Andrew Grossman:
Perhaps I can begin by asking what part Prokofiev played in your
upbringing as a budding music critic. Which pieces impressed you most
as a child?
David Nice: My way in to
Prokofiev was by the usual route of English children -- Peter
and the Wolf played to us on gramophone records at school. Though I liked
Peter, I can't say it made a personal impression; we just accepted it
as one of the handful of prescribed works. I was altogether crazier
about Tchaikovsky, though, and it struck me fairly early on that
Prokofiev's bird in Peter sounded remarkably similar to Tchaikovsky's
Bluebird (voiced by flute and clarinet) in The Sleeping Beauty.
As you got older, which pieces made you realize
that Prokofiev was more than just a composer of "light" concert
music?
For many years, I held the standard view of Prokofiev as prankster and
master caricaturist. I loved the Bernstein/Israel Philharmonic
recording of the Fifth Symphony,
especially for the riots of the scherzo and finale. But it wasn't until I
heard the Sixth Symphony in
a blistering performance from Neeme Järvi and the (then) Scottish
National Orchestra at the 1984 Edinburgh Festival that I became an
apostle for the Serious Prokofiev. I always felt there was something
very private and personal, too, about the Seventh Symphony.
And those later piano sonatas as played by Sviatoslav Richter! So I would say
that Järvi and Richter were the chief advocates in my adventure. Then,
of course, Gergiev, starting with the 1991 Kirov production of War
and Peace.
When you set out to write your two-volume
biography of Prokofiev, was there a particular view of the composer
that you wanted to present to the world? Were there any myths about
Prokofiev you wanted to debunk?
I think we were all aware of the cold-war damage done to Prokofiev's
reputation: masterpieces composed in the West, like The
Fiery Angel and Chout,
had been denounced as decadent by Nestyev and other Soviet
writers, and we hadn't really been allowed to hear many of the Soviet
works because they had been written off as pure propaganda in Britain
and the States. Even the more recent biographies and program notes
seemed to buy in to the tags, describing the Fifth Symphony as a
'triumph of the human spirit' -- adopting hook, line, and sinker the
party-line jargon Prokofiev himself used for official statements -- while
the Seventh Symphony is characterized as 'music for children', and the
Eighth Piano Sonata,
of all things, as 'nostalgic, retrogressive music.' You only had to listen
to realize how wide of the mark it all was. Things began to change in the
centenary year, not least with the fireworks of the Cantata
for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution. The 1990s
were a very exciting time for the rehabilitation
of Prokofiev's later works. Then there was the image of the man
himself: cold, aloof, sarcastic. But that didn't tally with the music;
and sure enough, Prokofiev's multi-faceted literary skills, especially
in the correspondence held at the archives, began to reveal just how
false and simplistic a picture that was. I've always hated the
ready-made Western judgments on the relationships between men of
genius and dictatorships; after my first book, on Richard Strauss, was
published, I couldn't count how many people's first question to me
was, "But wasn't Strauss a Nazi?" And despite all the hard work put in
by the likes of Järvi and Gergiev, it seems we still have a long way
to go with Prokofiev, particularly when a program series like
Ashkenazy's "Prokofiev and Shostakovich under Stalin" slants the
picture so carelessly, setting the public face of official Prokofiev
against the private thoughts of Shostakovich. The concerts were
selectively planned in such a way that Prokofiev did come out badly,
and the press parroted the party-line all too readily.
That is disturbing. One could just as easily,
deceptively, and one-sidedly set the private thoughts of Prokofiev, as
represented by the Sixth
Piano Sonata and First Violin Sonata,
against the public face of Shostakovich, as represented by Song of the Forests
and many of his brassy, Soviet-era film scores. Didn't Ashkenazy's
series include a concert where On Guard for Peace was performed while
large photos of Stalin were projected in the background?
Indeed. Not that Shostakovich escaped being associated with Stalin in
this series -- this association became clear when we saw a Stalin
look-alike, the actor Gelovani, in Mikhail Chiaureli's
Shostakovich-scored propaganda film The Siege of Berlin (1949). But
the thesis -- especially in London, where we didn't even have an
admittedly over-slick performance of Prokofiev's Sixth to redress the
imbalance a little -- was that Prokofiev did all the public stuff that
Shostakovich managed to avoid until after 1948. Maybe people jump to
conclusions about an artist's personal life as well. Only a month or
so ago an interviewer attacked me terrier-like for Prokofiev's
separation from Lina: "How could he have done it? How could he?" And,
knowing only angles of the story, one could only say: he was a
complex, fallible human being.
In this year, the 50th anniversary of
Prokofiev's death, there seems to be a divide in how the
English-speaking world stands on his music. I was both amused and
saddened to read in your biography Prokofiev's comment from the early
1920's: "In Europe my music is much more loved and appreciated than in
America, which is still too backward for me." (192) Even today, in the
English-speaking world the most progressive programs of Prokofiev's
music are being staged in the United Kingdom, while American critics
and audiences are still entrenched in reactionary, conservative
debates about Prokofiev's alleged politics. Why is the British musical
establishment more enthusiastic than the Americans about embracing
Prokofiev?
Well, first, let's not forget that the situation fluctuated in
Prokofiev's lifetime -- by 1926, he was able to see an improvement in
American attitudes, and with the rise of the great conductors
sympathetic to his music he came to hope for more from America than
anywhere else. Then, of course, came the Depression. As for the
situation in England, I can only speak for myself, and in the Preface
to my biography I attempt briefly to trace my own growing conviction
about the (relatively) unknown Prokofiev through attending a whole
sequence of memorable concerts. In 1991, we enjoyed two revelatory
Prokofiev series. One, concentrating on the symphonies and conducted
by Sir Edward Downes, threw a whole new light on the Seventh Symphony;
Downes' performance was delicate, luminous and simply heartbreaking.
The other series, spearheaded by Rostropovich, included such rarities
as Seven, They Are Seven,
and Zdravitsa, giving us
a chance to broaden our perspectives. And in the same year Järvi
performed the October Cantata for the first time in London.
And so it has continued over the past decade. I could also add
that other British-based Prokofiev experts whom I respect --
Gerard McBurney, David Fanning, Daniel Jaffé, Marina Frolove-Walker --
feel as strongly as I do about certain misrepresentations, less about
Prokofiev's character than about his later scores, that have originated
from other sources.
Indeed, in America the perception persists that
Prokofiev is not a "serious" composer, for he was neither a sublime
mage (like Stravinsky) nor a soul who wore his suffering on his sleeve
(like Shostakovich). On the other hand, some recent attempts to argue
Prokofiev's case seem wrongheaded; for example, Gergiev and Toradze's
recordings of the complete
piano concerti seem self-important, perversely (and sometimes sloppily)
phrased, and wildly uneven with regard to tempi. What do you think is
the best way to introduce the more "intellectual" side of Prokofiev to
popular audiences?
Let's hope more recent publications will redress the misconception
that Prokofiev's music is anti-intellectual. It is inevitably the fate
of a composer who is also a good melodist to be known by his most
popular pieces -- the same applies to Elgar wherever he's known mainly as
the composer of Pomp and Circumstance rather than the symphonies.
While the works of Prokofiev's Ettal and Paris years do deserve wider
circulation, they will never be mainstream repertoire. The main thing
is to campaign for their right to be heard, as Noëlle Mann of the
Prokofiev Archive has done so much throughout and leading up to 2003.
At least you can say "but it's by Prokofiev" -- think of poor old Martinu
and even Korngold, who aren't household names.
Or poor Gustav Holst, whose operas are never performed in America.
So no, I don't think, in the UK at least, Prokofiev is 'unjustly neglected' in any way.
When Betrothal
in a Monastery and The Gambler
made their premieres at The Met in New York, the productions received a fair (though hardly
overwhelming) amount of visibility in the media. But in 2003, the U.S. premiere
of Semyon Kotko seemed
to come and go with little fanfare. What do you believe is the best way to
educate both the media and conservative classical music audiences about
unfamiliar repertoire, particularly repertoire that is politically
incorrect?
Understanding Semyon Kotko means having already taken on board
Prokofiev's more popular and "accessible" (horrid word) operas. When
you consider that this happened at the Met and, the previous year, at
the Royal Opera House in London, the amazing thing is not that it met
'with little fanfare', but that it happened at all. Those of us who
know and love Prokofiev's works acknowledge that Semyon Kotko contains
some of his greatest music, but also know that it lets contemporary
audiences down badly in its later acts. It is actually easier to
"sell" such a work nowadays on the back of the public's Stalin/Hitler
fixations. But I understand those audience members who are deeply
offended by the opera's implications in the light of the kulak
massacres and the famine. The right way to go about presenting Kotko,
then, is to consider it as an opera which tells a story. We must ask:
how successful is it musically (the characterizations in the first two
acts are superlative), how much is it of its time (in the last act,
all too much of its time), and what did it mean to Prokofiev (the
Ukrainian link and the background of upheaval are clearly important)?
Although I couldn't see the Met production of
Kotko, some critics commented on the satirical way in which the
Stalinism of the final act was handled. Do you think it is even
possible today -- either in Russia or the West -- to stage Kotko without
resorting to arch satire or expressionism as a way of rationalizing
its politics? To put it simply, is Kotko, its beautiful melodies and
masterful third act notwithstanding, now doomed to be a comedy, or a
mere footnote to people's 'Stalin/Hitler fixations'?
The opera could certainly be presented more clearly than that messy
production. The ideal man for the job is someone like our own
controversial director Richard Jones, who manages to be both absurdly
funny and chilling, not to mention scary, at the same time. But still,
the seriousness of Kotko did come through in the Kirov production.
In the United States, Prokofiev's operas have
become synonymous with Gergiev, although I know this is less the case
in England. But it seems Gergiev has become too burdened with the
responsibility of being the sole U.S. ambassador of Prokofiev's
operas. Why don't we see in the U.S. other Russian conductors perform
the operas?
Let's not underestimate Gergiev's Atlas-like task. Without him there
would probably have been no revival of Semyon Kotko, at least outside
of Russia and probably within it -- ever. He is that phenomenon, a
popular conductor who uses his position to promote the rich and rare.
It's not that he's excluding other talents; it's that he's simply the
only conductor who can get such programming past increasingly
conservative concert and opera planners. Consider his Rotterdam
Prokofiev Festival in September of 2003: that was a once-in-a-lifetime
retrospective which will never be repeated. Amazingly, not only did
Gergiev do his usual marathon specials -- like performing Alexander
Nevsky and the Ivan the Terrible
oratorio in a single evening -- but he
mounted performances of the later cantatas, which we hadn't heard
anywhere else. I flew in for a day and wished I'd been there for the
entire festival -- the celebratory atmosphere was very infectious. And
meantime, in the UK, not a single Prokofiev opera was staged at all in
this anniversary year -- unless you except English National Opera's
stunning platform performance at the 2003 Proms.
Although Gergiev's opera productions have won
great acclaim, and have ably demonstrated the qualities of Prokofiev's
lesser-known operas, no American companies (to my knowledge) have been
persuaded to perform any of the operas besides War
and Peace and Three Oranges.
Is it even possible that the operas will even become part of the repertory?
Or is this again the problem of the conservatism of classical music audiences?
Part of the problem is Prokofiev's unstinting service to the beauties
of the Russian language and how he sets it. He makes little compromise
for the sake of melody, and although he tells his operatic stories
very beautifully, they often require a literary flair from their
audience. Even War and Peace, which means so much to everyone who
knows Tolstoy, can be intimidating for those unfamiliar with the book.
When I attended the Kirov production of War and
Peace at the Met (during the 2002-2003 season), I overheard an amusing
conservation during intermission. One elderly man said to another,
"This opera doesn't have one memorable moment. I'd rather see Porgy
and Bess -- at least Gershwin could write a melody!" While this comment
may seem funny to us, it tells us a lot about the state of opera
today -- people remain suspicious of operas without Puccini-style melody,
and even War and Peace, of all operas, is perceived as insufficiently
melodic. What could we possibly say to this person to make him realize
the folly of his ways? Or is it too late to change people's minds?
Well, as I've already said, Prokofiev's particular treatment of the
Russian language will be problematic for non-Russian audiences.
Despite their big and effective set pieces, these operas are subtle
works, and may never be popular with opera-goers. Like Janacek, Berg
and Britten, however, Prokofiev may yet appeal to theatregoers who
come to the opera without much or any musical baggage.
When interviewed, conductors always seem to
enthusiastically claim that more and more young audiences are being
drawn to classical music. In America, though, this is highly
debatable; when I go to the Met or Lincoln Center, the great majority
of the audience has grey hair. We may speak of musical education for
the next generation, but this avoids the immediate problem -- that most
Americans in their teens, 20's, 30's, and even 40's have no interest
in classical music. Is there a real way to reach these people above
the incessant din of pop culture?
It worries me -- and again I can only speak for the UK -- that musical
appreciation is so little valued in schools. Kids are taught to play
an instrument or to sing in a choir, but are never taught that you
needn't be a participant or performer to cherish the wonderful world
of classical music as a joy and solace for life. And Prokofiev, like
Stravinsky, is the ideal composer for an enthusiastic teacher to use
in demonstrating that "classical" music isn't boring. It's just that
most children never have the chance to be led in the right direction.
Think of the effect that a performance of the Fifth Symphony would
have on a teenager -- and yet how many schools are taking their pupils to
experience the overwhelming impact of a full orchestra in a concert
hall? It makes me mad that journalists harp on elitism and
conservatism in classical music; the works themselves, inspiringly
presented before being played and conducted, are the thing. It seems
we've lost sight of this in an era of watered-down "fusion" concerts,
where neither culture has the chance to appear at its authentic
best -- for example, when we have works specially written for gamelan
ensemble and symphony orchestra. But this is a wider topic that I
could rant about for much longer.
Well, then, let's turn to a few specific aspects
of Prokofiev's pre-Soviet life and music that you discuss in your
biography. It's enlightening to learn that Prokofiev gave the Russian
premiere of Schoenberg's Three Piano Pieces, Op 11, at one of the
Evenings of Contemporary Music in 1911. But Prokofiev's opinion of,
and relationship to, atonal music has never been clear to me. Did
Prokofiev have any opinion of Nikolay Roslavets, whose own atonal
experiments in the early 1910's were among the most advanced in
Russia? I would guess Prokofiev, at very least, was aware of
Roslavets?
He would perhaps have heard the earlier experimental pieces. The
recently-published diaries from the years 1907 to 1933, which
Prokofiev wrote in a kind of shorthand, missing the vowels, have
recently been reassembled and published in two volumes by his elder
son Sviatoslav; they will surely enlighten us, though sadly there's no
index as yet. But Roslavets' rise in the early 1920's coincided with
Prokofiev's own absence from the Soviet Union. Myaskovsky recommends
Roslavets to Prokofiev in 1923 with the caution that his music is
extremely (from which I would read "excessively") rational. Prokofiev
was more aware of Mosolov, of course, because Zavod (The Iron Foundry)
was popular in Paris.
In your analysis of the Scythian
Suite, you suggest that its sunrise climax evinces a philosophical paradox:
it apotheosizes the soon-to-be fading mysticisms of Scriabin and Balmont
while sonically acting "as a portent of the joyous revolution to
come." (91) I may be in the minority, but the Scythian Suite's
sunrise, far less striking than the climaxes of Stravinsky's Rite,
always lets me down, even if Gergiev and Kuchar's recordings are
sensational enough. Though it's brilliantly orchestrated, the very
idea of a "sunrise" seems not only Balmontian, or in line with the
neo-primitivism of the so-called Acmeists, but crypto-Wagnerian or
simply regressive; even Prokofiev's early Dreams,
Op 6, is built around sunrise effects. Besides, the Scythian Suite's sunrise, rather
than growing logically or dramatically out of the music, seems like a
grand effect without sufficient cause.
My problem with the Scythian Suite is that it represents the triumph
of modernist atmosphere over substance -- I would say the same was true
of Bartok's Wooden Prince. The third movement, especially, is all
post-Rite moonshine, and a texture-conscious conductor like Boulez or
Rattle certainly makes it shine. Gergiev's recent (2003) recording
tries, rather deliberately, to thrust forward the melodies;
incidentally, I mention the claim in [Eric Roseberry's] liner notes
that Prokofiev pursued the Scythian Suite's line no further, though,
of course, Seven, They are Seven and The Fiery Angel are its more
articulate offspring. The sunrise climax always works in the concert
hall, though.
That's probably true -- I've never seen it live. We
know Diaghilev was disappointed in the Scythian Suite's music -- what in
particular didn't he like?
Diaghilev, I think, hated any kind of repetition, and it was the
Scythian Suite's cod-mythological subject matter -- too much like the
Rite -- rather than its musical substance which he rejected.
It's not clear to me how much of a "suite" the
Scythian Suite really is. In turning Ala
and Lolly into a concert
suite, Prokofiev, as you say, "pared away...20 bars of mood music from
the original manuscript" (113), and remarked that the piece "runs for
about 17 minutes," (111) which is significantly shorter than even the
quickest performances of the piece we know today. Are there any
differences between the original ballet Ala and Lolly and the Scythian
Suite?
The original score of Ala and Lolly has not, to my knowledge,
survived. I think we can take Prokofiev on trust when he says that
most of the ballet went in to the suite, which follows the same
progression and narrative -- hence the alternative preservation of the
original title Ala and Lolly.
Let's move on to Chout -- I was surprised to learn
that its original 1915 manuscript audaciously concludes with a reprise
of the "dusting off the orchestra" music, quite contrary to the
slam-bang finale of the 1920 version we know. You chalk up the
crowd-pleasing revision to Diaghilev's meddling, but this calls into
question whether or not we've been misappreciating Prokofiev's
dramatic intentions all along. Do you think Prokofiev's skills at a
dramatist might have been better borne out had Chout's less
conventional original ending been preserved?
Maybe, but the revision is one of many examples of Prokofiev bowing to
change and coming up with something exciting and genuinely engaging,
not just blandly accessible. I think his changes were generally for
the better, theatrically speaking, even if the musicologists might
find the originals better. In any case, the ending of the first draft
of Chout isn't an instance of music we haven't heard -- though of course
the discordant harmonization of the original dance at the end of the
1915 version is something else. I'd like to hear it orchestrated.
You compare the polar endings of the original
and final versions of Chout with those of the two versions of The
Gambler (115). It's a shame Rozhdestvensky's plan to revive the
original version of Gambler in 2000 fell into bureaucratic shambles
(122); do you know of any plans to restage this original version or,
better yet, record it?
The "original" Gambler remains, to my knowledge, in the Bolshoi
repertoire, though of course without Rozhdestvensky to conduct it.
There are no plans that I know of to stage another production, and
talk of a recording between Rozhdestvensky and Chandos came to
nothing.
Had the original version of Gambler been
successfully staged in the late 1910's, do you think Prokofiev might
have sooner escaped the shadow of Stravinsky? Might his career and
future paths as a modernist composer have turned out
differently?
It's an interesting question -- especially as this is a full-length
psychological opera in the Mussorgsky tradition, which as we know from
the letters, and especially from the exchanges with Souvchinsky quoted
in my book, both Diaghilev and Stravinsky regarded as a dead art-form.
But it was only in the Diaghilev sphere that Prokofiev was really in
Stravinsky's shadow. His choice of The Fiery Angel as an operatic
subject in the 1920s flew against the whole Diaghilev ethos, and
indeed all his operas after The Love for Three Oranges continue an
older tradition.
For me, Three Oranges, despite its sheer
entertainment value, disappoints intellectually. You describe how
Prokofiev had actually increased the role of the rival choral factions
in the opera's diegetic "audience" (150), but I've always found it
problematic that Prokofiev drops this self-reflexive, modernistic
device in his final act. Prokofiev, I think, should have followed
Tieck's Puss in Boots, where the disruptive interjections of the
audience-within-the-play increase as the play progresses. Then the
Comedians, or perhaps the Eccentrics, could more meaningfully rescue
Fata Morgana at the climax rather than her simply dropping through a
trapdoor. Just when Prokofiev should be pushing his modernist
intentions, he inexplicably pulls back.
He's only following in Meyerhold's footsteps -- and of course the radical
rescue of Ninetta departs from Gozzi's scenario. Ostensibly the
Eccentrics' luring of Fata Morgana into the tower is a last gesture;
the rest really belongs to the world of fairy-tale, complete with a
"Slava!" chorus, so that justifies Prokofiev's scheme. I don't believe
he intended any different ending. Of course it would be interesting if
there were two alternatives, like the first and second versions of
Strauss's Ariadne Auf Naxos. But at least the happy ending is wound up
with commendable swiftness.
The first draft of Fiery Angel, however, did end
differently: Renata dies in prison before Ruprecht -- now presumably
empowered with knowledge from his travels with Mephisto -- can rescue
her. As you say, Prokofiev deemed this ending "clumsy and
untheatrical" (229), but it's certainly more dramatically satisfying
than the present ending. In light of the final version we have, what
is the best way to understand the interjected role of Mephistopheles
in the opera? Despite the musical effectiveness of Angel's final
inquisition scene, are you disappointed that Prokofiev is, as in the
ending of Three Oranges, arguably short-changing his dramaturgy?
Again, you're asking for something wholly different, when the composer
had clearly thought long and hard about what he decided. The ending
with Renata in prison smacked too much of Faust, and although the
present ending is very sudden, I think it makes excellent sense as
music-drama. Admittedly, the final appearance of Mephistopheles and
Ruprecht on the balcony is unsatisfactory, but I can't object to
Prokofiev's thumbnail sketch of Mephisto -- it tells us with admirable
concision all we need to know (as does Faust's idealistic solo).
Again, the Mussorgsky link is strong.
You briefly remark (139) that "too little has
surfaced" of the proposed Fiery Angel vocal suite for orchestra and
female soloist; what, in fact, remains extant?
I now understand that the suite is lodged in the Prokofiev Archive in
London, though I haven't seen it. This is something which surfaced at
a rather late stage.
What do you think is the best way to approach
Prokofiev's incessant recycling of the same materials in different
works, especially from The Fiery Angel and Prodigal
Son? Comparing Fiery Angel to the Third
Symphony, the music seems to have the same
inherent effect -- perhaps even the same meaning -- whether it's
contextualized as opera or symphony. Prodigal Son and the Fourth
Symphony, however, creative very different thematic effects from the
same material. At the risk of oversimplification, did Prokofiev
generally think more in terms of a pure musical content rather than
the form or musical genre that might envelop that content?
I argue my feelings on these subjects in the sections in my book on
the Third and Fourth Symphonies, especially to the effect that the
textures of the opera seem to have been carried over without any
change in the Third Symphony, which remains a "Fiery Angel Symphony."
Part of the fascination lies in the tension between diatonic melody
and chromatic surround, which always interested Prokofiev. Sometimes
he simply transferred themes in a slightly opportunistic way, and
sometimes -- as in the case of the Eugene Onegin
music that was later transplanted to War and Peace -- there's a careful
philosophic and literary connection or commentary going on. In this instance,
Onegin's envy of youthful freshness is thematically translated into Prince
Andrey and his world-weariness at the tender age of 31.
I've always wondered about the complete Egyptian
Nights stage music, which contains 44 numbers. Can you give an account
of the differences between the complete score and the 20-minute
suite?
Not without the scores of either presently at hand. In my book, I hope
I've outlined the real problem of the suite -- that is, it lacks a
narrative core without the Pushkin monologue-melodrama at its heart. A
CD version might do well to include a recitation of the Pushkin along
with, or interspersed with, the music.
You're the only critic I can recall who
emphasizes the importance of the Opus 57 Symphonic
Song, a
transitional work in Prokofiev's output that you characterize as the
"underrated missing link between the far less grandly symphonic Fourth
Symphony of 1930 and the Fifth of 1945." (312) Like the First
String Quartet and, to a lesser degree, the Sonata
for Two Violins, this work represents to me an interim period
where, not yet fully committed to his new simplicity, Prokofiev was searching
for a serious, cosmopolitan, international voice. If I understand you correctly,
however, you do indeed see the work's final D-major "achievement," in
its "darkness-conflict-achievement" program, as a foreshadowing of the
new simplicity?
Yes. The emergence of the melody (actually in C major to start with) I
regard as a nod in the direction of the new simplicity, and the whole
as a kind of paradigm. In my talks, I frequently quote that melody as
one of the true originals for the way it departs very elaborately from
the tonic before steering back to it. As for the cosmopolitanism, I
don't think Prokofiev consciously courted it.
Apart from the Symphonic Song, which works from
Prokofiev's pre-Soviet period do you feel have been most neglected?
The more complicated ones -- those in which, as Prokofiev put it, "the
outlines of a real face" only begin to emerge after two or three
play-throughs: the Fourth
and Fifth Piano Concertos,
and even, in its own whiter, neo-Stravinskyan way, On the Dnieper.
The Fiery Angel now has a life its own, at least in Russia and
England. I was a little more cynical about the Quintet,
Op 39 and the two extra Trapeze
movements until I heard them played by musicians from the Rotterdam
Philharmonic Orchestra -- an extraordinary, poleaxing performance. You
could sense that everyone in the audience was exhilarated by it.
Can you describe these two extra movements from
Trapeze, which I (and most of us in America) haven't heard? Are these
the same two movements we know from the Divertimento,
Op 43, or are they somehow different?
These two movements come at the beginning of the ballet, as the
Overture and Matelote, and essentially they're the two movements
subsequently used in the Divertimento. Not that we know exactly what
they were meant to sound like; the composer Samuel Becker has had to
guess from materials provided by Noëlle Mann of the Serge Prokofiev
Archive in London. She, by the way, has done more than anyone to
ensure that Prokofiev is remembered 'in the round'.
Prokofiev often expressed the fear that history
would remember him only as the composer of The
Classical Symphony and Lt. Kizhe,
and that his serious works would remain unjustly neglected. This, of course,
is more or less exactly what has happened. How would you like to see
Prokofiev remembered? How might he be remembered fifty or a hundred
years from now?
He'll be remembered in the round, of course, in all his diversity,
breadth and depth, wit and tragedy. Since his determinedly popular
pieces are so very popular, of course the vast majority of people will
know him by Peter and the Wolf, the "Montagues and Capulets" and the
Kizhe Troika -- these are the three tunes I hum if trying to place him
for puzzled acquaintances. But that's no bad thing. At least the
music-loving public has had a good chance to get to know the less
familiar symphonies and operas. I just don't buy in to this 'unjustly
neglected' line which various interest-groups are still touting.
True, there's a difference between being
neglected and being misunderstood.
If there has been a big shift in how Prokofiev is perceived, it's to
do with his respectability in academic circles: Shostakovich has
already been embraced, and Prokofiev is now beginning to be taken
seriously there too. It will be interesting to see what the attitude
is like in 2006, when Shostakovich will be taking most of the
limelight -- we'll then see whether Prokofiev will have much of a
look-in. And I hope by then the second volume will be ready to
provoke further debate...
