Myaskovsky Nikolay Yakovlevich

Main article: History of music in Russia

In the summer of 1906, secretly from his superiors, 25-year-old military engineer Nikolai Myaskovsky entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory. His examiners were Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Lyadov, who later became his teachers.

In the spring of 1907, the future composer submitted his resignation, but only a year later he was expelled to the reserve. In the summer of 1908, by the time of writing "Three Sketches" for voice and piano to the words of Vyacheslav Ivanov, Myaskovsky for the first time in his life felt like an almost professional musician.

Vocal music by N. Ya. Myaskovsky, unlike numerous symphonies and string quartets, is still far from a studied field of his activity. But by the time the romances were created for Ivanov's words, he had written more than 30 vocal works (out of more than 100 created for the whole life) to the words of Baratynsky, Balmont and Zinaida Gippius.

Already in the first composer's experiments, it is possible to easily recognize the main components of the composer's mature work are sincerity and naturalness of utterance, harmonic wealth, reliance on the best traditions of Russian romantic music. To listeners familiar with the atmosphere of detachment and beauty of the late romances of Rimsky-Korsakov (1897-1898) or with the characteristic complicated harmonies and intonations of his opera-fairy tale "The Golden Cockerel" (1907), the continuity of the musical traditions of the teacher and student seems more than obvious. But it is also obvious that Myaskovsky possessed by the time of the creation of "Three Sketches" on the words of Vyacheslav Ivanov his own original, recognizable composer appearance, consonant with his outstanding, which went down in history of human and personal qualities.