Myaskovsky's work was principally published by the Soviet state music publisher (Gosmuzizdat and its successors) and the Austrian firm Universal Edition. Virtually everything that he wrote made its way into print, apart from some juvenilia and a small number of scores which were lost or destroyed. Over the course of his life, he reworked many youthful compositional efforts that he had previously withheld from publication: the three string quartets produced during his period of study at the St Petersburg Conservatoire, for example, were eventually issued years later as String Quartets nos. 3, 4, and 10; and a large proportion of the early Flofion miniatures (see p. 17) went to make up the sets of short piano pieces that he published from the early 1920s onwards. Even during his lifetime, however, scores of his work were often difficult to obtain. The twelve-volume Selected Works (Izbrannïye sochineniya), issued posthumously in 1953–6 under the general editorship of a committee comprising Gliere, Shebalin, and others, is notable as much for what it excludes as for what it includes. The cantata Kirov Is with Us was featured, for example – but not ‘decadent’ scores such as the Tenth and Thirteenth Symphonies. (Only eleven of the twenty-seven symphonies were reissued.)

The brief worklist provided here is simply intended to afford a convenient overview of Myaskovsky's creative activity. More detailed information about individual compositions can be found in Semyon Shlifshteyn, N. Ya. Myaskovskiy: Notograficheskiy spravochnik (Moscow, 1962) and the appendices to the second volume of Shlifshteyn (ed.), N. Ya. Myaskovskiy: Sobraniye materialov v dvukh tomakh, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1964).

Compiling a comprehensive catalogue raisonné of Myaskovsky's output would be an involved and time-consuming task. Some of his compositions were revised several times; not infrequently, he made further alterations after works had been republished in a revised form, inserting emendations in conductors’ scores or in his personal copies. Researching these revisions exceeded the scope of the present study.