Exiles from Revolution Prokofiev and machine music This term we are exploring how Soviet music reacted to Russian composers living abroad. This session centres on a rather odd exile. In 1918 Prokofiev negotiated leave of absence from revolutionary turmoil, returning permanently in 1936. We will focus on Prokofiev’s machine music; music which appears to mimic industrial processes. This session starts with a steam engine which clearly inspired Prokofiev Honegger’s Pacific 231 (1924) Moves on to Prokofiev’s Second Symphony (1925) and his ‘Bolshevik ballet” Le Pas d’Acier (1927) From the USSR we will hear Mosolov’s Zavod / Iron Foundry (1927) And we’ll end with Prokofiev’s wartime revival of machine music Fifth Symphony (1944) © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 2 Prokofiev background Sergei Prokofiev is a curious émigré from Soviet Russia. In 1927 he returned for a triumphant nine week tour of the Soviet Union. By this time he was widely seen as the great modern Russian composer, displacing Skryabin. There were several more trips to the Soviet Union before he permanently returned in 1936. Prokofiev had left Soviet Russia in 1918 by travelling east Vladivostok to Japan (where he spent three months), on to Hawaii, entering the USA in San Francisco. Life in the US proved difficult – so from 1920 Prokofiev based himself in Paris. The standard quote about Prokofiev’s emigration comes from his Soviet-era autobiography: Prokofiev Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences, first published 1957. Prokofiev explains how he obtained his exit permit directly from People's Commissar for Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, who told him: You are a revolutionary in music, we are revolutionaries in life. We ought to work together. But if you want to go to America I shall not stand in your way. In 2002 Prokofiev’s Diaries from 1907 to 1933 were made available for the first time. The Diaries record that same 1918 encounter with Lunacharsky slightly diferently: What I recognise in you, at a time when everyone else is concerned with destruction, is that you are building. [Prokofiev Diaries (10 April 1918) vol 2 p 272] © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 3 Honegger Pacific 231 Let’s move on to the main topic today; machine music. It’s 1924. Prokofiev is in Paris, rubbing shoulders with Diaghilev, Stravinsky, the bright young composers of France… when he encounters an orchestral steam engine. LISTENING NOTES: Honegger Pacific 231 Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) was a Swiss national, born Le Havre. He spent most of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les Six – a disparate group of young composers. Pacific 231 is Honegger’s best known work. The original title was Mouvement Symphonique. The piece grew from an exercise giving the impression of a mathematical acceleration of rhythm, while the tempo actually slowed. In his autobiography, I am a composer, Honegger apparently wrote: A rather romantic idea crossed my mind, and when the work was finished, I wrote the title, Pacific 231, which indicates a locomotive for heavy loads and high speed. Honegger is also frequently quoted as saying: I have always loved locomotives passionately. For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses. © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 4 Pacific 231 was first performed in Paris, on 8 May 1924, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. That concert also included Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto, an interesting companion piece, since it too includes driving mechanical music. Here’s a fascinating Soviet film of Pacific 231 from 1931 made by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky (1889 – 1965). The cinematography makes up for the antique sound quality. The imagery here is amazing. Focus shifts constantly between the musicians and a railway engine. Images of the orchestra visually echo machine parts: bows echo pistons, French horns echo wheels… Pacific 231 is one of Tsekhanovsky’s earliest films. He went on to be one of USSR’s greatest animators. He made a couple of films with Shostakovich. In 1933 they started an animated opera The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda based on a Pushkin story. This was an ill-fated collaboration; first the project was paralysed by the Lady Macbeth affair, and then most of film was destroyed in the siege of Leningrad. They had better luck with Tale of a Silly Little Mouse in 1940. LINK 1 (7 mins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI6iy5mScPM Pasifik 231 1931 Russian short film by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky The conductor in this film is Aleksandr Gauk © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 5 Prokofiev Second Symphony Prokofiev heard Honegger’s Pacific 231 at its first performance. He was also on the programme that night, performing his own Second Piano Concerto. At first he was somewhat dismissive of Pacific 231: … a marvellously orchestrated piece, and a prime example of how something interesting can be made without any actual music… either what musical material there is has simply passed me by, or there is actually none, but its absence is concealed by inventive use of orchestration and sonority. [Prokofiev Diaries vol 3 p 50-1] But two days later (10 May) he writes: Thought more about Pacific… Evidently Pacific does have something in it that I overlooked, and that something is a head of steam, the very power that drives the locomotive on with such impetuosity. [Prokofiev Diaries vol 3 p 52] Within a month, Prokofiev decided to write his Second Symphony. The opening and closing music of Second Symphony is savage machine music. The savage element relates to some of Prokofiev’s earlier music, which was being performed at this time; the apocalyptic cantata Seven, They are Seven, and Scythian Suite. But the new industrial element appears to come from Honegger’s Pacific 231. At the centre of Second Symphony is a bucolic fantasy world. A similar stark contrast can be found in other twentieth century Russian symphonic music, including: Myaskovsky’s Sixth Symphony and Popov’s First Symphony. © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 6 Prokofiev modelled the structure of Second Symphony on Beethoven op 111 – the final piano sonata. There are two movements: the first is strict sonata form, the second a theme and variations. Koussevitzky conducted the first performance in Paris. At first Prokofiev was upbeat about his new work, receiving good reviews from other musicians. But within a week this mood was punctured by Koussevitzky: after an obligatory preamble about how much he loves my music and will always tell me the truth, confessed *… I should not+ hesitate to revise [Second Symphony] radically by composing completely new material for the second subject [of the first movement] [Prokofiev Diaries vol 3 p 176] A few weeks later Prokofiev wrote to his old friend Myaskovsky: Everyone who heard the symphony greeted it with blank incomprehension. So complicated was it that even I, listening to the performance, was not able to see through to the heart of it… It will be a long time before I embark on another thing of such intricacy and complexity. [Prokofiev Diaries Introduction vol 3 p xiv] © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 7 LISTENING NOTES Prokofiev Symphony No 2 in D minor, op 40 First performance: Paris, 6 June 1925, conducted by Koussevitzky (the dedicatee) First Soviet performance: Leningrad 31 October 1928, conducted Dranishnikov First movement Allegro ben articolato Loud machine-like ostinato movement. In strict sonata form, but this is obscured by the fragmentary thematic material. Individual parts are mostly diatonic, but dense polyphony creates many acidic dissonances. Prokofiev described this music simply as “Angry”, in a letter to Myaskovsky. Second movement Theme and six variations The theme was originally written in January 1919, for a piece called Fairy Tale. Variations I to IV are in a fantasy mood, but variations V and VI return to the mechanical turmoil of the first movement. Tema: Andante The oboe plays the theme, a typical long-breathed diatonic Prokofiev melody, with a gently rocking accompaniment. Variation I: Lintesso tempo – tempo stays same as Tema The mood turns wintry and desolate. © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 8 Variation II: Allegro non troppo – a little faster than Variation I Nature sounds – insects and birdsong – give way to swinging music which becomes increasingly aggressive; a precursor to the calisthenics in his next ballet, Le Pas d'Acier. Variation III: Allegro – a little faster than Variation II The rhythms are sometimes reminiscent of swiftly moving horses, and the accompaniment includes snorting woodwind and jingling percussion. Variation IV: Larghetto A pastoral reflective variation, sometimes dark and gloomy. Variation V: Allegro con brio A return to the dissonant mechanical mood of the first movement. Variation VI: Allegro moderato and Tema Andante molto After a brief pause, growling woodwind start this variation. Thematic material from the first movement is introduced. Chords hammer out a shuddering climax, then the opening Tema returns. The final bars are disquieting string harmonics against deep clarinet chords. LINK 2 (33 mins) www.youtube.com/watch?v=88ZMwdB0J3c Prokofiev Symphony No 2 performed by RSNO conducted by Neeme Järvi © 2020 Terry Metheringham [email protected] +44 7528 835 422 Soviet Music: Exiles from Revolution Session 2: Prokofiev and Machine Music 9 Le Pas d’Acier A couple of weeks after the first performance of Second Symphony, Prokofiev had a new commission from Diaghilev.