taken by his recording so far. The part can be sung in Latin or in Russian, the poem is "As the soul leaves the body".) Stankovsky's uses Latin. I gather the others use Russian.
So...
I wrote a
runthrough of the symphonies and other works by this composer that I knew, years ago (gyah, when
was that?... 1994 or so that I finished the first draft I think.) - adding to it occasionally and for awhile as I encountered scores in libraries and recordings in stores. (Since Downes' recording of symphonies 5 and 9 - very, very recommendable, and one I definitely had bought before writing the sections on those works - came out around 1994, I'm guessing I wrote those parts around 1994 or a bit later, anyway. Contrary to what Amazon's contributor may say, while they're a bit brassy, especially the end of the 9th, the performers are not "the BBC Philharmonic Brass" by themselves!)
So to the point of my writing all this: with Stankovsky on Marco Polo- a label I often favor and often patronize in the business, not the other, sense :), the sixth symphony seemed generic, the major-mode finale more inevitable because the minor-mode first two movements seemed more play-acting, more gestural, less felt!... than in many another work by the composer (the third symphony with its painful funeral march close, the first and last of the string quartets, the second of his cello sonatas, just for examples...) Svetlanov makes me realize why "the audience wept" at the premiere of this symphony, and so while he does omit the chorus - whose entry, with themes heard earlier, at a climactic moment toward the end, while brief is important- there's more than enough reason to regret that this recording has left the market, anyway...
(I do hope to hear Järvi's, described as the one recording now available that really is "in the running" against it... and especially because it is available, and Svetlanov's now isn't, though a company Regis is reissuing some of Olympia's stock, so it might be again? They've already reissued some Myaskovsky piano CDs played by Murray McLachlan, which I have in their "original incarnation" and recommend.)
