Prokofiev vs Stalin

  by Boris Zindels (edited by Sugi Sorensen)

Once upon a time, I ran into a thread on rec.music.classical.recordings with the subject line "Prokofiev vs Stalin." The lady who started the thread wondered who died earlier on that fateful March day in 1953, Stalin or Prokofiev (both died on 05-March-1953.)

"How thrilling..." I thought.

I managed to change the topic to a more substantial one -- it didn't matter who died earlier because Prokofiev had managed the last laugh on the "cockroach with whiskers"¹ in the finale of his Sinfonia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra, Op 125.

Just a while before I happened on the thread, I had been lucky enough to attend the final rehearsal and concert performance of Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante in Kiev on 24-March-1998 to honor the memory of Sviatoslav Richter, who had died the previous August. The concert was given by Richter's friends and partners: the eminent cellist Natalia Gutman with Yuri Nikolayevsky conducting the Ukrainian Philharmonic Orchestra. The Concertante was a fitting piece to celebrate the memory of Richter -- he had conducted its premiere on 18-Feb-1952 in his one and only conducting stint. Quite a few years had passed since I had last listened to the piece and as a result it sounded quite new to my ears. Needless to say Natalia Gutman's account was superb -- supremely idiomatic -- and Nikolayevsky did his best (along with Gutman!) with the young orchestra.

When the triple time central theme of the finale started I felt shivers down my spine -- there was an old "official" drinking song to Stalin! Unfortunately I couldn't recall the exact name of the song nor its composer. Just one line of the toast screamed in my head:

Vypiem za Rodinu! Vypiem za Stalina!

[Let's drink to the Motherland! Let's drink to Stalin!]

How brave Sergei Sergeyevich had been to treat such 'sacred' material in such a scathingly satirical manner during such a bleak period in his life! And how musically inventive Prokofiev was as well -- the "drunk", "swaying" theme is played by cello solo, then bassoon, and then tutti strings in turn. I asked maestro Nikolayevsky to confirm my revelation about the source of the theme. The conductor could neither confirm nor deny it.

So I decided to pose the question about the source of the Sinfonia theme in the "Prokofiev vs Stalin" thread. The only substantial reply came from Mr. Ross Williams of the United Kingdom. He reported that the triple time central theme was new to the work, meaning it did not appear in the original Cello Concerto in E minor, Op 58 (the Op 125 is based on material from Op 58.) Mr. Williams then quoted from an essay by Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere performance of the Op 125:

"....Straight after the performance of the Sonata in 1950, Prokofiev began to make changes to his First Cello Concerto and eventually settled on the title Symphony-Concerto. He even asked me to compose some of the passages, but when I did so he always made some small but significant changes, leaving me wondering at how narrow, yet unbridgeable, is the gap between the mundane and the sublime. In the finale of the Symphony-Concerto Prokofiev incorporated a theme that was similar to a popular song by Vladimir Zakharov, an apparatchik who mercilessly vilified all 'formalists.' After the work was played at the Composers' Union, Zakharov stood up and said indignantly that he would write to the papers complaining that his own wonderful tune had been totally distorted. When I related this to Prokofiev he wrote a replacement tune (a waltz, which I never played), and said that once everything had settled down we would quietly revert to the original tune. The manuscript, which is in my keeping, includes both versions...."

So, it was Vladimir Zakharov who had written the tavern tune. However, I had yet to confirm my suspicion by listening to a recording of the drinking song -- a daunting challenge today given nearly everything authentic having to do with Stalin has long since been torn down or thrown away or turned to dust.

Meanwhile, I picked up Prokofiev's collected works on Melodiya LP. Israel Nestyev, the then-eminent Soviet musicologist and official Prokofiev biographer, stated in the insert booklet that the triple time central theme of the Finale of the Sinfonia is similar to a folk Belorussian "farewell" melody. I definitely knew the song he meant. Although they sound very much alike, they are not the same!

Soon thereafter, I met a collector of Soviet pop music who swore that the author of the drinking song was some Belorussian composer named Isaac Lyuban. Moreover he claimed that the folk Belorussian "farewell" melody has... an author! And the author was the same Isaac Lyubin!!

Finally I managed to obtain a recording of the long-lost drinking song. Its proper title is "Our Toast" (I. Lyuban, composer; A. Tarkovsky & Matvei Kosenko, text). All doubts finally disappeared.

Below is the song in MP3 format and the words to the song in question.

Toast to Stalin, by I. Lyuban click to listen (MP3 format)

Yesli na rodine c nami vstrechayetsya Neskol'ko starykh druzey, Vsio, chto nam dorogo pripominayetsya - Pesnya zvuchit veseley. Nuka, tovarishchi, gryanem zastolnuyu - Vyshe stakany s vinom! Vyp'yem za Rodinu nashu privol'nuyu, Vyp'yem i snova nal'iom. Vyp'yem za russkuyu udal' kipuchuyu, Za bogatyrskiy narod, Vyp'yem za armiyu nashu moguchuyu, Vyp'yem za doblestnyi flot Vstanem, tovarishchi, vyp'yem za Gvardiyu - Ravnoy ey v mnozhestve net, Tost nash za Stalina, Tost nash za Partiyu, Tost nash za znamya pobed.

When we meet Some old friends We recall all things dear to us - Our song sounds more cheerful Comrades, let us strike up our drinking song - Let us fill our glasses with wine! Let's drink to our free Motherland, Empty our glasses and fill them again! Let's drink to exuberant Russian daring, To the heroic People, Let's drink to our mighty army Let's drink to the valiant fleet Stand up, comrades, and let's drink to the Guard - There is nothing in the World that matches it, Our toast is to Stalin, Our toast is to the Party, Our toast is to the Banner of Victories.

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1 - The term "cockroach with whiskers" comes from a famous poem about Stalin by the poet Osip Mandelstam (1891 - 1938):

Untitled, by Osip Mandelstam (1933)

We live, not feeling the country beneath us, Our speech inaudible ten steps away, But where they're up to half a conversation -- They'll speak of the Kremlin highlander. His thick fingers are fat like worms, And his words certain as pound weights. His cockroach whiskers laugh, And the tops of his boots glisten. And all around his rabble of thin-necked chiefs, He plays through services of half-people. Some whistle, some meow, some snivel, He alone merely beetles and prods. Like horseshoes he forges decree after decree -- Some get it in the forehead, some in the brow,      some in the groin, and some in the eye. Whatever the execution -- it's a raspberry to him And his Osetian chest is broad.

In May of 1934 Mandelstam was arrested for writing this poem, which had been read only to a small circle of friends. After a few months in jail, he was exiled with his wife to Cherdyn in the Northern Urals where he fell ill and attempted suicide. Eventually he was allowed to return to the outskirts of Moscow (convicts were not allowed to live within a 100km zone of big cities like Moscow.) A few years later he was arrested again and sent back to a labor camp. He was never heard from again. He died on 27-Dec-1938.

[Oct/2000]