The various emotional states or moods of the symphony Prokofieff described as follows:—“The first movement is agitated in character, lyrical in places, and austere in others. The second movement,andante, is lighter and more songful. The finale, lighter and major in its character, would be like the finale of my Fifth Symphony but for the austere reminiscences of the first movement.”
How active and productive a worker Prokofieff was may be gathered from other disclosures in the same letter. Besides the Symphony and Sonata, he was applying the finishing touches to a “Symphonic Suite of Waltzes,” drawn from his ballet, “Cinderella”, his opera, “War and Peace” (based on Tolstoy’s historical novel), and his score for the film biography of the Russian poet Lermontov. Earlier that summer he had completed three separate suites from “Cinderella” and a “big new scene” for “War and Peace”. No idler he!
The first performance of Prokofieff’s Sixth Symphony occurred in Moscow on October 10, 1947. Four months later, on February 11, 1948, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union issued its resolution denouncing Prokofieff and six other Soviet composers for their failure to “permeate themselves with a consciousness of the high demands made of musical creation by the Soviet people.” The seven composers were charged with “formalist distortions and anti-democratic tendencies in music” in several of their more recent symphonic and operatic works. It has been assumed that the Sixth Symphony was among the offending scores which the Central Committee had in mind. While it was not placed under the official ban, it did not figure subsequently in the active repertory. To Leopold Stokowski, who conducted its American premiere with the New York Philharmonic on November 24, 1949, in CarnegieHall, we owe the perceptive analysis of the Sixth Symphony that follows:—
I. “The first part has two themes—the first in a rather fast dance rhythm, the second a slower songlike melody, a little modal in character, recalling the old Russian and Byzantine scales. Later this music becomes gradually more animated as the themes are developed, and after a climax of the development there is a slower transition to the second part.”
II. “I think this second part will need several hearings to be fully understood. The harmonies and texture of the music are extremely complex. Later there is a theme for horns which is simpler and sounds like voices singing. This leads to a warmcantilenaof the violins and a slower transition to the third part.”
III. “This is rhythmic and full of humor, verging on the satirical. The rhythms are clear-cut, and while the thematic lines are simple, they are accompanied by most original harmonic sequences, alert and rapid. Near the end a remembrance sounds like an echo of the pensive melancholy of the first part of the symphony, followed by a rushing, tumultuous end.”
Mr. Stokowski has also stated that the Sixth Symphony represents a natural development of Prokofieff’s extraordinary gifts as an original creative artist. “I knew Prokofieff well in Paris and in Russia,” he writes, “and I feel that this symphony is an eloquent expression of the full range of his personality. It is the creation of a master artist, serene in the use and control of his medium.”
At this writing the Seventh Symphony has yet to be heard in New York. Its American premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra has been announced for April 10, to be followed by its first performance in Carnegie Hall, by the same orchestra, on April 21, with Eugene Ormandy to conduct on both occasions.The work was composed in 1952 and performed for the first time in Moscow on October 11, 1952, under the direction of Samuel Samosud. It is a comparatively short symphony as the symphonies of our time go, lasting no more than thirty minutes. For Prokofieff the orchestration is relatively modest and the division of the symphony is in the four traditional movements:—
From first note to last it is a transparent score, lyrical, melodic, and easily grasped and assimilated. Recurring themes are readily identified. “The harmonic structure could hardly be called modern in thisanno domini1953,” writes Donald Engle, “and the scoring is generally open and concise, at times even spare and lean.”
The overall impression is that the music has two inevitable points of being, its beginning and its end, and that the symphony is the shortest possible distance between them. Such, in a sense, has been the classical ideal, and thus we find Prokofieff completing the symphonic cycle of his career by returning once more, whether by inner compulsion or outer necessity, to a classical symphony.
Prokofieff’s first piano concerto was his declaration of maturity, according to Nestyev. It followed the composition in 1911 of a one-act opera, “Magdalene” that proved little more than an advanced studentexercise for the operatic writing that was to come later. That same year Prokofieff completed his concerto and dedicated it to Nicolai Tcherepnine. Its performance in Moscow early the following year, followed by a performance in St. Petersburg, served to establish his name as one to conjure with among Russia’s rising new generation of composers. The work suggested the tradition of Franz Liszt in its propulsive energy and strictly pianistic language. But it revealed the compactness of idiom and phrase, the pointed turn of phrase, and lithe rhythmic tension that were to develop and characterize so much of Prokofieff’s subsequent music. The Concerto brought a fervid response, but not all of it was on Prokofieff’s side. “Harsh, coarse, primitive cacophony” was the verdict of one Moscow critic. Another proposed a straitjacket for its young composer. On the other side of the ledger, critics in both cities welcomed its humor and wit and imaginative quality, not to mention “its freedom from the mildew of decadence.” A particularly prophetic voice had this to say: “Prokofieff might even mark a stage in Russian musical development, Glinka and Rubinstein being the first, Tschaikowsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff the second, Glazounoff and Arensky the third, and Scriabin and Prokofieff the fourth.” Daringly this prophet asked: “Why not?”[1]
Prokofieff was his own soloist on these occasions, and it was soon apparent that besides being a composer of emphatic power and originality, he was a pianist of prodigious virtuosity. “Under his fingers,” ran one report, “the piano does not so much sing and vibrate as speak in the stern and convincing tone of a percussion instrument, the tone of the old-fashioned harpsichord. Yet it was precisely this convincing freedom of execution and these clear-cut rhythms that won the author such enthusiastic applause from the public.” Most confident and discerning of all at thistime was Miaskovsky, who, reviewing a set of Four Etudes by Prokofieff, challengingly stated: “What pleasure and surprise it affords one to come across this vivid and wholesome phenomenon amid the morass of effeminacy, spinelessness, and anemia of today!”
The First Piano Concerto was introduced to America at a concert of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on December 11, 1918. The conductor was Eric De Lamarter, and the soloist was again Prokofieff himself.
The Concerto is in one uninterrupted movement, Prokofieff considering the whole “an allegro movement in sonata form.” While the music ventures among many tonalities before its journey is over, it ends the way it began, in the key of D flat major. One gains the impression, though only in passing, of a three-movement structure because of two sections marked, respectively,AndanteandAllegro scherzando, which follow the openingAllegro brioso. Actually theAndante, a sustained lyrical discourse, featuring, by turn, strings, solo clarinet, solo piano, and finally piano and orchestra, is a songful pause between the exposition and development of this sonata plan. When theAndantehas reached its peak, theAllegro scherzandobegins, developing themes already presented in the earlier section. One is reminded of the cyclical recurrence of theme adopted by Liszt in his piano concertos, both of which are also in one movement, though subdivided within the unbroken continuity of the music.
The Second Piano Concerto of Prokofieff belongs to the lost and found department of music. It waswritten early in 1913, that is, two years after the First Concerto, and performed for the first time, with Prokofieff at the keyboard, on August 23 at Pavlovsk, a town not far from St. Petersburg. A performance, with the same soloist, took place at a concert of the Russian Musical Society on January 24, 1915. Early the following month Prokofieff left for Italy at the invitation of Sergei Diaghileff, who liked the Concerto and for a while even toyed with the possibility of using it for a ballet. On March 7, 1915 Prokofieff, through the intervention of Diaghileff, performed his Second Concerto at the Augusteo, Rome, the conductor being Bernardino Molinari. The reaction of the Italian press was pretty much that of the Russian press—divided. There were again those who decried Prokofieff’s bold innovations of color and rhythm and harmony, and there were those who hailed these very things. There was one point of unanimity, however. One and all, in both countries, acclaimed Prokofieff as a pianist of brilliance and distinction.
Now, when Prokofieff left Russia for the United States in 1918, the score of the Second Piano Concerto remained behind in his apartment in the city that became Leningrad. This score, together with the orchestral parts and other manuscripts, were lost when Prokofieff’s apartment was confiscated during the revolutionary exigencies of the period. Luckily, sketches of the piano part were salvaged by Prokofieff’s mother, and returned to him in 1921. Working from these sketches, Prokofieff partly reconstructed and partly rewrote his Second Piano Concerto. There is considerable difference between the two versions. Both the basic structure and the themes of the original were retained, but the concerto could now boast whatever Prokofieff had gained in imaginative and technical resource in the intervening years. Thus reshaped, the Second Piano Concerto was first performed in Paris with the composer as soloist, and Serge Koussevitzkyconducting. The following analysis, used on that occasion, and later translated by Philip Hale and extensively quoted in this country, was probably the work of Prokofieff, who was generally quite hospitable to requests for technical expositions of his music.
I.Andantino-Allegretto-Andantino.The movement begins with the announcement of the first theme, to which is opposed a second episode of a faster pace in A minor. The piano enters solo in a technically complicated cadenza, with a repetition of the first episode in the first part.
II.Scherzo.ThisScherzois in the nature of amoto perpetuoin 16th notes by the two hands in the interval of an octave, while the orchestral accompaniment furnishes the background.
III.Intermezzo.This movement,moderato, is conceived in a strictly classical form.
IV.Finale.After several measures in quick movement the first subject is given to the piano. The second is of a calmer, more cantabile nature—piano solo at first—followed by several canons for piano and orchestra. Later the two themes are joined, the piano playing one, the orchestra the other. There is a short coda based chiefly upon the first subject.
Prokofieff did not begin work on his Third Piano Concerto till four years after he had completed the first version of his Second Concerto. This was in 1917 in the St. Petersburg that was now Petrograd and was soon to be Leningrad. However, a combination of war and revolution, plus a departure for America in 1918, and the busy schedule that followed, delayed completion of the work. It was not until October, 1921, in fact, that the score was ready for performance, and that event took place at a concert of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the followingDecember 17. Prokofieff was again the soloist, as he is once more his own annotator in the analysis that follows.
I. The first movement opens quietly with a short introduction, Andante, 4-4. The theme is announced by an unaccompanied clarinet, and is continued by the violins for a few bars. Soon the tempo changes to Allegro, the strings having a passage in semiquavers which leads to the statement of the principal subject by the piano. Discussion of this theme is carried on in a lively manner, both the piano and the orchestra having a good deal to say on the matter. A passage in chords for the piano alone leads to the more expressive second subject, heard in the oboe with a pizzicato accompaniment. This is taken up by the piano and developed at some length, eventually giving way to a bravura passage in triplets. At the climax of this section, the tempo reverts to Andante, and the orchestra gives out the first theme, ff. The piano joins in, and the theme is subjected to an impressively broad treatment. On resuming the Allegro, the chief theme and the second subject are developed with increased brilliance, and the movement ends with an exciting crescendo.
II. The second movement consists of a theme with five variations. The theme is announced by the orchestra alone,Andantino.
In the first variation, the piano treats the opening of the theme in quasi-sentimental fashion, and resolves into a chain of trills, as the orchestra repeats the closing phrase. The tempo changes to Allegro for the second and the third variations, and the piano has brilliant figures, while snatches of the theme are introduced here and there in the orchestra. In variation Four the tempo is once againAndante, and the piano and orchestra discourse on the theme in a quiet and meditative fashion. Variation Five is energetic (Allegro giusto). It leads without pause into a restatementof the theme by the orchestra, with delicate chordal embroidery in the piano.
III. The Finale begins (Allegro ma non troppo, 3-4) with a staccato theme for bassoons and pizzicato strings, which is interrupted by the blustering entry of the piano. The orchestra holds its own with the opening theme, however, and there is a good deal of argument, with frequent differences of opinion as regards key. Eventually the piano takes up the first theme, and develops it to a climax.
IV. With a reduction of tone and slackening of tempo, an alternative theme is introduced in the woodwind. The piano replies with a theme that is more in keeping with the caustic humor of the work. This material is developed and there is a brilliant coda.
* * *
It was Prokofieff’s Third Piano Concerto that launched a young Greek musician by the name of Dimitri Mitropoulos on a brilliant international career. Mr. Mitropoulos had been invited to Berlin in 1930 to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic. Egon Petri, the celebrated Dutch pianist, was scheduled to appear as soloist in the Prokofieff Third. But Mr. Petri was indisposed and no other pianist was available to replace him in time for the concert. To save the situation Mr. Mitropoulos volunteered to play the concerto himself. The result was a spectacular double debut in Berlin for the young musician as conductor and pianist. Engaged to conduct in Paris soon after, Mr. Mitropoulos again billed Prokofieff’s Third Piano Concerto, with himself once more as soloist. This time he was heard by Prokofieff, who stated publicly that the Greek played it better than he himself could ever hope to. Word of Mr. Mitropoulos’s European triumphs reached Serge Koussevitzky, who immediately invited him to come to America as guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is nowonder that Dimitri Mitropoulos often refers to this concerto as “the lucky Prokofieff Third.”
Before concerning ourselves with Prokofieff’s Fifth Piano Concerto, a few words are needed to explain this leap from No. 3 to No. 5. A fourth piano concerto is listed in the catalogue as Opus 53, dating from 1931, consisting of four movements, and still in manuscript. A significant reference to its being “for the left hand” begins to tell us a story. Prokofieff wrote it for a popular Austrian pianist, Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in the First World War. Wittgenstein had already been armed with special scores by such versatile worthies as Richard Strauss, Erich Korngold, and Franz Schmidt. Prokofieff responded with alacrity when Wittgenstein approached him too. The Concerto, bristling with titanic difficulties and a complex stylistic scheme that would have baffled two hands if not two brains, was submitted for inspection to the one-armed virtuoso. Wittgenstein disliked it cordially, refused to perform it, and thus consigned it to the silence of a manuscript.
Maurice Ravel, approached in due course for a similar work, was the only composer to emerge with an enduring work from contact with this gifted casualty of the war. However, he too had trouble. When completed, the Concerto was virtually deeded to the pianist. Wittgenstein now proceeded to object to numerous passages and to insist on alterations. Ravel angrily refused, and was anything but mollified to discover that Wittgenstein was taking “unpardonable liberties” in public performances of the concerto.... Perhaps it was just as well that Prokofieff’s Fourth Piano Concerto remained in its unperformed innocence—a concerto for no hands.
It was not long before the mood to compose a piano concerto was upon Prokofieff again. This became his Fifth, finished in the summer of 1932 and performed for the first time in Berlin at a Philharmonic Concert conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. Prokofieff was the soloist. It is interesting to note that the program contained another soloist—the gentleman playing the viola part in Berlioz’s “Childe Harold Symphony,” a gentleman by the name of Paul Hindemith. There was a performance of the Concerto in Paris two months later.
When the concerto and the composer reached Boston together the following year, Prokofieff gave an interviewer from the “Transcript” both a description of the way he composed and an analysis of the score. About his method Prokofieff had this to say:—
“I am always on the lookout for new melodic themes. These I write in a notebook, as they come to me, for future use. All my work is founded on melodies. When I begin a work of major proportions I usually have accumulated enough themes to make half-a-dozen symphonies. Then the work of selection and arrangement begins. The composition of this Fifth Concerto began with such melodies. I had enough of them to make three concertos.”
His analysis follows:—
“The emphasis in this concerto is entirely on the melodic. There are five movements, and each movement contains at least four themes or melodies. The development of these themes is exceedingly compact and concise. This will be evident when I tell you that the entire five movements do not take over twenty minutes in performance. Please do not misunderstand me. The themes are not without development. In a work such as Schumann’s ‘Carnival’ there are also many themes, enough to make a considerable number of symphonies or concertos. But they are not developed at all. They are merely stated. In my newConcerto there is actual development of the themes, but this development is as compressed and condensed as possible. Of course there is no program, not a sign or suggestion of a program. But neither is there any movement so expansive as to be a complete sonata-form.
I.Allegro con brio: meno mosso.“The first movement is anAllegro con brio, with ameno mossoas middle section. Though not in a sonata-form, it is the main movement of the Concerto, fulfills the functions of a sonata-form and is in the spirit of the usual sonata-form.
II.Moderato ben accentuato.“This movement has a march-like rhythm, but we must be cautious in the use of this term. I would not think of calling it a march because it has none of the vulgarity or commonness which is so often associated with the idea of a march and which actually exists in most popular marches.
III.Allegro con fuoco.“The third movement is a Toccata. This is a precipitate, displayful movement of much technical brilliance and requiring a large virtuosity—as difficult for orchestra as for the soloist. It is a Toccata for orchestra as much as for piano.
IV.Larghetto.“The fourth movement is the lyrical movement of the Concerto. It starts off with a soft, soothing theme: grows more and more intense in the middle portion, develops breadth and tension, then returns to the music of the beginning. German commentators have mistakenly called it a theme and variations.
V.Vivo: Piu Mosso: Coda.“The Finale has a decidedly classical flavor. The Coda is based on a new theme which is joined by the other themes of the Finale.”
Summing up his own view of the Concerto, Prokofieff concluded:—
“The Concerto is not cyclic in the Franckian sense of developing several movements out of the theme or set of themes. Each movement has its own independent themes. But there is reference to some of the material of the First Movement in the Third; and also reference to the material of the Third Movement in the Finale. The piano part is treated inconcertantefashion. The piano always has the leading part which is closely interwoven with significant music in the orchestra.”
After this rather mild and dispassionate self-appraisal, it comes as something of a shock to read the slashing commentary of Prokofieff’s Soviet biographer Nestyev:—
“The machine-like Toccata, in the athletic style of the earlier Prokofieff, presents his bold jumps, hand-crossing, and Scarlatti technic in highly exaggerated form. The tendency to wide skips à la Scarlatti is carried to monstrous extremes. Sheer feats of piano acrobatics completely dominate the principal movements of the Concerto. In the precipitate Toccata this dynamic quality degenerates into mere lifeless mechanical movement, with the result that the orchestra itself seems to be transformed into a huge mechanism with fly-wheels, pistons, and transmission belts.”
To Nestyev it was further proof of the “brittle, urbanistic” sterility of Prokofieff’s “bourgeois” wanderings.
Although composed in Russia between 1913 and 1917, Prokofieff’s First Violin Concerto did not see the light of day till October 18, 1923, that is to say, shortly after he had taken up residence in Paris. Itwas on that date that the work was first performed in the French capital at a concert conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, who entrusted the solo part to his concertmaster Marcel Darrieux. The same violinist was soloist at a subsequent concert in the Colonne concert series, on November 25. It is said that the work was assigned to a concertmaster after Mr. Koussevitzky had been rebuffed by several established artists, among them the celebrated Bronislaw Hubermann, who relished neither its idiom nor its technic. This attitude was shared by the Paris critics, who expressed an almost uniform hostility to the concerto. Prokofieff’s arrival in Paris had already been prepared by his “Scythian Suite” and Third Piano Concerto. The new work must evidently have struck Parisian ears as rather mild and Mendelssohnian by comparison. In any case, the Violin Concerto did not gain serious recognition till it was performed in Prague on June 1 of the following year at a festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music. The soloist this time was Joseph Szigeti, and it was thanks in large part to his working sponsorship of the Concerto that it began to gather momentum on the international concert circuit. Serge Koussevitzky was again the conductor when the work was given its American premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on April 24, 1925, and once more the soloist was a concertmaster—Richard Burgin.
The D major Violin Concerto shows the period of its composition in its frequent traces of the national school of Rimsky-Korsakoff and Glazounoff. Despite the bustling intricacies of the second movement, it is not a virtuoso’s paradise by any means. Bravura of the rampant kind is absent, and of cadenzas there is no sign. Neither is the orchestra an accompaniment in the traditional sense, but rather part of the same integrated scheme of which the solo-violin is merely a prominent feature.
I.Andantino.The solo violin chants a gentle theme against which the strings and clarinet weave in equally gentle background. There is a spirited change of mood as the melody is followed by rhythmic passage-work sustained over a marked bass. The first theme returns as the movement draws to a close, more deliberate now. The flute takes it up as the violin embroiders richly around it.
II.Vivacissimo.This is a swiftly moving scherzo, bristling with accented rhythms, long leaps, double-stop slides and harmonics, and down-bow strokes, “none of which,” Robert Bagar shrewdly points out, “may be construed as display music.”
III.Moderato.More lyrical than the preceding movement, the finale allows the violin frolic to continue to some extent. Scale passages are developed and high-flown trills give the violin some heady moments. The bassoon offers a coy theme before the violin introduces the main subject in a sequence of staccato and legato phrases. There are pointed comments from a restless orchestra as the material is developed. Soon the soft melody of the opening movement is heard again, among the massed violins now. Above it the solo instrument soars in trills on a parallel line of notes an octave above, coming to rest on high D.
Composed during the summer and autumn of 1935, Prokofieff’s second violin concerto was premiered in Madrid on December 1 of that year. Enrique Arbos conducted the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, with the Belgian violinist Robert Soetens playing the solo part. Prokofieff himself was present and later directed the same orchestra in his “Classical Symphony.” Jascha Heifetz was the soloist when Serge Koussevitzky andthe Boston Symphony Orchestra first performed the new concerto in America.
Twenty-two years had elapsed since Prokofieff had composed his first violin concerto in D, so comparisons were promptly made between the styles and idioms manifested by the two scores. Apart from the normal development and change expected over so long a period, another factor was emphasized by many. The G minor concerto marked Prokofieff’s return to his homeland after a long Odyssey abroad. He was now a Soviet citizen and once more a participant in the social and cultural life of his country.
The new concerto revealed a warmth and lyricism, even a romantic spirit, that contrasted with the witty glitter and grotesquerie of the early concerto. The old terseness, rigorous logic, and clear-cut form were still observable, though less pronounced. There were even flashes of the “familiar Prokofieffian naughtiness,” as Gerald Abraham pointed out. But the new mood was inescapable. “So far as the violin concerto form is concerned,” wrote the English musicologist, “Prokofieff’s formula for turning himself into a Soviet composer has been to emphasize the lyrical side of his nature at the expense of the witty and grotesque and brilliant sides.”
The daring thrusts, the crisp waggishness, the fiendish cleverness and steely glitter seemed now to be giving way to warmer, deeper preoccupations, at least in the first two movements. “The renascence of lyricism, warm melody, and simple emotionality is the essence of the second violin concerto,” writes Abraham Veinus. The earlier spirit of mockery and tart irreverence was almost lost in the new surge of romantic melody.
I.Allegro moderato, G minor, 4/4.The solo instrument, unaccompanied, gives out a readily remembered first theme which forms the basis of the subsequent development and the coda. The appealing secondtheme is also announced by the violin, this time against soft rhythmic figures in the string section. Abraham finds a “distant affinity” between this second theme and the Gavotte of Prokofieff’s “Classical Symphony.”
II.Andante assai, E-flat major, 12/8.The shift to frank melodic appeal is especially noticeable in the slow movement. Here the mood is almost steadily lyrical and romantic from the moment the violin sings the theme which forms the basic material of the movement. There is varied treatment and some shifting in tonality before the chief melody returns to the key of E-flat.
III.Allegro ben marcato, G minor, 3/4.In the finale the old Prokofieff is back in a brilliant Rondo of incisive rhythms and flashing melodic fragments. There are bold staccato effects, tricky shifts in rhythm, and brisk repartee between violin and orchestra. If there is any obvious link with the earlier concerto in D it is here in this virtuoso’s playground.
It has been supposed that, consciously or not, Prokofieff was influenced by Stravinsky’s “Sacre de Printemps” in his choice and treatment of material for the “Scythian Suite.” Both scores have an earthy, barbaric quality, a stark rhythmic pulsation and an atmosphere of remote pagan ritualism that establish a strong kinship, whether direct or not. In each instance, moreover, the subject matter allowed the composer ample scope for exploiting fresh devices of harmony and color. Another point of contact between the two scores was the figure of Serge Diaghileff, that fabulous patron and gadfly of modern art. Stravinsky had already been brought into the camp of Russian ballet by this most persuasive of all ballet impressarios. Soon it was Prokofieff’s turn. Diaghileff’scommission was a ballet “on Russian fairy-tale or prehistoric themes.” The “Scythian” music was Prokofieff’s answer. The encounter with Diaghileff had occurred in June, 1914. With the outbreak of war later that year, an unavoidable delay set in, and it was evidently not till early the next year that Prokofieff submitted what was ready to Diaghileff, who liked neither the plot nor the music. To compensate him for his pains Diaghileff did two things: The first was to arrange for Prokofieff to play his Second Piano Concerto in Rome, an experience that proved profitable in every sense. The second was to commission another ballet, with the injunction to “write music that will be truly Russian.” To which the candid Diaghileff added:—“They’ve forgotten how to write music in that rotten St. Petersburg of yours.” The result was “The Buffoon,” a ballet which proved more palatable to Diaghileff and led to a mutually fruitful association of many years.
What was to have been the “Scythian” ballet became instead, an orchestral suite, the premiere of which took place in St. Petersburg on January 29, 1916, Prokofieff himself conducting. More than any other score of Prokofieff’s, the “Scythian Suite” was responsible for the acrimonious note that long remained in the reaction of the press to his music. “Cacophony” became a frequent word in the vocabulary of invective favored by hostile critics. Prokofieff was accused of breaking every musical law and violating every tenet of good taste. His music was “noisy,” “rowdy,” “barbarous,” an expression of irresponsible hooliganism in symphonic form. Glazounoff, friend and teacher and guide, walked out on the first performance of “The Scythian Suite.” But there were those among the critics and public who recognized the confident power and proclamative freedom of this music, and so a merry war of words, written and spoken, brewed over a score that Diaghileff, in amoment of singular insensitivity, had dismissed as “dull.” Whatever else this music was—and it was almost everything from a signal for angry stampedes from the concert hall to an open declaration of war—it was emphatically not dull! Even the word “Bolshevism” was hurled at the score when it reached these placid shores late in 1918. In Chicago, one critic wrote: “The red flag of anarchy waved tempestuously over old Orchestra Hall yesterday as Bolshevist melodies floated over the waves of a sea of sound in breath-taking cacophony.” Dull, indeed!
Of the original Scythians whose strange customs were the subject of Prokofieff’s controversial suite, Robert Bagar tells us succinctly:
“First believed to have been mentioned by the poet Hesiod (800 B.C.), the Scythians were a nomadic people dwelling along the north shore of the Black Sea. Probably of Mongol blood, this race vanished about 100 B.C. Herodotus tells us that they were rather an evil lot, given to very primitive customs, fat and flabby in appearance, and living under a despotic rule whose laws, such as they may have been, were enforced through the ever-present threat of assassination.
“There were gods, of course, each in charge of some aspect or other of spiritual or human or moral conduct—a sun god, a health god, a heaven god, an evil god and quite a few others. Veles, the god of the sun, was their supreme deity. His daughter was Ala, and Lolli was one of their great heroes.”
Prokofieff’s Suite is based on the story of Ala, her suffering in the toils of the Evil God, and her deliverance by Lolli. The suite is divided into four movements, brief outlines of which are furnished in the score.
I. “Invocation to Veles and Ala.” (Allegro feroce, 4/4.) The music describes an invocation to the sun, worshipped by the Scythians as their highest deity,named Veles. This invocation is followed by the sacrifice to the beloved idol, Ala, the daughter of Veles.
II. “The Evil-God and dance of the pagan monsters.” (Allegro sostenuto, 4-4.) The Evil-God summons the seven pagan monsters from their subterranean realms and, surrounded by them, dances a delirious dance.
III. “Night.” (Andantino, 4-4.) The Evil-God comes to Ala in the darkness. Great harm befalls her. The moon rays fall upon Ala, and the moon-maidens descend to bring her consolation.
IV. “Lolli’s pursuit of the Evil-God and the sunrise.” (Tempestuoso, 4-4.) Lolli, a Scythian hero, went forth to save Ala. He fights the Evil-God. In the uneven battle with the latter, Lolli would have perished, but the sun-god rises with the passing of night and smites the evil deity. With the description of the sunrise the Suite comes to an end.
The Soviet film, “Lieutenant Kije”, was produced by the Belgoskino Studios of Leningrad in 1933, after a story by Y. Tynyanov that had become a classic of the new literature. The director was A. Feinzimmer. For Prokofieff, who supplied the music, it represented the first important work of his return to Russia. The music belongs with that for “Alexander Nevsky” and “Ivan the Terrible” as the most effective and characteristic Prokofieff composed for the Soviet screen. From that score Prokofieff assembled an orchestral suite which was published early in 1934 and performed later that year in Moscow. Prokofieff himself conducted its Parisian premiere at a Lamoureux concert on February 20, 1937, when, according to an English correspondent, it “made a stunning impression.” Serge Koussevitzky introduced it to America at a concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra on October 15 of the same year.
The film tells an ironic and amusing story of a Russian officer, who because of a clerical error, existed only on paper. The setting is that of St. Petersburg during the reign of Czar Paul. The Czar misreads the report of one of his military aides, and without meaning to, evolves the name of a non-existent lieutenant. He does this by inadvertently linking the “ki” at the end of another officer’s name to the Russian expletive “je.” The result is the birth—on paper—of a new officer in the Russian Army, “Lieutenant Kije.” Since no one dares to tell the Czar of his absurd blunder, his courtiers are obliged to invent a “Lieutenant Kije” to go with the name. Such being the situation, the film is an enlargement on the expedients and subterfuges arising from it. There are five sections:—
I.Birth of Kije.(Allegro.) A combination of off-stage cornet fanfare, military drum-roll, and squealings from a fife proclaim that Lieutenant Kije is born—in the brain of blundering Czar. The solemn announcement is taken up by other instruments, followed by a shortAndantesection, and presently the military clatter of the opening is back.
II.Romance.(Andante.) This section contains a song, assigned optionally to baritone voice or tenor saxophone. The text of the song, in translation, reads:—
“Heart be calm, do not flutter;Don’t keep flying like a butterfly.Well, what has my heart decided?Where will we in summer rest?But my heart could answer nothing,Beating fast in my poor breast.My grey dove is full of sorrow—Moaning is she day and night.For her dear companion left her,Having vanished out of sight,Sad and dull has gotten my grey dove.”
“Heart be calm, do not flutter;
Don’t keep flying like a butterfly.
Well, what has my heart decided?
Where will we in summer rest?
But my heart could answer nothing,
Beating fast in my poor breast.
My grey dove is full of sorrow—
Moaning is she day and night.
For her dear companion left her,
Having vanished out of sight,
Sad and dull has gotten my grey dove.”
III.Kije’s Wedding.(Allegro.) This section reminds us that although our hero is truly a soldier, like so many of his calling he is also susceptible to the claims of the heart. In fact, he is quite a dashing lover, not without a touch of sentimentality.
IV.Troika.(Moderato.) The Russian word “Troika” means a set of three, then, by extension, a team of three horses abreast, finally, a three-horse sleigh. This section is so named because the orchestra pictures such a vehicle as accompaniment to a second song, in this case a Russian tavern song. Its words, as rendered from the Russian, go:
“A woman’s heart is like an inn:All those who wish go in,And they who roam aboutDay and night go in and out.Come here, I say; come here, I say,And have no fear with me.Be you bachelor or not,Be you shy or be you bold,I call you all to come here.So all those who are about,Keep going in and coming out,Night and day they roam about.”
“A woman’s heart is like an inn:
All those who wish go in,
And they who roam about
Day and night go in and out.
Come here, I say; come here, I say,
And have no fear with me.
Be you bachelor or not,
Be you shy or be you bold,
I call you all to come here.
So all those who are about,
Keep going in and coming out,
Night and day they roam about.”
V.Burial of Kije.(Andante assai.) Thus ends the paper career of our valiant hero. The music recalls his birth to a flourish of military sounds, his romance, his wedding. And now the cornet that had blithely announced his coming in an off-stage fanfare is muted to his going, as Lieutenant Kije dwindles to his final silence.
As a ballet in four acts and nine tableaux, Prokofieff’s “Romeo and Juliet” was first produced by the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1935. Like many standardRussian ballets, the performance took a whole evening. Prokofieff assembled two Suites from the music, the first premiered in Moscow on November 24, 1936, under the direction of Nicolas Semjonowitsch Golowanow. The premiere of the second suite followed less than a month later.
Prokofieff himself directed the American premieres of both Suites, of Suite No. 1 as guest of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on January 21, 1937, and of Suite No. 2 as guest of the Boston Symphony Orchestra on March 25, 1938. Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston unit introduced the Suite to New York on March 31 following.
After a trial performance of the ballet in Moscow V. V. Konin reported to the “Musical Courier” that Soviet critics present were “left in dismay at the awkward incongruity between the realistic idiom of the musical language, a language which successfully characterizes the individualism of the Shakespearean images, and the blind submission to the worst traditions of the old form, as revealed in the libretto.”
Fault was also found because “the social atmosphere of the period and the natural evolution of its tragic elements had been robbed of their logical culmination and brought to the ridiculously dissonant ‘happy end’ of the conventional ballet. This inconsistency in the development of the libretto has had an unfortunate effect, not only upon the general structure, but even upon the otherwise excellent musical score.”
Critical reaction to both Suites has varied, some reviewers finding the music dry and insipid for such a romantic theme; others hailing its pungency and color. Prokofieff’s classicism was compared with his romanticism. If we are prepared to accept the “Classical” Symphony as truly classical, said one critic, then we must accept the “Romeo and Juliet” music as truly romantic. The cold, cheerless, dreary music “is certainly not love music,” read one verdict. Prokofieffwas taken to task for describing a love story “as if it were an algebraic problem.”
Said Olin Downes of “The New York Times” in his review of the Boston Symphony concert of March 31, 1938:—“The music is predominantly satirical.... There is the partial suggestion of that which is poignant and tragic, but there is little of the sensuous or emotional, and in the main the music could bear almost any title and still serve the ballet evolutions and have nothing to do with Romeo and Juliet.”
Others extolled Prokofieff for the “fundamental simplicity and buoyancy” of the music, finding it typically rooted in the “plane, tangible realities of tone, design, and color.” Prokofieff himself answered the repeated charge that his score lacked feeling and melody:—
“Every now and then somebody or other starts urging me to put more feeling, more emotion, more melody in my music. My own conviction is that there is plenty of all that in it. I have never shunned the expression of feeling and have always been intent on creating melody—but new melody, which perhaps certain listeners do not recognize as such simply because it does not resemble closely enough the kind of melody to which they are accustomed.
“In ‘Romeo and Juliet’ I have taken special pains to achieve a simplicity which will, I hope, reach the hearts of all listeners. If people find no melody and no emotion in this work, I shall be very sorry. But I feel sure that sooner or later they will.”
In the First Suite which Prokofieff prepared for concert purposes, there are seven numbers, outlined as follows:—1) “Folk Dance”; 2) “Scene”; 3) “Madrigal”; 4) “Minuet”; 5) “Masques”; 6) “Romeo and Juliet”; and 7) “The Death of Tybalt”. Perhaps the most significant and absorbing of these is “Masques”, anAndante marcialeof majestic sweep and power, which accompanies the action at the Capulet ball,leading to the unobserved entrance into the palace of Romeo and two friends, wearing masks. One senses a brooding, sinister prophecy in the measured stateliness of the music. Searing and incisive in its pitiless evocation is “The Death of Tybalt”, markedPrecipitatoin the score. Both street duels are depicted in this section, the first in which Tybalt slays Mercutio, the other in which Romeo, in revenge, slays Tybalt. Capulet’s denunciation follows. This First Suite is listed as Opus 64-A in the catalogue of Prokofieff’s works.
The Second Suite, Opus 64-B, also consists of seven numbers:—
1) “Montagues and Capulets”. (Allegro pesante). This is intended to portray satirically the proud, haughty characters of the noblemen. There is aTrioin which Juliet and Paris are pictured as dancing.
2) “Juliet, the Maiden”. (Vivace). The main theme portrays the innocent and lighthearted Juliet, tender and free of suspicion. As the section develops we sense a gradual deepening of her feelings.
3) “Friar Laurence”. (Andante espressivo). Two themes are used to identify the Friar—bassoons, tuba, and harps announce the first; ’cellos, the second.
4) “Dance”. (Vivo).
5) “The Parting of Romeo and Juliet”. (Lento. Poco piu animato). An elaborately worked out fabric woven mainly from the theme of Romeo’s love for Juliet.
6) “Dance of the West Indian Slave Girls”. (Andante con eleganza). The section accompanies both the action of Paris presenting pearls to Juliet and slave girls dancing with the pearls.
7) “Romeo at Juliet’s Grave”. (Adagio funebre). Prokofieff captures the anguish and pathos of the heartbreaking blunder that is the ultimate in tragedy:Juliet is not really dead, and her tomb is only that in appearance—but for Romeo the illusion is reality and his grief is unbounded.
Prokofieff’s original plan was to give “Romeo and Juliet” a happy ending, its first since the time of Shakespeare. Juliet was to be awakened in time to prevent Romeo’s suicide, and the ballet would end with a dance of jubilation by the reunited lovers. Criticism was widespread and sharp when this modification of Shakespeare’s drama was exhibited at a trial showing. All thought of a happy ending was promptly abandoned, and Prokofieff put the tragic seal of death on the finale of his ballet.
As early in his career as 1914 Prokofieff made his first venture in the enchanted world of children’s entertainment. This was a cycle for voice and piano (or orchestra) grouped under the general title of “The Ugly Duckling,” after Andersen’s fairy-tale. It was not till twenty-two years later that he returned to this vein and achieved a masterpiece for the young of all ages, all times, and all countries, the so-called “orchestral fairy tale for children”—“Peter and the Wolf”.
Completed in Moscow on April 24, 1936, the score was performed for the first time anywhere at a children’s concert of the Moscow Philharmonic the following month. Two years later, on March 25, 1938, the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave the music its first performance outside of Russia. On January 13, 1940, the work was produced by the Ballet Theatre at the Center Theatre, New York, with choreography by Adolph Bolm, and Eugene Loring starring in the role of Peter. Its success as a ballet was long and emphatic,particularly with the younger matinee element. Prominent in the general effectiveness of Prokofieff’s work is the role of the Narrator, for whom Prokofieff supplied a simple and deliciously child-like text, with flashes of delicate humor, very much in the animal story tradition of Grimm and Andersen.
By way of introduction, Prokofieff has himself identified the “characters” of his “orchestral fairy tale” on the first page of the score:—
“Each character of this Tale is represented by a corresponding instrument in the orchestra: the bird by the flute, the duck by an oboe, the cat by a clarinet in the low register, the grandfather by a bassoon, the wolf by three horns, Peter by the string quartet, the shooting of the hunters by the kettle-drums and the bass drum. Before an orchestral performance it is desirable to show these instruments to the children and to play on them the corresponding leitmotives. Thereby the children learn to distinguish the sonorities of the instruments during the performance of this Tale.”
The characters having been duly tagged and labelled, the Narrator, in a tone that is by turns casual, confiding and awesome, begins to tell of the adventures of Peter....
“Early one morning Peter opened the gate and went out into the big green meadow. On a branch of a big tree sat a little Bird, Peter’s friend. ‘All is quiet,’ chirped the Bird gaily.
“Just then a Duck came waddling round. She was glad that Peter had not closed the gate, and decided to take a nice swim in the deep pond in the meadow.
“Seeing the Duck, the little Bird flew down upon the grass, settled next to her, and shrugged his shoulders: ‘What kind of a bird are you, if you can’t fly?’ said he. To this the Duck replied: ‘What kind of a bird are you, if you can’t swim?’ and dived into the pond. They argued and argued, the Duck swimming in the pond, the little Bird hopping along the shore.