Composer of the Week - Nicolay Yakovlevich Myaskovksy (1881-1950) - Episode 1

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Nicolay Myaskovsky, focusing on the composer's childhood. His father's army career impacted upon the young and reserved child, as did the extreme religious mania of his aunt, who lived with the family once Myaskovsky's mother died. Featuring the Cello Concerto, Romantic in origin, which displays Myaskovsky's passion for Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, yet is one of the works denounced under the Stalin regime as 'formalist'. There is also the final movement of his Symphony No 1, which started the composer off on his long career of symphonic writing. Napeve St Petersburg Chamber Ensemble Roland Melia (conductor) ASV CD DCA 928 Tr 7 Her Picture (To a Portrait), Op 40 No 4 (1935-6) Mary King (mezzo-soprano) Andrew Ball (piano) BBC Recording Song-Idyll: Sonata No 8 in D minor, Op 83 (1949) - 2nd mvt Murray McLachlan (piano) Olympia OCD704 disc 3 Tr 3 Cello Concerto in C minor, Op 66 (1944) Truls Mork (cello) City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Paavo Jarvi (conductor) Virgin Classics 5 45282 2 disc 1 Trs 4-5 Allegro assai e molto risoluto (Symphony No 1 in C minor, Op 3 (1908) - 3rd mvt State Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation Evgeny Svetlanov (conductor) Warner 2564 69689-8 disc 1 Tr 3.