Nikolai Mjaskowski

Sonata no. 2 a minor op. 81

Anyone who loves Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata will sooner or later come across Nikolay Myaskovsky – one of the leading figures in early twentieth-century Soviet music. Myaskovsky studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and was later a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, where he taught Khachaturian and Kabalevsky, among others. His extensive oeuvre includes twenty-seven symphonies as well as substantial chamber music.

The Second Sonata for violoncello and piano was composed in 1949 at the suggestion of the twenty-one-year-old Mstislav Rostropovitch, who premiered it on 5 March 1949 in Moscow. For this Henle edition, Myaskovsky’s sketches were consulted in addition to the Muzgiz edition of 1950 to provide a reliable basis for the musical text. As an extra, the Henle Library app offers the original fingerings of cello legend Rostropovitch.