If you want a representative disc of symphonies by Soviet composer Nikolay Myaskovsky, conductor
Evgeny Svetlanov should head up your shopping list. But since he has recorded all 27 of Myaskovsky's symphonies, choosing a single title can be difficult. This is as good a place to start as any. The Fifteenth, a four-movement work from 1934, is Social Realism at his most optimistic, with folk-song-like themes, brilliant orchestrations, and an easily graspable structure. The No. 27, a three-movement work from 1949, is much darker and much more emotionally complicated. Myaskovsky wrote it the year after he,
Shostakovich,
Prokofiev, and
Khachaturian had been publicly denounced as enemies of the people by the Communist Party, and its tone is understandably nostalgic, tragic, and even pessimistic in the central Adagio. The Fifteenth is thus representative of the composer at his best, while No. 27 is representative of him at his most honest. As always in this series,
Svetlanov leads with technical mastery, emotional maturity, and unstinting sympathy for the music. The
Russian Federation Academic Symphony Orchestra performs with well-worn familiarity, and 1991 and 1993 Russian digital recordings are big, brash, and loud.