Nikolay Myaskovsky: A Composer and His Times by Patrick Zuk

Abstract

Reviewed by: Nikolay Myaskovsky: A Composer and His Times by Patrick Zuk Anthony Gritten Zuk, Patrick. Nikolay Myaskovsky: A Composer and His Times. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge and Rochester, NY, 2021. xlvii + 533 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Music examples. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Indexes. £60.00; £19.99 (e-book): $99.00; $24.99 (e-book). This huge book sets itself three huge tasks: to introduce Miaskovskii's music and life to English-speaking listeners; to rehabilitate his reputation in the musical West; and to situate him in relation to the discourse of Socialist Realism. These three tasks it fulfils with care, thoroughness and plenty of musical insight. This weighty tome is well worth the cost. Miaskovskii's music is still largely unknown in English-speaking music circles; unknown rather than forgotten, despite the work done on CDs by performers. This speaks to the dominance of a certain set of assumptions [End Page 755] about what music — particularly instrumental symphonic music — should do, be, express and tell us. Miaskovskii's music, one might read between the lines, tells us things about ourselves in relation to our musical traditions and our pat assumptions that might be uncomfortable to ponder — about what self-expression is, what public artistic communication might be, about the limits of public debate through art, and so on. And if the Soviet era was a set of times and places in which these sorts of topics were not debated transparently and equitably but certainly were subject to discussion, then it might be concluded from this new book that Miaskovskii's music and his life each provide litmus tests for what music qua public art was, is, and might be. Miaskovskii's own reputation has existed until now in the West largely in relation to the discourse of Socialist Realism (and in relation to histories of the symphony). This book does a lot to disentangle his reputation from his political milieu — or at least, to show where they run parallel but are not the same thing. Zuk's evidence consists of a deep immersion in the music and a huge trawl of the composer's correspondence and a wealth of other archival sources, many of which remain unpublished and untranslated. His narrative sets aside space for several things: patient analyses of works that highlight the musical challenges that Miaskovskii set himself; details of the contexts that we need to acknowledge in relation to his choice of texts when these seem at first glance not to be those demanded by the regime; pertinent comparisons with works by relevant predecessors (Chaikovskii looms large, of course; pp. 54–55, 80, 85–86, 105, 180, 219, 419, 455); and, perhaps most challenging for a musicological study on this scale, an assessment of the ways in which Miaskovskii's works and performances might be judged today. Zuk is not afraid to make value judgements about specific works, and these will be a helpful start to anybody following him into the music. Thus, the Sixth Symphony is rated highly, as are the Thirteenth, Twenty-First, and Twenty-Seventh (p. 455), whereas the Second is criticized in detail. Similarly, the Second Cello Sonata is rated more highly than the Violin Sonata (p. 454). Zuk dismisses Soviet biographies of the composer for axe grinding and lacking correct information, and he writes at length about how various works were only tangentially or problematically examples of Socialist Realism (e.g. pp. 388–89, 434). He also provides detailed explanations of why Miaskovskii's creative responses to Socialist Realist doctrine — dictats that were nervously defined and individually self-justifying — need to be evaluated individually in relation to each separate work. Socialist Realism evolved chaotically, and so did the ways in which it was evaluated in public by those in power, as with, for example, the events of January 1948 during which Miaskovskii seems to have received the lion's share of the blame for the wider problems of a whole generation of composers, possibly for the simple reason that he had taught [End Page 756] many of them (pp. 436–37), but probably also because he had been the recipient of several Stalin prizes, which probably created jealousy and accusations of...