Louis Leopold Biancolli

“ The pungent note of modernism is readily heard in this music, though compared with the more dissonant writing of Prokofieff’s piano and violin concertos, it is a kind of modified modernism, diverting in its sophisticated discourse on the child’s world of fairyland wonder. If, as Nestyev says, the work is “a subtle parody of the old romantic opera with its false pathos and sham fantasy,” it is primarily what it purports to be—a fairy tale, as gay and sparkling and wondrous as any in the whole realm of opera. ”

“ Prokofieff’s return to Russia opened a new and active chapter of his career. Almost overnight he began to identify himself with the ideals of Soviet musical organizations insofar as they were concerned with education and the fostering of a community feeling of cultural solidarity. The attraction of the theatre was stronger than ever, and soon he was composing operas, ballet scores, incidental music for plays, and music for films. Indeed, the composition that virtually reintroduced him to the Russian public was the striking score for the film “Lieutenant Kije.” ”

“ In pleading guilty to the charge of formalism, Prokofieff attempted to explain how it had found its way into his music:—
“The resolution is all the more important because it has demonstrated that the formalist trend is alien to the Soviet people, that it leads to the impoverishment and decline of music, and has pointed out with definitive clarity the aims which we must strive to achieve as the best way to serve the Soviet people. Speaking of myself, the elements of formalism were peculiar to my music as long as fifteen or twenty years ago. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A large proportion of his music became markedly topical and “national” in theme and orientation. Yet for all the strictures levelled at his music, and Khrennikoff was to scold him yet once more for “bourgeois formalism”, Prokofieff, in most essentials, followed the unhampered bent of his genius. Ballet music, piano and cello sonatas continued to show that preoccupation with living and exciting form that 20 in the best art can be dictated only by the exigencies of the material. ”

“ The second is innovation, whose inception I trace to my meeting with Taneieff, when he taunted me for my rather “elementary harmony.” At first, this innovation consisted in the search for an individual harmonic language, but later was transformed into a desire to find a medium for the expression of strong emotions, as in Sarcasms, Scythian Suite, the opera The Gambler, They are Seven, the Second Symphony, etc. This innovating strain has affected not only the harmonic idiom, but also the melodic inflection, orchestration, and stage technique. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Peter and 19 the Wolf is loved by children and unspoiled adults the world over. His music for the film Alexander Nevsky and the cantata he later fashioned from it have been enormously popular. His suite Lieutenant Kijé, originally composed for another motion picture, charmed audiences as soon as it was heard, in 1934. On the contrary, among contemporary masters Prokofieff is precisely one whom we can salute as being close to the people, able to write music that is equally appealing to connoisseurs and less demanding listeners, a man who understands the musical character of simple human beings. ”

“ The occasion was its American premiere, 23 and the “Classical Symphony” speedily became a favorite of the concert-going public. And no wonder! It is music that commends itself at once through a limpid style, an endearing precision of stroke, an unfailing wit of melody, and a general salon-like atmosphere of courtly gallantry.
I. Allegro, D major, 2/2. The first violins give out the sprightly first theme, the flutes following with a subsidiary theme in a passage that leads to a development section. ”

“ Listen to the keyboard antics of an unholy organism which is one-third virtuoso, one-third athlete, and one-third wayward poet, armed with gloved finger-fins and you will have an idea of the playing of a Serge Prokofieff, pianist. ”

“ Summing up his own view of the Concerto, Prokofieff concluded:—
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“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 in concertante fashion. The piano always has the leading part which is closely interwoven with significant music in the orchestra.” ”

“ One of these early efforts was submitted to the composer Taneieff, who advised the family to send their son to Reinhold Gliere for further study. This early attraction for the theatre was later to culminate not only in several operas of marked originality but in numerous scores for ballet and the screen. To the end Prokofieff never quite lost his childhood passion for the stage. One has only to hear his music for the “Romeo and Juliet” ballet and the opera, “The Love of Three Oranges” to realize how enduring a hold the theatre had on him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ According to Israel Nestyev, Prokofieff’s Soviet biographer, the Third Symphony was “something of an echo of the past, being made up chiefly of materials relating to 1918 and 1919.”
With the Fourth Symphony we come to what might be termed Prokofieff’s “American” Symphony. This was composed in 1929 for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Boston Symphony. Much of the music harks back to the suave and courtly style of the “Classical” Symphony, without its uniform elegance of idiom, however. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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”, marked Precipitato in 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. ”

“ History teaches us that the public is often mistaken in its reaction.”
Prokofieff made his last trip to the United States in February, 1938. In several interviews with the press he laid particular stress on how Russia provided “a livelihood and leisure” for composers and musicians of all categories. Later, the League of Composers invited him to be guest of honor at a concert devoted entirely to his music. Prokofieff was to have made still another visit to America late in 1940 on the invitation of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society. ”

“ In Paris he found himself surrounded by a seething international artistic life in which the Russian element played a great part, thanks mainly to Diaghileff and his Ballet. Most of these people were expatriates, in various degrees opposed to the new regime in their motherland. Prokofieff had too close and too profound a relation with Russia to lose himself in this atmosphere. He kept up his friendships with those who stayed in Russia and those who were abroad by simply putting himself, in a certain sense, outside of the whole problem. ”

“ The finale opens Allegro giocoso, and after a brief tranquil passage for the divided cellos and basses, gives its light, rondo-like theme. There is a quasi-gaiety in the development, but, as throughout the symphony, something ominous seems always to lurk around the corner. The awareness of brutal warfare broods over it and comes forth in sharp dissonance—at the end.”
The Sixth Symphony, in E-flat minor, Opus 111
In a letter to his American publishers dated September 6, 1946, Prokofieff announced that he was working on two major compositions—a sonata for violin and piano and a Sixth Symphony. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ballet had been commissioned by Serge Lifar and produced at the Paris Opéra in 1933. The contract had stipulated one hundred thousand francs as payment for the work. Only seventy thousand francs were paid, and Prokofieff sued for the remainder. Lifar contended in court that the unfriendly reception accorded the production proved the ballet was “deficient in artistic merit.” The court’s judgment, rendered on January 9, 1934, read in part: “Any person acquiring a musical work puts faith in the composer’s talent. ”

“ Actually it was not till 1929 that the opera was finally produced, in Brussels, Prokofieff having revised it from the manuscript recovered from the library of the Maryinsky Theatre of Leningrad. When the October Revolution had triumphed, Prokofieff applied for a passport. His intention was to come to America, where he was assured a lucrative prospect of creative and concert work. The request was granted, with this rebuke from a Soviet official:—
“You are revolutionary in art as we are revolutionary in politics. You ought not to leave us now, 10 but then, you wish it. We shall not stop you. ”

“ All rejoice, for the Prince, at long last, is cured! In revenge, the Fata Morgana now pronounces a dire curse on the recovered Prince: he shall again be miserable until he has won the “love of the three oranges.”
ACT III
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SCENE: A Desert. In the desert the magician Tchelio meets the Prince and pronounces an incantation against the cook who guards the three oranges in the near-by castle. As the Prince and his companion, the jester Truffaldino, head for the castle, the orchestra plays a scherzo, fascinating in its ingeniously woven web of fantasy. ”

“ Emboldened by Taneieff’s reaction, the eleven-year-old boy next showed him a symphony. Prokofieff himself told the story to Olin Downes, who interviewed him in New York in 1919 for the “Boston Post.” Taneieff leafed through the manuscript and said:—“Pretty well, my boy. You are mastering the form rapidly. Of course, you have to develop more interesting harmony. Most of this is tonic, dominant and subdominant [the simplest and most elementary chords in music] , but that will come.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ At that time Robert Bagar and I were the society’s program annotators, and the analysis given below was written by him for our program-book of that date.
I. “Morning” (Andante tranquillo, C major, 4-4) . An odd little phrase is played by the first flute with occasional reinforcement from the second, while the other woodwinds engage in a mild counterpoint and the strings and bass drum supply the rhythmic anchorage. In a middle part the bassoons, horns, ’cellos and (later) the violas and bass sing a rather serious melody, as violins and flutes offer accompanying figures. ”