Description
Nikolai Miaskowsky (1881 - 1950) was a Russian composer (also Soviet composer), who strangely enough is still one of the great unknowns in Russian music history. He left behind a large oeuvre and trained a whole generation of composers. He owes his nickname "Father of the Soviet Symphony" to the fact that he completed 27 symphonies, including one for wind orchestra, namely the 19th (composed in 1939). This symphony is an outlier in Miaskowsky's repertoire, but also in the series of symphonies. The 19th symphony, of which Movement Nr.1 is the opening movement, was written by Miaskowsky at the request of a conductor of a Russian military wind orchestra. It was a solitary, not too modern, but skillful composition in instrumentation that was common in Russian military orchestras at the time. Considering the big differences with the current, generally accepted instrumentation for wind orchestra (Miaskowsky doesn't use a saxophone register, no trumpets, but cornets, three different tenor horns, and a Euphonium...) the arranger thought new instrumentation would be appropriate. Movement 1 from Symphony No. 19