The Symphony No. 2 in B minor is a symphony by the Ukrainian composer, conductor, and teacher Borys Lyatoshynsky. It has three movements.
The symphony was commissioned in 1933 by the Organizing Bureau of the Union of Soviet Composers. The premiere in Moscow was cancelled following the death of an important politician, and after the work was severely criticised in the press. Lyatoshynsky produced a revised version of his symphony in 1940, but it only received its premiere in 1964, four years before the composer's death.
Background
During 1920s the Soviet government gradually suppressed cultural life in the Soviet Union, and strenuously opposed the development of Ukrainian classical music. Its use of the arts as a political propaganda tool caused a serious decline in artistic standards, and Soviet composers were purged by the Soviet authorities, who forced them to follow popular taste and follow the principles of Socialist realism. During the 1930s, the Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky (1895–1968) suffered hardship and disappointment as a direct result of these Soviet policies.
Lyatoshynsky's Second Symphony in B minor was commissioned in 1933 by the Organizing Bureau of the Union of Soviet Composers, to be premiered in Moscow along with a number of other works by Ukrainian composers.
Lyatoshynsky worked on the symphony during 1935 and 1936. The composer's autograph of the score is dated 13 March 1936.
Official criticism
The symphony was criticised in the press, even though it had yet to be performed. The Russian musicologist and music critic Daniel Zhitomirsky described it as an "empty and far-fetched work" that is covered by "imposing and complex sound", in which "constant ups and downs, multi-meaningful thunderous climaxes reflect the author's claim to the depth of thought". He accused Lyatoshynsky of formalism. Officially citing the national mourning for the Soviet politician Sergo Ordzhonikidze as a reason, the premiere was cancelled by the authorities.
The symphony revised by Lyatoshynsky in 1940, but not performed. He was not named in Zhdanov's Decree of February 1948, but the accusations of formalism, and of composing in a dissonant and distasteful style directed at other composers within the decree, also applied to him, and he was vilified in the press. That year, the Second Symphony received still more official criticism:
Lyatoshynsky attempted on a number of occasions to resurrect the symphony. It received its premiere in 1964.
Music
The Second Symphony is a complex work that, in the opinion of the musicologist Yulia Valentinivna Bentya, reflects "the individual's often conflicting relationship with reality". According to the Ukrainian American conductor Theodore Kuchar there is a "generally insulting atmosphere throughout the symphony". He describes the work as "turbulent, nervous, filled with deep pain and flashes of protest, yet, equally clearly, showing the composer's love of life and his ideal of artistic and ethical responsibility towards his own people".
The music for this expansive, romantic symphony can be interpreted as depicting images of the reality of Soviet life, often using atonality. Written in the conventional three-movement form, it is full of contrasting moods and dramatic contrasts.
Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for 3 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, basset horn, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, percussion, harp, and strings.
Structure
The symphony has three movements: Lento Lento Andante