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Classics Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891–1953) Classics CHAN 10481 X CHAN 10481 X Booklet Cover.indd 1 11/6/08 13:46:13 Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891–1953) Lieutenant Kijé, Op. 60 21:14 Symphonic Suite 1 4:15 1 The Birth of Kijé © Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library 2 2 Romance 4:31 3 3 The Wedding of Kijé 2:59 4 4 Troika 3:04 5 5 Interment of Kijé 6:09 6 Dreams, Op. 6 11: 01 Symphonic Poem 7 Andante, Op. 50bis 8:18 Transcription for string orchestra by the composer from String Quartet No. 1, Op. 50 Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev, early 1950s 3 Prokofiev: The Stone Flower/Lieutenant Kijé Lieutenant Kijé baritone); the theme returns romantically on 8 Autumnal, Op. 8 6:52 The sharp satirical aspect for which Sergey the strings after a livelier central section. Symphonic Sketch Prokofiev is widely renowned is engagingly Nevertheless, Kijé is given a wife, his expressed in the suite Lieutenant Kijé. This wedding celebrated in bucolic spirit as a Suite from ‘The Stone Flower’, Op. 118 30:42 was taken from his first film score (1933), trumpet lurches about as if in alcoholic his first major project after he had decided enjoyment, with some mock‑serious attempt 9 Prologue. The Mistress of the Copper Mountain 4:10 to return permanently to his native country by the party to pull itself together. Kijé is Wedding Suite, Op. 126: after some fifteen years in the West. The film next taken on a breezy sleigh ride to the was to be made in Leningrad as a satire on sounds of a tavern song (the alternative 10 1 Amorous Dance 6:28 the foibles of Tsar Paul I, from a story by vocal version infers some fickleness among 11 2 Dance of the Fiancée’s Girl Friends 2:05 Yury Tynyanov, The Tsar Sleeps. By a slip of a womenfolk), but when the Tsar demands to 12 3 Maidens’ Dance 4:05 bureaucratic pen an imaginary Lieutenant Kijé meet this officer, Kijé has to suffer a sudden is entered on certain military documents, for end, though with full military honours and a 13 4 Ceremonial Dance 1:45 whom an identity and an existence have to display of Prokofiev’s ingenuity in combining 14 5 Wedding Dance 3:18 be invented once the documents have been several of the previous themes in new approved by the Tsar. orchestral colours and counterpoint. 15 Scene 4 No. 19. Scene and Waltz of the Diamonds 5:00 Effecting slight changes of orchestration 16 Scene 4 No. 21. Waltz 3:42 for concert performance, Prokofiev’s suite Dreams TT 78:42 makes a digest of Kijé’s imaginary life story. Dreams is a short Symphonic Poem A nostalgic cornet fanfare, and military composed in 1910 while Prokofiev was still a Scottish National Orchestra measures from piccolo, flute and side teenager at the St Petersburg Conservatory. drum answered by the horn, establishes There Nikolay Tcherepnin directed the Edwin Paling leader the wholly illusory world into which Kijé is conducting course but also passed on his Neeme Järvi ‘born’, tenderly cradled by a flute and tenor enthusiasm for the sensuous tone colours saxophone theme that recurs later. His first of Debussy and Scriabin. The latter was the love seems unrequited in the soulful lament dedicatee of Dreams, which Prokofiev called of the second movement (for which there ‘a “pensive” opus’; it illustrates an unusual exists an alternative version involving a solo aspect of the composer’s creative personality, 4 5 being a mainly melancholy mood study for one might associate with Rachmaninoff. of the former, was anxious to work with Urals Rhapsody). Its five movements are large orchestra (including six horns and Beginning with a winding figure for clarinets, Prokofiev again. He helped Mira Mendelson‑ reworkings of dances in the ballet’s Prologue triple brass, often played muted), with a brief followed by violas, which returns at the end, Prokofieva, the composer’s second wife, to and first two scenes, sometimes combining emotion‑laden climax at the centre. the work was twice revised by the composer, fashion a ballet scenario from stories she two original dances in one, as in the opening before his permanent return to the USSR, but found in The Malachite Box, a collection of ‘Amorous Dance’ or, in the case of the Andante it remained unpublished until after his death. tales in folk‑style, set in the Urals, by Pavel ‘Wedding Dance’, considerably extending the Prokofiev was never averse to letting music Bazhov. original form. with which he was pleased be heard in The Stone Flower The narrative of the ballet centres on To produce a longer selection, Neeme another form. This explains his transcription On 5 March 1953 Prokofiev finished revising Danila, a stonecutter working in malachite, Järvi has here framed this concert suite with for string orchestra of the Andante originally an Adagio pas de deux for the last act of the dark green copper ore abundant in the other numbers from the ballet score: the first composed as the third and last movement The Stone Flower which, after long delays, Urals. His urge is to create a more perfect part of the Prologue to start with, and two of his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 50. This had gone into rehearsal by the Bolshoi stone flower, for which he abandons his waltzes from the ballet’s Act II, the ‘Copper had been a commission from the Library Ballet in Moscow a few days previously. The betrothed, Katerina, and is taken in thrall Mountain’ scene. The sparkling second of of Congress in Washington, D.C., following same evening Prokofiev died suddenly at by the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, these is derived in turn from an earlier piano Prokofiev’s extended concert tour of the his Moscow apartment, unaware that at the who shows him the wonders of her fantasy suite, Music for Children, Op. 65, while the USA in 1930, and was first performed Kremlin, not far away, death had also come realm. Katerina is left to defend herself ‘Maidens’ Dance’ in the Wedding Suite comes at Washington the next year. The quiet, that day to a certain Joseph Stalin, some of against the brutal Severyan, but is eventually from a chorus which Prokofiev had first reflective mood and melodic character of the whose cultural decrees had been responsible able to win back Danila to her love. The composed as part of his music for the film work show Prokofiev edging back closer to for the indifference shown to several of the premiere in Moscow on 12 February 1954 Ivan the Terrible (1945). In general, his music his Russian origins, and he is said to have latest works by the composer, despite his was not a success, but a new version by Yuri for The Stone Flower has a more folk‑like looked on it as one of his best compositions. outstanding international reputation, and Grigorovich for the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad character than that of his other ballets, and had prevented him from seeing his last ballet in 1957 proved more popular. Since then is very much in the lyrically romantic tradition Autumnal performed. several other productions have been staged, that descended from Tchaikovsky. An elegiac feeling colours the youthful Its initial composition took him only a in the West, by different choreographers. © Noël Goodwin Symphonic Sketch Autumnal, composed matter of months after he began it in 1948, When the Bolshoi Theatre authorities first in 1911 while Prokofiev was still a student the year in which he and other leading accepted and then shelved plans to stage at the St Petersburg Conservatory. When Soviet composers were officially censured The Stone Flower, Prokofiev followed his One of Europe’s leading symphony orchestras, questioned about it later, he observed that for ‘formalist perversions and undemocratic custom with regard to other ballet scores the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was autumn is not only an annual season, but tendencies’ in their music. After the earlier and in 1951 fashioned three orchestral formed in 1891 as the Scottish Orchestra. a human feeling that young people may successes of Prokofiev’s music for the ballets suites for concert performance. The Wedding Becoming the Scottish National Orchestra experience no less than their elders, and he Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, Leonid Suite, recorded here, was the first of these in 1950, it was awarded Royal Patronage acknowledged that it echoed a melancholy Lavrovsky, the distinguished choreographer (the others were titled Gypsy Fantasy and in 1991. Renowned conductors such as 6 7 Walter Susskind, Sir Alexander Gibson, of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Music Bryden Thomson, Neeme Järvi, Walter Weller Director Emeritus of the Detroit Symphony Prokofjew: Die steinerne Blume/Leutnant Kijé and Alexander Lazarev have contributed to Orchestra, Principal Conductor Emeritus its success. In September 2005 Stéphane of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Denève became Music Director, and the new First Principal Guest Conductor of the Japan Leutnant Kijé wiederkehrt, sanft gewiegt. Im seelenvollen partnership has already enjoyed overwhelming Philharmonic Orchestra and Conductor Laureate Der Aspekt treffender Satire, für den Sergej Lament des zweiten Satzes (für den es eine acclaim. The Orchestra performs across of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He Prokofjew weithin bekannt ist, drückt sich Alternativfassung mit Baritonsolo gibt) scheint Scotland, including seasons in Glasgow, makes frequent guest appearances with the in der Suite Leutnant Kijé reizend aus. Sie seine erste Liebe unerwidert; das Thema Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth and foremost orchestras of the world, including ist aus seiner ersten Filmpartitur (1933) kehrt nach einem lebhafteren Mittelabschnitt Inverness, recently toured Croatia and Austria, the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw entnommen, die sein erstes größeres romantisch in den Streichern wieder.
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  • Competing Visions of Love and Brotherhood: Rewriting War and Peace for the Soviet Opera Stage
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