DOCSLIB.ORG

2020 02 EXILES Prokofiev Machine Music

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
2020 02 EXILES Prokofiev Machine Music 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.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Music as Representational Art Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vv9t9pz Author Walker, Daniel Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Volume I Music as Representational Art Volume II Awakening A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Music by Daniel Walker 2014 © Copyright by Daniel Walker 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Volume I Music as Representational Art Volume II Awakening by Daniel Walker Doctor of Philosophy in Music University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Ian Krouse, Chair There are two volumes to this dissertation; the first is a monograph, and the second is a musical composition, both of which are described below. Volume I Music is a language that can be used to express a vast range of ideas and emotions. It has been part of the human experience since before recorded history, and has established a unique place in our consciousness, and in our hearts by expressing that which words alone cannot express. ii My individual interest in the musical language is its use in telling stories, and in particular in the form of composition referred to as program music; music that tells a story on its own without the aid of images, dance or text. The topic of this dissertation follows this line of interest with specific focus on the compositional techniques and creative approach that divide program music across a representational spectrum from literal to abstract.
    [Show full text]
  • Musical Hybridization and Political Contradiction: the Success of Arthur Honeggerâ•Žs Antigone in Vichy France
    Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research Volume 7 2021 Musical Hybridization and Political Contradiction: The Success of Arthur Honegger’s Antigone in Vichy France Emma K. Schubart University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/bjur Recommended Citation Schubart, Emma K. (2021) "Musical Hybridization and Political Contradiction: The Success of Arthur Honegger’s Antigone in Vichy France," Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 7 , Article 4. Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/bjur/vol7/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate Scholarship at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BUTLER JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH, VOLUME 7 MUSICAL HYBRIDIZATION AND POLITICAL CONTRADICTION: THE SUCCESS OF ARTHUR HONEGGER’S ANTIGONE IN VICHY FRANCE EMMA K. SCHUBART, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, CHAPEL HILL MENTOR: SHARON JAMES Abstract Arthur Honegger’s modernist opera Antigone appeared at the Paris Opéra in 1943, sixteen years after its unremarkable premiere in Brussels. The sudden Parisian success of the opera was extraordinary: the work was enthusiastically received by the French public, the Vichy collaborationist authorities, and the occupying Nazi officials. The improbable wartime triumph of Antigone can be explained by a unique confluence of compositional, political, and cultural realities. Honegger’s compositional hybridization of French and German musical traditions, as well as his opportunistic commercial motivations as a Swiss composer working in German-occupied France, certainly aided the success of the opera.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of Honegger's Cello Concerto
    AN ANALYSIS OF HONEGGER’S CELLO CONCERTO (1929): A RETURN TO SIMPLICITY? Denika Lam Kleinmann, B.M., M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2014 APPROVED: Eugene Osadchy, Major Professor Clay Couturiaux, Minor Professor David Schwarz, Committee Member Daniel Arthurs, Committee Member John Holt, Chair of the Division of Instrumental Studies James Scott, Dean of the School of Music Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Kleinmann, Denika Lam. An Analysis of Honegger’s Cello Concerto (1929): A Return to Simplicity? Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), May 2014, 58 pp., 3 tables, 28 examples, 33 references, 15 titles. Literature available on Honegger’s Cello Concerto suggests this concerto is often considered as a composition that resonates with Les Six traditions. While reflecting currents of Les Six, the Cello Concerto also features departures from Erik Satie’s and Jean Cocteau’s ideal for French composers to return to simplicity. Both characteristics of and departures from Les Six examined in this concerto include metric organization, thematic and rhythmic development, melodic wedge shapes, contrapuntal techniques, simplicity in orchestration, diatonicism, the use of humor, jazz influences, and other unique performance techniques. Copyright 2014 by Denika Lam Kleinmann ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………………..iv LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES………………………………………………………………..v CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION………..………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER II: HONEGGER’S
    [Show full text]
  • Honegger Pastorale D’Été Symphony No
    HONEGGER PASTORALE D’ÉTÉ SYMPHONY NO. 4 UNE CANTATE DE NOËL VLADIMIR JUROWSKI conductor CHRISTOPHER MALTMAN baritone LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA and CHOIR NEW LONDON CHILDREN’S CHOIR 0058 Honegger booklet.indd 1 8/23/2011 10:24:50 AM HONEGGER PASTORALE D’ÉTÉ (SUMMER PASTORAL) Today the Swiss-born composer Arthur of birdsong on woodwind place Honegger Honegger is often remembered as a member more amongst the 19th-century French of ‘Les Six’ – that embodiment of 1920s landscape painters than les enfants terribles. Parisian modernist chic in music. How unjust. From this, Pastorale d’été builds to a rapturous It is true that for a while Honegger shared climax then returns – via a middle section some of the views of true ‘Sixists’ like Francis that sometimes echoes the pastoral Vaughan Poulenc and Darius Milhaud, particularly Williams – to the lazy, summery motion of when they were students together at the Paris the opening. Conservatoire. But even from the start he Stephen Johnson could not share his friends’ enthusiasm for the eccentric prophet of minimalism and Dadaism, Eric Satie, and he grew increasingly irritated with the group’s self-appointed literary SYMPHONY NO. 4 apologist, Jean Cocteau. It was soon clear that, despite the dissonant, metallic futurism of By the time Honegger came to write his Fourth works like Pacific 231 (1923), Honegger had Symphony in 1946, he was barely recognizable more respect for traditional forms and for as the former fellow traveller of the wilfully romantic expression than his friends could provocative Les Six. He had moved away from accept. Poulenc and Milhaud both dismissed any desire to shock or scandalize audiences: Honegger’s magnificent ‘dramatic psalm’ Le Roi instead, like Mozart, he strove ‘to write music David (‘King David’, 1923) as over-conventional.
    [Show full text]
  • A. Mosolov Complete Works for Solo Piano
    A. MOSOLOV COMPLETE WORKS FOR SOLO PIANO OLGA ANDRYUSHCHENKO 1 ALEXANDER MOSOLOV (1900-1973) COMPLETE WORKS FOR SOLO PIANO OLGA ANDRYUSHCHENKO, piano Catalogue number: GP703-04 Recording Dates: 19-22 February 2015 Recording Venue: CMS Studio, Moscow, Russia (CD1) Sovetskij Kompositor, Moscow (1 and 5), Universal Edition, Wien (2) Triton, Leningrad (1928) (3-4) (CD2) Sovetskij Kompositor, Moscow (1 and 3) Universal Edition, Wien (2) Producer and Editor: Galina Katunina Mastering Engineer: Slava Poprugin Engineer: Sergey Solodovnikov Piano Technician: Artjom Deev Piano: Steinway D Booklet Notes: Anthony Short German translation by Cris Posslac Artist photograph: Nicola Christov Composer portrait: Inna Barsova Cover Art: Tony Price: Moissac Abstract Study 4 www.tonyprice.org 2 CD 1 1 PIANO SONATA NO. 1 IN C MINOR, OP. 3 (1924) 10:55 2 NOCTURNES, OP. 15 (1925-26) 06:56 2 No. 1 Elegiaco, poco stentato 03:28 3 No. 2 Adagio 03:28 3 SMALL PIECES, OP. 23A (1927) 02:25 4 No. 1 00:55 5 No. 2 00:47 6 No. 3 00:43 2 DANCES, OP. 23B (1927) 04:17 7 No. 1 Allegro molto, sempre marcato 02:02 8 No. 2 Allegretto 02:15 PIANO SONATA NO. 2 IN B MINOR, OP. 4 “FROM OLD NOTEBOOKS” (1923-24) 23:35 9 I. Sonata 10:28 0 II. Adagio 06:38 ! III. Final 06:29 TOTAL TIME: 48:06 3 CD 2 1 PIANO SONATA NO. 4, OP. 11 (1925) 11:46 TURKMENIAN NIGHTS – PHANTASY FOR PIANO (1929) 11:41 2 I. Andante con moto 04:07 3 II. Lento 05:15 4 III.
    [Show full text]
  • DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Live Moscow 1951 – 1963 DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH 24 Preludes and Fugues for Piano, Op
    SVIATOSLAV RICHTER EMIL GILELS TATJANA NIKOLAYEVA DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH live Moscow 1951 – 1963 DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH 24 Preludes and Fugues for Piano, Op. 87 1 DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH 1906 – 1975 CD 2 Preludes and Fugues Nos. 11 – 20 BONUS CD 1 Tatjana Nikolayeva rec. Studio Moscow 1962 Sviatoslav Richter plays in Prague Studio December 3 – 4, 1956 Preludes and Fugues Nos. 1 – 10 BONUS 1. Prelude and Fugue No. 11 in B major 3'28 11. Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in A major 3'01 Emil Gilels, Studio Moscow 1955 Sviatoslav Richter plays live in Warsaw Sviatoslav Richter plays live in Teatr Muzyczny „Roma” November 24, 1954 1. Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C major 7'05 Moscow March 14, 1963 Total time CD 2: 78'55 Four Preludes and Fugues – 2. Prelude and Fugue No. 12 in G sharp minor* 8'53 Sviatoslav Richter plays live in Moscow Suite of Sviatoslav Richter unpublished * November 9, 1956 11. Prelude and Fugue No. 4 in E minor* 7'56 Tatjana Nikolayeva rec. Studio Moscow 1962 2. Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in A minor 2'15 12. Prelude and Fugue No.7 in A major* 3'07 3. Prelude and Fugue No. 13 in F sharp major 9'36 3. Prelude and Fugue No. 3 in G major 3'33 13. Prelude and Fugue No.17 in A flat major* 5'22 Sviatoslav Richter plays live in Kiev June 9, 1963 Sviatoslav Richter plays live in 14. Prelude and Fugue No.12 in G sharp minor* 7'41 4. Prelude and Fugue No.
    [Show full text]
  • Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies
    1 Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies 46th Annual Convention • November 20-23, 2014 San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter • San Antonio, TX “25 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Historical Legacies and New Beginnings” Stephen E. Hanson, College of William and Mary ASEEES Board President We are most grateful to our sponsors for their generous support. GOLD SPONSOR: East View Information Services BRONZE SPONSORS: College of William and Mary Reves Center for International Studies National Research University Higher School of Economics Indiana University Russian and East European Institute • University of Texas, Austin Center for Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies and Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies 2 Contents Convention Schedule Overview ..................................................................................................... 2 List of the Meeting Rooms at the Marriott Rivercenter .............................................................. 3 Visual Anthropology Film Series ................................................................................................4-5 Diagram of Meeting Rooms ............................................................................................................ 6 Exhibit Hall Diagram ....................................................................................................................... 7 Index of Exhibitors, Alphabetical ................................................................................................... 8
    [Show full text]
  • Bartók Béla Életének Krónikája Translated by Márta Rubin
    BÉLA BARTÓK JNR. Chronicles of Béla Bartók’s Life BÉLA BARTÓK JNR. CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTÓK’S LIFE Magyarságkutató Intézet Budapest, 2021 Translation based on Béla Bartók Jnr.’s original Bartók Béla életének krónikája Translated by Márta Rubin Book Editor: Gábor Vásárhelyi Assistant: Ágnes Virághalmy The publication of this book was sponsored by EMMI. A kötet megjelenését az EMMI támogatta. Original edition © Béla Bartók Jnr., 1981 Revised edition © Béla Bartók Jnr.’s legal successor (Gábor Vásárhelyi), 2021 Translation © Márta Rubin, 2021 ISBN 978-615-6117-26-7 CONTENTS Foreword ......................................................7 Preface .......................................................11 Family, Infancy (1855–1889) ....................................15 School Years (1890–1903) .......................................21 Connecting to the Music Life of Europe (1904–1906) ...............71 Settling In Budapest. Systematic Collection of Folk Songs (1907–1913) ................99 War Years (1914–1919) ........................................149 After World War I (1920–1921) .................................189 Great Concert Tours on Two Continents (1922–1931) .............205 Economic Crisis (1932–1933) ..................................335 At The Academy of Sciences. Great Compositions (1934–1938) .....359 World War II. Second and Third American Tour (1939–1945) .......435 Last Journey Home, “… But For Good” (1988) ....................507 Identification List of Place Names ...............................517 FOREWORD FOREWORD I have the honour of being a family member of Béla Bartók Jnr., the author of this book. He was the husband of my paternal aunt and my Godfather. Of our yearly summer vacations spent together, I remember well that summer when one and a half rooms of the two-room-living-room cottage were occupied by the scraps of paper big and small, letters, notes, railway tickets, and other documents necessary for the compilation of this book.
    [Show full text]
  • Sergei Prokofiev
    Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (/prɵˈkɒfiɛv/; Russian: Сергей Сергеевич Прокофьев, tr. Sergej Sergeevič Prokof'ev; April 27, 1891 [O.S. 15 April];– March 5, 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous musical genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard works as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet – from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken – and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created – excluding juvenilia – seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, and nine completed piano sonatas. A graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915 Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev – Chout, Le pas d'acier and The Prodigal Son – which at the time of their original production all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. Prokofiev's greatest interest, however, was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel. Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime was The Love for Three Oranges, composed for the Chicago Opera and subsequently performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Topics and Style of Soviet Animated Films
    BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2016 / VOLUME 4 / ARTICLE Article On the Topics and Style of Soviet Animated Films ÜLO PIKKOV, Estonian Academy of Arts; email: [email protected] 16 DOI: 10.1515/bsmr-2017-0002 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2016 / VOLUME 4 / ARTICLE ABSTRACT This article provides a survey of Soviet animation and analyses the thematic and stylistic course of its develop- ment. Soviet animated film emerged and materialised in synch with the fluctuations of the region’s political climate and was directly shaped by it. A number of trends and currents of Soviet animation also pertain to other Eastern European countries. After all, Eastern Europe constituted an integrated cultural space that functioned as a single market for the films produced across it by filmmakers who interacted in a professional regional network of film education, events, festivals, publications etc. Initially experimental, post-revolutionary Russian ani- mation soon fell under the sway of the Socialist Realist discourse, along with the rest of Soviet art, and quickly crystallised as a didactic genre for children. Disney’s para- digm became its major source of inspiration both in terms of visual style and thematic scope, despite the fact that Soviet Union was regarded as the ideological opposite of the Western way of life and mindset. The Soviet animation industry was spread across different studios and republics that adopted slightly varied production practices and tolerated different degrees of artistic freedom. Studios in the smaller republics, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in particular, stood out for making films that were more ideologically complicated than those produced in Moscow.
    [Show full text]
  • Chicago Symphony Orchestra
    Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra 2014-2015 January 30, 31 and February 1, 20156 KRZYSZTOF URBANSKI, Conductor NOAH BENDIX-BALGLEY, Violin SERGEI PROKOFIEV Russian Overture, Opus 72 ARAM KHACHATURIAN Concerto for Violin and Orchestra I. Allegro con fermezza II. Andante sostenuto III. Allegro vivace Mr. Bendix-Balgley Intermission MODEST MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition orch. MAURICE RAVEL Introduction: Promenade I. The Gnome II. Promenade — The Old Castle III. Promenade — Tuileries IV. Bydlo V. Promenade — Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells VI. Two Polish Jews (Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle) VII. The Marketplace at Limoges — VIII. Catacombs, Roman Tombs — Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua IX. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs — X. The Great Gate of Kiev Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2015, page 1 PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. RICHARD E. RODDA SERGEI PROKOFIEV Born 23 April 1891 in Sontzovka, Russia; died 5 March 1953 in Moscow Russian Overture, Opus 72 (1936) PREMIERE OF WORK: Moscow, 29 October 1936; Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory; Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra; Eugene Szenkar, conductor THESE PERFORMANCES MARK THE PSO PREMIERE APPROXIMATE DURATION: 14 minutes INSTRUMENTATION: piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, piano and strings The 27-year-old Prokofiev had established himself as the enfant terrible of Russian music by the time he left his homeland in 1918, in the wake of the October Revolution, to spread his reputation as a pianist and avant-garde composer around the world. He traveled overland to Vladivostok, stopped for recitals in Japan, and then spent the next four years shuttling between the United States and Europe to perform and fulfill commissions (including an important one in 1919 from the Chicago Opera for The Love for Three Oranges), before deciding to settle in Germany in 1922.
    [Show full text]
  • Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Koenig Books Isbn 978-3-86560-706-5 Early 20Th Century Russia · Andrey Smirnov
    SOUND IN Z Russia, 1917 — a time of complex political upheaval that resulted in the demise of the Russian monarchy and seemingly offered great prospects for a new dawn of art and science. Inspired by revolutionary ideas, artists and enthusiasts developed innumerable musical and audio inventions, instruments and ideas often long ahead of their time – a culture that was to be SOUND IN Z cut off in its prime as it collided with the totalitarian state of the 1930s. Smirnov’s account of the period offers an engaging introduction to some of the key figures and their work, including Arseny Avraamov’s open-air performance of 1922 featuring the Caspian flotilla, artillery guns, hydroplanes and all the town’s factory sirens; Solomon Nikritin’s Projection Theatre; Alexei Gastev, the polymath who coined the term ‘bio-mechanics’; pioneering film maker Dziga Vertov, director of the Laboratory of Hearing and the Symphony of Noises; and Vladimir Popov, ANDREY SMIRNO the pioneer of Noise and inventor of Sound Machines. Shedding new light on better-known figures such as Leon Theremin (inventor of the world’s first electronic musical instrument, the Theremin), the publication also investigates the work of a number of pioneers of electronic sound tracks using ‘graphical sound’ techniques, such as Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, Nikolai Voinov, Evgeny Sholpo and Boris Yankovsky. From V eavesdropping on pianists to the 23-string electric guitar, microtonal music to the story of the man imprisoned for pentatonic research, Noise Orchestras to Machine Worshippers, Sound in Z documents an extraordinary and largely forgotten chapter in the history of music and audio technology.
    [Show full text]