Russian composer and former ringleader of the "Mighty Handful" Mili Balakirev wrote his second and last symphony in 1908. Unlike his symphonic poem, Tamara, requiring nearly two decades to complete, the Second Symphony in D minor was wrapped up in a matter of weeks. The Second is an eccentric and somewhat quirky product of Balakirev's old age. Closer to suite than symphony, it's scored for a smaller orchestra than was typical for Balakirev. The symphony has no internal references between movements, and its scheme is "fast, also fast (about the same tempo), slower, and Polonaise."

Like Beethoven's Eroica, the first movement, Allegro ma non troppo opens with two quick chords, and the first theme unfolds, soon to be contrasted with a second. A recapitulation of the first material follows and then Balakirev works things up to a conventional, if a bit premature, coda. This movement has the most "symphonic" structure of the four, and blindfolded, the auditor might well be mistake it for a work of Tchaikovsky, except that the orchestration is more pedestrian.

In the second movement, Scherzo alla Cosacca: Allegro non troppo con fuoco ed energico, a snare drum roll leads off and we find ourselves in familiar Russian territory. Though a little rambling in spots, this is a brilliantly colorful Cossack march stated in terms well worthy of the "Mighty Handful." The movement could stand on its own ground as a concert piece along the lines of Rimsky-Korsakov's Procession of the Nobles from Le Coq D'or.

In the third movement, Romanza-Andante, having gained the listener's attention with the Scherzo alla Cosacca, Balakirev loses it with an undistinguished slow movement. Coincidentally it is also the longest of the four movements at nearly ten minutes. While the orchestral mood of this Andante is fairly well accomplished, the melodic material is repetitive and not memorable. Ironically, it is reminiscent of "Soviet Realist" music written in the 1940s, yet that is not to say it is "forward looking."

With a one-note fanfare which calls to mind Mussorgsky's The Capture of Kars, Finale: Tempo di polacca takes off with a folk dance melody scored heavily in the strings. This movement is the most willfully eccentric of the four; Balakirev accents the melody with snap-like figures, breaks into brief, chromatic imitative passages in the low instruments, breaking out of them just as suddenly, as segments fall together with no apparent rhyme or reason. And yet, on its own terms, this movement works; it appears that Balakirev is just having fun here, and with an open mind, so does the listener.

This symphony was premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia, on March 17, 1909 to an uninterested audience. It has been rarely been revived since. In time Balakirev's Second Symphony has gained recognition as one of the last utterances of the nineteenth-century Russian Nationalist School, even though the whole is not as great as the sum of its parts.

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