Thanks to Olympia's initiative, Miaskovsky is now as strongly represented in the CD catalogue as Khachaturian—a remarkable state of affairs, but by no means incommensurate with their significance in the history of Soviet music. The Seventh Symphony of 1922 is one of the more adventurous in the Miaskovsky canon of 27, inaugurating a phase in which disruptive silences and dissonant conclusions were favoured devices. It opens with an enriched dominant harmony which is pure Scriabin, but equally important influences emanate from Franck and Grieg. The resulting style suffers from creeping chromaticism—a chronic disease of the inner parts—and squareness of phrasing and structural distension are additional drawbacks. On the other hand some of the ideas themselves have real quality and the overall structure is interesting a textbook sonata first movement, a slow movement encasing scherzo, fashioned after the example of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov concertos, and a recapitulatory finale which disintegrates prematurely.

An intriguing, if hardly convincing work, then, performed with a considerable dramatic sweep to compensate for sour woodwind tone, some sketchy string playing and an adenoidal horn. The late-1970s recording quality is again mixed and there are some peculiarities of balance and editing, plus curdled string-tone and cut-off resonance in the Knipper pieces. Olympia's presentation is again skimpy. The structure of the Miaskovsky symphony is misrepresented, the tonal axes of the Knipper Sinfonietta are described as D flat and F instead of C and E (though the general tone of the comments is perceptive), and minaccioso, the most important designation in the Miaskovsky, is given as minassimo, a misprint taken over from the Melodiya original.

Gramophone, July 1989