Khrennikov: Symphony no 3

Day 278

Tikhon Khrennikov: Symphony no 3

USSR State Symphony Orchestra

Evgeny Svetlanov

Khrennikov is notorious as the hatchet man of the Soviet musical establishment who from 1948-1991 was the secretary of the the union of Soviet composers. He was a Stalinist and is quoted as saying ‘Stalin knew music better than any of us’ .He denounced formalism in music and attacked any avant garde tendencies.  

I expected that his music would be competent and facile bearing all of the hall marks of socialist realism. I was not mistaken. He clearly had some talent and the slow movement has a certain melodic charm but much of the rest of the score of this (mercifully quite short) symphony is nothing but a music poster painted in garish colours. Superficially some of the music seems to belong to the same world as that of Shostakovich, particularly in the fast scherzo-like moments but Shostakovich has irony, humour and a sense of danger whereas this music has none of that - it is like a sanitised version for younger listeners. Some of it really was pretty awful.

I’m glad I heard this, if only to confirm my prejudices. There are some who take a revisionist view of the composer and say that in fact he did a lot to support the development of music in Soviet Russia and protect a number of musicians from persecution. Whatever the truth he will, on the evidence quite deservedly, be remembered for his iron grip on musical bureaucracy in Russia rather than as a composer.