There's a recording of a concerto for clarinet and strings conducted by Vladimir Ponkin attrubited to Myaskovsky that is issued in multiple digital albums and compilations. But there's no information about it other than the work is not in Myaskovsky's work list. So, what is the real composer of that piece of music?
Also, on ASV's recording of his string orchestra music conducted by Roland Melia there's a miniature called Napeve, and Boris Lvov had recorded a piano miniature called Little Birds attributed to him. Of these I can't find any information. Are they from his sketch book, Flofion?
Interesting. Re the clarinet concerto, the soloist seems only to be listed as "Moove T."...or am I misreading that? I can't find any further information.
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/mAsAAOSwpkFY6CRN/s-l500.jpg)
There's a release that mentions the soloist as Vladimir Sokolov, while the nonsensical "MOOVE T" is absent. Other digital re-releases (or reposts at best) mindlessly copied these meaningless words
And I can't find a disc where Ponkin and Vlad Sokolov collaborate on discog
Quote from: tuatara442442 on Monday 15 January 2024, 11:09There's a release that mentions the soloist as Vladimir Sokolov, while the nonsensical "MOOVE T" is absent. Other digital re-releases (or reposts at best) mindlessly copied these meaningless words
Interesting: the Russian version of Apple Music mentions Sokolov, Ponkin and Miaskovsky in the context of a clarinet concerto... (their names spelt differently as you will see) -
https://music.apple.com/ru/song/concerto-for-clarinet-and-string-orchestra-i-allegro/1039512717 (https://music.apple.com/ru/song/concerto-for-clarinet-and-string-orchestra-i-allegro/1039512717)
https://music.apple.com/ru/song/concerto-for-clarinet-and-string-orchestra-ii-adagio/1039513480 (https://music.apple.com/ru/song/concerto-for-clarinet-and-string-orchestra-ii-adagio/1039513480)
https://music.apple.com/ru/song/concerto-for-clarinet-and-string-orchestra-iii-rondo/1039513482 (https://music.apple.com/ru/song/concerto-for-clarinet-and-string-orchestra-iii-rondo/1039513482)
(https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music3/v4/e1/19/f0/e119f026-4d68-1ac0-0f87-27badbf7a54e/5051461519926.jpg/592x592bb.webp)
Ages ago someone told me what work by Myaskovsky "Little Bird(s)" was, but I've lost that email.
While it's Collected and not Complete, anyone have access to the Collected Works edition published in some volumes and held by some libraries? Napeve might be an arrangement of a work in some volume (maybe a piano work or a vocal work?) in that collection.
The CD also contains a theme and variations for strings that I'm guessing is a string orchestra arrangement of the finale of the composer's 3rd string quartet, but not having heard the CD or read its notes ...yet... I'm just guessing here :) ) I've seen the concerto disc and have no idea; I should see about maybe streaming it and identifying its themes- maybe it's an arrangement by someone or other of music (an existing work, or movements from existing works as per Mozart's earliest piano concertos being arrangements of solo sonata movements by others or one other (depending), etc., or just themes) by the composer into clarinet concerto format.
The opening bars of the clarinet concerto don't sound much like Myaskovsky, but on another hand an idea I had of comparing them to various clarinet concertos and concertinos with string accompaniment didn't turn up anything (just yet). The most obvious contemporary (Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who wrote two clarinet works with string accompaniment that I'm aware of) is a no, I think, since both of them (Opp.104 and 153) sound very different from this piece.
Is there another composer with the same surname...?
It's possible...
Quote from: eschiss1 on Monday 15 January 2024, 16:56The CD also contains a theme and variations for strings that I'm guessing is a string orchestra arrangement of the finale of the composer's 3rd string quartet, but not having heard the CD or read its notes ...yet... I'm just guessing here :) )
I'm sure that the Theme & Variations is a string quartet arrangement.
Perhaps this mystery concerto was written by Hans Franke?
I'm sure the style is too advanced for him to stomach ;D
By the way, the Hans Franke scandal makes me think a series of concert programs consists of spurious works (intentional or not) is an interesting idea. And considering the Franke case, the comparative performance of an original works and a falsely claimed work with movements and keys changed could achieve a more comedic effect.
Quote from: eschiss1 on Monday 15 January 2024, 17:22The most obvious contemporary (Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who wrote two clarinet works with string accompaniment that I'm aware of) is a no, I think, since both of them (Opp.104 and 153) sound very different from this piece.
So, in line with this pattern of research, I will try my hand on every possible clarinet and strings piece listed on Onno van Rijen's compilation of Soviet composer work lists. A skim of Wikipedia's Clarinet Concerto page (in English and Russian) provides few possible candidates
I didn't get a hit filtering through the lists...
Maybe ask Point Classics what they know? (Low chances probably but still... - https://www.pointclassics.com/)
Labels that don't provide any information about the work/s recorded are next to useless.
Just checked Myakovsky's archive official website. Again no candidate for the concerto, but possible candidates for little bird and napeve are in Flofion sketch books.
In part four there's a L'Oiseau in e minor: Poco andantino. The tempo is not wrong but key isn't right, as the recorded Little Bird is definitely in major. But there's no other possibility that I'm aware of.
"Napeve" means "melody" in Russian. so I found three candidates: Canzonina in F# Min: Andante in Pt II; Chant apocriphe in B-Flat Min: Andante in Pt III; Chant in E Min: Andante doloroso in Pt V. The tempo all fit, but not the key. The key in the ASV recording is apparently G Minor. I could imagine that the canzonina was transposed a semitone higher.
Quote from: tuatara442442 on Friday 19 January 2024, 09:59In part four there's a L'Oiseau in e minor: Poco andantino. The tempo is not wrong but key isn't right, as the recorded Little Bird is definitely in major. But there's no other possibility that I'm aware of.
The melody of this miniature starts in E, but apparently hit the notes in a C major scale. Considering the chromaticism, a notation in e minor is possible I guess.
Quote from: tuatara442442 on Friday 19 January 2024, 09:59"Napeve" means "melody" in Russian. so I found three candidates: Canzonina in F# Min: Andante in Pt II; Chant apocriphe in B-Flat Min: Andante in Pt III; Chant in E Min: Andante doloroso in Pt V. The tempo all fit, but not the key. The key in the ASV recording is apparently G Minor. I could imagine that the canzonina was transposed a semitone higher.
Napeve means more like "chant" in Russian and various other Slav languages. I don't know if that makes a difference?
Don't know either. The wiktionary list the translation "tune, melody", the google translation's primary translation is "chant". Do you mean chant as in Gregorian chant? I'm almost purely instrumental guy and don't react to vocal music terms well, so chant is more often a French word for me. Maybe it's a good idea to ask our Russian Pianist friend Servin 8)
A Russian friend of mine says napevy is a word that has connotation of folk/gypsy/rustic music. He also confirmed my suspicions that the Russian word is napev or napevy (plural) not napeve, which looks more like another Slav language.
Quote from: Christopher on Friday 19 January 2024, 13:13A Russian friend of mine says napevy is a word that has connotation of folk/gypsy/rustic music. He also confirmed my suspicions that the Russian word is napev or napevy (plural) not napeve, which looks more like another Slav language.
Well, I checked again. Напеве is really a singular prepositional case declension... Wiktionary doesn't list another language in that page, and its Latinized version didn't yield results. Maybe the transliteration is not good enough...
The Clarinet Concerto is definitely a misattribution, it is far away from anything in Myaskovsky's output. The question by whom it might be is really difficult to answer and I am afraid that even Onno's site might not really help since it only represents the tip of the iceberg. There were hundreds if not thousands of Soviet composers, and it might be by anyone. Just to point out one name, the Russian wikipedia article on Vladimir Sokolov tells us that David Krivitsky (1937–2010) wrote a clarinet concerto for Sokolov. However, checking whether it might be this piece seems to be impossible.
Your suggestion is somewhat close. That Concerto for bass clar. & str. is estimated to be 17 mins long, precisely the length of the recording. However, the instrument in that recording is a usual clarinet since the timbre and the range.
Or it could be arranged and transposed, that opens an infinite possibilities...
Oh, I just noticed, the Krivitsky Concerto played by him is his "arrangement", it is entirely possible we find the true target!
does it even sound like a production of the Soviet era? has hints of Hindemith-like composers about it, I think.
Difficult to say, Eric. Hindemith was, after all, widely influential, although disapproved of under the Nazis. Not so sure about the Soviet Union, although it seems unlikely, I agree. Who knows, though, whether the piece was written and simply suppressed?
It very much depends on which time we talk about. During Stalinism, pressure was most intense (and if we were sure it's a concerto from 1950 I would say a Soviet author should be as good as impossible), while in later years, the variety of styles among Soviet composers is actually large (much larger than commonly assumed), so that I don't really think we can exclude a Soviet composer for reasons of style. To see that a Hindemithian approach was certainly no risk, just keep in mind how many Soviet composers tried dodecaphony (so, even more modernist tendencies) in the 1960s. This said, of course there is also some possibility it's not a work by a Soviet composer, that's correct of course. For instance, I have a Melodiya LP from ca. 1980 with pieces for clarinet and piano by Martinů, Glazachev (Ukraine), Poulenc and Podkovyrov (Belarus), indicating that stuff from abroad was also played (of course).
Anyway, I sampled Krivitsky's Viola d'amore concerto (1982) and other compositions that I can't find a date. The style is a bit more advanced than that in this recording (his bass-clar. concerto was written in 1980). So I'm not sure if this is the composer.
Actually, the part I've heard of the concerto seems _less_, not more, "modern" than many works by Myaskovsky and other Soviets, and also somehow less "national" somehow. "Hindemithian" was probably not what I was looking for, there.
While the real composer can't be determined, I find the music itself somewhat worth a listen. While the Mov. I is your average slightly dissonant neoclassical stuff, the Mov II is attractive enough, and the Mov III contains an interesting jazzy episode.
This is indeed a strange mystery! I'm having a look around on the internet, and now I have to wonder if anything but the fact it's a 3-movement concerto for clarinet and strings is correct, like the credited musicians. At the very least, it's very probably not by Nikolai Myaskovsky.
I did see that the conductor Vladimir Ponkin is online and has social media (his own website and a VK account) - perhaps he'd be able to help solve this mystery, considering part of it is under his own name, after all.
It might not be a concerto for clarinet and strings originally, either :) (This does not aid identification!)
Hi @tuatara442442 - did you ever get to the bottom of this?
No, I did not. I did not contact Mr. Ponkin. But I still doubt this is an arrangement of David Krivitsky's bass-clar. concerto. The Russian National Library lists a score in their possession
https://search.rsl.ru/ru/record/01001937823
Hello, I don't know if any of you read this thread anymore but I am hoping that you do. I am new here and only signed up to give an input on this question. I happened to discover this recording today whilst listening to some Miaskovsky and thought that a clarinet concerto by him seems a bit strange. On googling the recording I came upon this thread. So I was not wrong there is indeed a mystery. However after a little bit of thought I have come upon a potential answer, but I have no way of verifying it and perhaps someone here may be in a position to do so.
But interestingly someone here mentioned a likeness to Hindemith, which would tie in to the information that I have found. I personally thought the music sounded English.
I decided to ignore all the obvious information given on this clarinet concerto and focus purely on the rather bizarre additional piece of information, namely "Moove.T". I have discovered there was an English composer named Timothy Moore who did indeed write a "Concerto for Clarinet and Strings".
There is a biography given on Britishmusiccollection.org.uk which interestingly says the following:
"A renewed contact with a Russian-born schoolfriend Diana Miller, led to his organising visits to Britain for the Soviet Composers Union and for pupils from the Gnesin Music School (among them the young Yevgeny Kissin). This resulted in the re-establishment of relations between the Composers Union and the British Composers Guild after an interval of some 30 years. It also led to many performances and broadcasts of Moore's music in the Soviet Union and widespread recognition there.
His style of composition was individual and difficult to pigeonhole, owing something to Hindemith, the English madrigalists and Bach, as well as to jazz."
The Jazz comment certainly ties in with the third movement Rondo, and the article also mentions the similarities to Hindemith. What say you all? Can anyone verify?
I forgot to add that the British Music Collection website also indicates that the Timothy Moore clarinet concerto is approximately 15 minutes long, which is not far off the 17 minutes of this recording.
Thanks for this contribution. Sounds decidedly plausible.
I think the Russian Music Collection on Brilliant Classics contains another example of an odd misattribution- a cello work (possibly by Milhaud or an arrangement of a well-known Milhaud work?) played by Rostropovich (iirc) under a different composer and title- so somehow this sort of misattribution-for-recording's-sake seems not unprecedented.
Very intriguing strand of thought. Thank you for your hypothesis!
This is more plausible than some might think: when russians are taught the Latin alphabet, there is a very weird way that they write lower-case r. It looks like a curved v! See the image below, though that doesn't totally capture it. (Handwriting is a very strict thing there, almost all russians have identical handwriting in both Cyrillic and Latin.) So not inconceivably a russian could have written Moore T and someone else read it as Moove T.
(https://as1.ftcdn.net/jpg/03/61/72/86/1000_F_361728698_Lg9Kf6RcYVRxOvmX1q6e1aXjvscoH5uT.jpg)
Where might one find the score of T Moore's concerto?
An obituary on MusicWeb says:
Although he won some success as a composer; with a number of publications and broadcasts, the fact remains that he was probably better known in Russia than in Britain, and in his latter years he worked hard to try to achieve wider recognition in this country, something which he never quite succeeded in but richly deserved.
https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Mar03/Moore_obit.htm (https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Mar03/Moore_obit.htm)
The Concerto for Clarinet and Strings is referenced here:
https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/concerto-clarinet-and-strings-4 (https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/concerto-clarinet-and-strings-4)
Quote from: Christopher on Wednesday 05 March 2025, 16:49The Concerto for Clarinet and Strings is referenced here:
https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/concerto-clarinet-and-strings-4 (https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/score/concerto-clarinet-and-strings-4)
Yes I have just sent an email to the British Music Collection to see if I can get an answer. I guess I doubt they will spend the time on a bit of idle curiosity, but there is always a chance that they have interest as it might add a recording to their archives that they were unaware of.
Another place to try could be the successor to Dartington Hall School where he seems to have spent most of his career.
According to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartington_Hall):
After the school's closure, a number of staff and students set up Sands School (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sands_School) which still carries some of the principles that Dartington once had.
The Dartington estate also hosts the Dartington Music Summer School & Festival (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartington_International_Summer_School) - which "was a department of the Dartington Trust. It was replaced in 2024 by ChoralFest (https://www.dartington.org/event/choralfest/)"...these could all be avenues of enquiry maybe?
There is a Timothy Moore recording of his Brass Quintet here: https://www.editions-bim.com/composers/timothy-moore and if you compare it's movements 3 and 4 to the 2nd and 3rd of the concerto, I feel there are definitely some similarities........but maybe it's just me.
Worldcat lists a copy of Moore's clarinet concerto here (https://search.worldcat.org/title/266827293) if this helps at all...
Just as an update I got a response but it was to re-direct me to a different outfit that I was advised hold the actual physical materials (recordings, scores etc) rather than just the digital info that BMC hold. I have re-posed the question there. I am hopeful I will actually get a response even if not the actual answer to the query.
A response from Heritagequay.org:
"Thank you for your enquiry about music held at Heritage Quay. I can confirm that we hold a score for Timothy Moore's concerto for clarinet and strings (BMC/SC/64174). It appears that the movement titles correspond with the recording link you provided: I Allegro (listed in the score as 5.5 minutes), II Adagio (listed as 3 minutes) and III Rondo: Allegro (listed as 5 ¾ minutes). From a brief listen, the opening bars do seem to correspond too.
If you would like to research this score further, we can offer a free online appointment where you can view original archive materials on a Microsoft Teams video call with an Archives Assistant. Online appointments are available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10am and 3pm and last for one hour. Appointments must be booked at least one week in advance. You can book an appointment via our online booking form. Select the online appointment option and the calendar will show available dates in black. Select the date and time you would prefer and fill in the details. The reference number for the score in questions is: BMC/SC/64174.
Alternately, within copyright legislation we are able to provide you with copies of up to 10% of a published score, which costs a fee. The following link provides more detail about copying costs. Please advise us if you would prefer to pursue this option, and we will provide you with a quote for this service.
I hope this information is helpful to you and do let us know if you have any questions.
All the very best,"
I am not sure if I will take it any further as it was more a matter of curiosity than anything else and it seems to me that this "Myaskovsky" concerto is highly likely a hitherto unrecorded concerto by Timothy Moore.
Case solved! Thanks so much for your expert sleuthing!
And, thank you to the people at Heritage Quay - always helpful.
Thanks a lot for the research, Greentiger! Really fascinating in many regards: an unexpected solution to this problem, a clever way of finding it out and a composer new to me. Great!
Thank you very much for solving this mystery through a unique perspective, Greentiger: a totally unexpected development!
I wonder if his family are aware? Or his (estate) lawyers for that matter!