This Week in Classical Music: May 25, 2026. Post-Prokofiev Catching Up. We’ve posted four entries on Sergey Prokofiev and missed one week due to technical difficulties, so this week we’ll look back at what we’ve missed. And it was a lot, too many composers to write about, but we’ll mention the “highlights,” the names that are better known and more popular. Four names stand out: Johannes Brahms and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, both born on May 7th, the German in 1833, the Russian in 1840; Claudio Monteverdi (May 15, 1567), and Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813). Then there are the composers who, at least in the public opinion, are close to the top, but not quite within the ranks of the composers mentioned above: Alessandro Scarlatti (May 2, 1660); Gabriel Fauré (May 12, 1845); Jules Massnet (May 12, 1842); Ruggero Leoncavallo (April 23, 1857); Isaac Albeniz (May 29, 1860) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold also born on May 29th, of 1897; and Marin Marais (May 31, 1656). By the way, we believe that Alessandro Scarlatti very much belongs in the highest ranks. The reason his music isn’t performed more often has to do with logistics, not its quality: he wrote long operas that are difficult to stage, and there are few voices capable of singing the main roles (Cecilia Bartoli helped to revive some of his music). And, of course, many of his roles were written for the castrati. On the other hand, we think Marais’ popularity is due mostly to one film, Tous les matins du monde.
We also want to mention several modern composers who, these days, are not popular at all, as their music is considered too difficult and isn’t in vogue: the Italian Bruno Maderna and the American Milton Babbitt. Maderna was born on May 10, 1916, Maderna April 21, 1920. We think they’re very important and interesting composers, and hope that interest in them will return.
We want to circle back to Prokofiev for a moment. As we were reading about his life, one name was constantly coming up: that of his friend, Nikolay Myaskovsky. Myaskovsky, born on April 20th of 1881, was ten years older than Prokofiev. They met in 1906 in the St. Petersburg Conservatory: both were taking composition classes with Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov (and both didn’t like Lyadov). Myaskovsky was a late starter (his father, an officer, discouraged him from pursuing musical studies), and he ended up being the oldest student in the class; Prokofiev was the youngest. That didn’t stop them from becoming fast friends. They worked together on a symphony, now lost. During WWI, Myaskovsky was conscripted and fought as a sapper, while Prokofiev continued his conservatory studies, composed and performed in public. Prokofiev left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, while Myaskovsky stayed, but they kept in touch: altogether, they wrote more than 300 letters to each other. When Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in 1936, they resumed their friendship in person. Both suffered during Stalin’s “anti-formalism” campaign in 1947-48, but it was Myaskovsky who defended Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachaturian from the Communist Party criticism. He died in August of 1950, four years before Prokofiev.
Myaskovsky was prolific. He composed 27 symphonies, 13 quartets, nine piano sonatas and several choral pieces. His music, rather conservative in style, is not widely performed today, but during his lifetime, he was considered a preeminent composer, not only in the Soviet Union but also in the West. Here’s the first movement of Myaskovsky’s Symphony no 4, composed in 1918. Evgeny Svetlanov leads the Russian Academic Symphony Orchestra.
Post-Prokofiev Catching Up, 2026
This Week in Classical Music: May 25, 2026. Post-Prokofiev Catching Up. We’ve posted four entries on Sergey Prokofiev and missed one week due to technical difficulties, so this week we’ll look back at what we’ve missed. And it was a lot, too many composers to write about, but we’ll mention the “highlights,” the names that are better known and more popular. Four names stand out: Johannes Brahms and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, both born on May 7th, the German in 1833, the Russian in 1840; Claudio Monteverdi (May 15, 1567), and Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813). Then there are the composers who, at least in the public opinion, are close to the top, but not quite within the ranks of the composers mentioned above: Alessandro Scarlatti (May 2, 1660); Gabriel Fauré (May 12, 1845); Jules Massnet (May 12, 1842); Ruggero Leoncavallo (April 23, 1857); Isaac Albeniz (May 29, 1860) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold also born on May 29th, of 1897; and Marin Marais (May 31, 1656). By the way, we believe that Alessandro Scarlatti very much belongs in the highest ranks. The reason his music isn’t performed more often has to do with logistics, not its quality: he wrote long operas that are difficult to stage, and there are few voices capable of singing the main roles (Cecilia Bartoli helped to revive some of his music). And, of course, many of his roles were written for the castrati. On the other hand, we think Marais’ popularity is due mostly to one film, Tous les matins du monde.
We also want to mention several modern composers who, these days, are not popular at all, as their music is considered too difficult and isn’t in vogue: the Italian Bruno Maderna and the American Milton Babbitt. Maderna was born on May 10, 1916, Maderna April 21, 1920. We
think they’re very important and interesting composers, and hope that interest in them will return.
We want to circle back to Prokofiev for a moment. As we were reading about his life, one name was constantly coming up: that of his friend, Nikolay Myaskovsky. Myaskovsky, born on April 20th of 1881, was ten years older than Prokofiev. They met in 1906 in the St. Petersburg Conservatory: both were taking composition classes with Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov (and both didn’t like Lyadov). Myaskovsky was a late starter (his father, an officer, discouraged him from pursuing musical studies), and he ended up being the oldest student in the class; Prokofiev was the youngest. That didn’t stop them from becoming fast friends. They worked together on a symphony, now lost. During WWI, Myaskovsky was conscripted and fought as a sapper, while Prokofiev continued his conservatory studies, composed and performed in public. Prokofiev left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, while Myaskovsky stayed, but they kept in touch: altogether, they wrote more than 300 letters to each other. When Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in 1936, they resumed their friendship in person. Both suffered during Stalin’s “anti-formalism” campaign in 1947-48, but it was Myaskovsky who defended Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachaturian from the Communist Party criticism. He died in August of 1950, four years before Prokofiev.
Myaskovsky was prolific. He composed 27 symphonies, 13 quartets, nine piano sonatas and several choral pieces. His music, rather conservative in style, is not widely performed today, but during his lifetime, he was considered a preeminent composer, not only in the Soviet Union but also in the West. Here’s the first movement of Myaskovsky’s Symphony no 4, composed in 1918. Evgeny Svetlanov leads the Russian Academic Symphony Orchestra.