EXPLORING ST. PETERSBURG a WORKSHOP for TEACHERS St

EXPLORING ST. PETERSBURG A WORKSHOP FOR TEACHERS

St. Petersburg: the historical context of its musical heritage

Saturday, October 11, 2003

Lesson Plans by Carol Mohrlock Ann Arbor Public Schools Slauson Middle School [email protected]

Music CD Sylvia Meloche and Yevgenia Kleyman

For information on other teaching materials and workshops, Contact Sylvia M. Meloche Outreach Coordinator Center for Russian & East European Studies The University of Michigan 1080 S. University, Suite 4668 Ann Arbor MI 48104 tel: 734.647.4185 [email protected] http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/crees/

Table of Contents

Introductory Lesson – What Do You Know?

Map Work of Russia

Peter the Great

Peter the Great, Lesson from DiscoverySchool.com

Evaluating Discrimination and Human Dignity

Russia’s Climate and Folk Music

Appreciation of Folk Music

Reading about Musical Folk Instruments

Getting to Know St. Petersburg

Multiple Expressions of “Moscow Nights”

Rhythm and Melodic Phrase in “Little Birch Tree” from www.teachervision.com

Nineteenth-century Classical Music and St. Petersburg

Vocabulary Activity

Population and St. Petersburg

A Look at Two Twentieth-century Russian Composers

Additional Information

Russian Music Discography

Russian Cyrillic Alphabet with English Phonetic Sound Equivalents

Russian Words

Two Russian Recipes

Introductory Lesson

Title: What do you Know?

Overview: This lesson is for students to think of: • what they already know of Russia • to share information about Russia in a small group setting • to have clarification on some of their questions • to learn some new facts about Russia

Lesson Focus: • The 5 themes of Geography as they relate to Russia • Strand II of Geographic Perspective, “Students will use knowledge of spatial patterns on earth to understand processes that shape human environments to make decisions about society.”

Materials: • overhead map of Russia • teacher created facts of Russia • paper

What to Do: 1. Teacher asks students to write down any facts they know about Russia.

2. Round Table (Kagan Cooperative Learning Structure) • Students sit in groups of 4. • One piece of paper is needed per each group of 4. • Each student at the group writes down one fact about Russia and passes the paper. • Continue this process till teacher calls time (3-4 minutes).

3. When time is up, one student at each group of 4 reads the statements to the group. Students clarify statements and discuss.

4. Teacher calls on a few students and clarifies or emphasizes a fact.

5. Teacher shares information (facts) with students. Students are to take notes. See teacher fact sheet for information on the 5 themes of geography.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 1 Teacher Facts Facts based on the 5 Themes of Geography

Location • located on continent of Europe and Asia • largest country in area in the world (17,075,400 sq. km) • European Russia is separated from Asian part of Russia by Ural Mountains • deepest lake in the world is Lake Baikal (5,315 feet deep) • St. Petersburg is a city on the Baltic Sea

Place • most Russians live west of the Ural Mountains • Slavs are the largest ethnic group in the region • most people speak a Slavic language (such as Russian) • most Slavs are of the religion known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity • 3 climate regions are in Russia o subarctic = very cold and bitter winters, temperatures are above freezing during summer. o humid continental = short hot summers and long cold winters o steppe = dry grassland area which gets more rain than deserts (10-20 inches a year)

Movement • Volga River (2,193 miles) is an important river for water and transportation in European Russia • natural gas, oil and coal are minerals which are exported • music by many composers has been and is listened to many people all over the world o Tchaikovsky o Stravinsky o Rimsky-Korsakov • dance o St. Petersburg’s Kirov Ballet; Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater (ballet) • Russian literature is read all over the world o Pushkin (19th century) o Tolstoy, (19th century) o Dostoyevsky (19th century) o Gorky (20th century) o Solzhenitsyn (20th century) • painting o Hermitage Museum goes on display o Malevich and Kandinsky are famous modern art painters

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 2 Region western part of Russia located on the North European Plain region • eastern part of Russia located on Siberian Plain • use to be part of communist government, now moving toward free enterprise system and a capitalist country

Human Environment Interaction • most of the population lives close to cities • majority of Russians live west of the Ural Mountains • most Russian live in European Russia because the temperature is not sub-arctic

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 3

Title: Map Work Related to Russia

Overview: This lesson is for students to: • locate physical and political features on a map

Lesson Focus: • Location and region themes of geography as they relate to Russia

Materials: • map of Russia for each student • overhead map of Russia • teacher created list of physical and political features of Russia • discussion questions

What to Do: 1. Students are to label their maps using class atlases, classroom maps, possible text and classroom books.

2. Teacher uses overhead map of Russia to point out specific areas.

3. After labeling maps, students should reflect on the questions. Whole class or small group discussion may take place (see discussion questions).

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Physical and Political Features of Russia

* Label the following features on the map.

Cities • St. Petersburg • Murmansk • Moscow • Volgograd • Chelyabinsk • Perm • Kazan • Nizhniy Novgorod • Samara • Astrakhan • Omsk • Novosibirsk • Yakutsk • Irkutsk • Khabarovsk • Vladivostok

Countries • Finland • Estonia • Lativia • Lithuania • Poland • Belarus • Ukraine • Georgia • Kazakhstan • Mongolia • China • North Korea

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Bodies of Water • Barents Sea • Kara Sea • Baltic Sea • Black Sea • Laptev Sea • Caspian Sea • Lake Baikal • Volga River • Ob River • Irtysh River • Lena River

Land Forms • North European Plain • West Siberian Plain • Central Siberian Plateau • Caucasus Mountains • Ural Mountains • Sayan Mountains • Yablonovy Mountains • Arctic Circle

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Title: Peter the Great

Overview: Students will: • read about Peter the Great • gather knowledge about Peter’s life and work in relation to Russia

Lesson Focus: • Social Studies Content Standard 2 Historical Perspective. “All students will understand narratives about major eras of American and world history by identifying the people involved, describing the setting, and sequencing the events. (Comprehending the Past).” • Benchmark 3 middle school • Benchmark 4 high school

Materials: • article on Peter the Great (see attached sample article) • paraphrase chips • questions

What to Do: 1. Students read article on Peter the Great

2. After reading the piece and taking notes on Peter the Great students practice the literacy strategy of paraphrasing. Paraphrase Passport, (Kagan Cooperative Learning Structure) will be used.

3. Steps for Paraphrase Passport are described as follows. o Students are sitting in groups of 4. o Each student gets 4 paraphrase chips. o One student at a time contributes an idea based on the reading. o Another group member is to correctly restate (paraphrase) that idea before giving his/her own statement related to the article. o The idea is to not give up a chip. Students share and review the information they read. Also students all have an opportunity to talk within the group. Students also get feedback regarding their communication skills.

4. Upon completion of Paraphrase Passport a class discussion of Peter the Great could occur. See sample questions, which are attached.

5. Students could write an essay on Peter the Great upon completion of the activity.

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Sample Questions

1. How did Peter’s leadership affect the course of history?

2. How has the work of Peter the Great had an impact on the modern world?

3. How did Peter the Great’s work affect Russia at the time?

Lesson Created by Carol Mohrlock 12 Teacher Notes on Peter the Great

*Born in 1672 in Moscow.

* Peter’s reign was from 1689 – 1725.

* Religion meant little to him—hostility to the church.

* Peter had an interest in expanding Russia’s export trade via maritime.

* The main feature of his reign was the Great Northern War with Sweden (1700-1721).

* He wanted to make Russia a European power.

*Peter worked to change Russian society.

*Through most of Peter’s reign, Russia was at war.

*1700 Peter introduced the Julian calendar. Russia used this calendar till 1917.

*Peter made Russia into a European power.

*He broke Swedish power in the Baltic region.

*His second wife was Catherine, who succeeded him.

*He loved to learn and even practiced dentistry.

*Established Russian presence on the Black Sea.

*1695 went to war with Turkey and lost.

*First reigning Russian sovereign to travel abroad. Traveled from March 1697 to August 1698 on the “Great Embassy.”

*Trimmed beards and imposed a tax on beards.

*First public theater was in 1756. The theater was not a high priority for him.

Teacher Notes Compiled by Carol Mohrlock 13

The following lesson plan comes from the website school.discovery.com

TITLE OF LESSON PLAN: Peter the Great

LENGTH OF LESSON: Two class periods

GRADE LEVEL: 9-12

SUBJECT AREA: World History

CREDIT: Wendy S. Buchberg, instructional technology support specialist, Corning-Painted Post School District, Corning, New York.

OBJECTIVES: Students will understand the following:

1. Peter the Great modernized Russia, which had been left behind in the arts and sciences.

2. Peter the Great was inspired by what he saw in western Europe on his travels.

MATERIALS: For this lesson, you will need:

History textbooks and time lines, biographies of Peter the Great, and other reference materials about the late 17th and early 18th centuries

Markers and other art supplies

22 PROCEDURE:

1. Invite students to demonstrate their knowledge of Peter the Great by adopting his persona—writing in the first person as if they were Peter the Great. As Peter the Great, they should write five or more entries in his travel journal or letters to his wife, Catherine. They can mix journal entries and letters or stick to one genre only. All the entries should be written as if Peter were traveling somewhere in Europe. Have students assume that Peter wrote the journal entries with the intention of keeping them private. Explain that, according to biographer Robert K. Massie, when Peter was away from home, he really did write to Catherine every three or four days.

2. Share a sample of correspondence from Peter to Catherine:Berlin, October 2, 1712 Yesterday I arrived here and I went to see the King. Yesterday morning, he came to me and last night I went to the Queen. I send you as many oysters as I could find. I couldn't get any more because they say the plague has broken out in Hamburg and it is forbidden to bring anything from there.

3. Help students analyze how much hard information comes across in Peter's short letter from Berlin: where Peter wrote from and when; what he did in Berlin; what he sent along with the letter as a gift to his wife; what new development had occurred elsewhere in the country he was visiting. Point out to students that correspondence from a traveler often mixes small, personal details with larger-scale information about a journey. The letters and journal entries that your students write should contain not only the emotions students suspect Peter may have been feeling but also real news about the world he was exploring on his trips. Students can discover when Peter would have learned about specific events in Europe—events worth recording in his journal or letters—by reviewing printed and electronic history textbooks, biographies, and chronologies showing where Peter was when and what news he heard about or saw firsthand.

4. Brainstorm with the students to draw up a list of topics that Peter might have written about in his journal or letters to Catherine. A partial list would include the following:

- Peter's thoughts as he traveled in disguise so that he could learn about the progress of the West without giving away his identity

- Peter's thoughts about the Church in Russia

- Peter's plans for the Russian military—especially the navy

- Peter's thoughts about other monarchs in Europe—especially Charles XII of Sweden

- Peter's interest in science—especially new instruments such as the microscope

5. Also challenge students to show in their made-up journal entries and letters the range of moods Peter, like most people, was capable of:

- Love for Catherine and concern for their children

- Misery over his son Alexis

- Violent anger

- Awe at the progress of the West

- Competitiveness with other countries

6. Tell students that the journal entries and letters should reflect actual trips that Peter took—the dates he was away and the places he visited at those times.

7. You can have students decorate the paper they use for journal entries and correspondence with designs Peter may have seen in Russia or on his trips abroad.

ADAPTATIONS:

Have students generate only one travel journal entry or one letter to Catherine.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Peter felt his country had been isolated from progress too long, and he looked to Europe as the center of culture and technology. If you felt isolated in your community today, where would you look for inspiration and ideas for advancement? Would you necessarily need to travel as far and wide as Peter did to find what you need? What other resources could you tap into?

2. Peter struggled to bring Russia out of the Dark Ages and into a more modern existence. Today, many (underdeveloped) developing countries are striving toward the same goal. Are the obstacles faced by such countries today the same ones faced by 17th century Russia? Analyze the similarities and differences you can identify in their situations.

3. Peter sensed a large gap in his background and knowledge and set out to fill that gap by learning everything he could about the world beyond Russia's borders. Select a current world leader whom you feel could stand to learn more about something important to his or her country's future. Name the leader, explain what he or she needs to learn, and suggest a strategy for attaining that knowledge.

4. Peter the Great seemed to be completely fascinated by cities. What fascinates you about cities? If Peter were to reappear today, what three cities would you show him? Explain your choices.

5. Peter the Great had his own son killed because of an act of treason. Do you think his son deserved this punishment? How do you think Peter felt about ordering the death of his own son? Do you think he should have done this or was there another option for punishment?

6. Although Peter brought many positive changes to Russia during his reign, he was still a dictator with absolute power. How would you feel if you had lived in Russia during his reign? Would you have been a supporter? Explain the reasons for your answer.

EVALUATION:

You can evaluate your students on their journal entries or letters using the following three-point rubric:

- Three points: meets the minimum of at least five entries; includes many historical facts appropriate to the time and place of the written piece; shows correct grammar, usage, and mechanics

- Two points: meets the minimum of at least five entries; includes some historical facts appropriate to the time and place of the written piece; shows mostly correct grammar, usage, and mechanics

- One point: does not meet the minimum of at least five entries; does not include historical facts; shows significant errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics

You can ask your students to contribute to the assessment rubric by determining how many historical facts should be required.

EXTENSION:

Roads Not Taken in Russian History Clearly, Peter the Great's reign made a lasting imprint on the future of Russia for centuries to come. But what would have become of Russia if Sophia had been able to retain her power? What might have happened if Ivan had had the mental capacity to become czar and had challenged Peter for the throne? Or suppose Peter had decided to leave Russia altogether and relocate to the city of Amsterdam, which he found so fascinating, instead of returning with innovations to his homeland? Have students examine some of these alternatives within the total context of Russian history and make sound predictions based on factual evidence. Then, they can present their predictions in a web that explains where different choices would have led. Webs can be hand drawn or created with webbing software such as Inspiration K-12.

City Planning Use Peter the Great's fascination with European cities and his innovative construction of St. Petersburg as a springboard into urban planning. Challenge your class to give your town or a nearby city or town a total facelift by incorporating modern architecture, business centers, and cutting-edge industry. Or they can create their very own city from scratch.

Divide the class into cooperative planning groups to maximize the product of brainstorming. Students can use paper and pencil or computer drawing software to sketch out ideas for new buildings, enterprise zones, and recreation facilities. In the end, each group should submit a list of innovations, a map, and sketches.

SUGGESTED READINGS:

World Leaders Past & Present: Peter the Great Kathleen McDermott. Chelsea House, 1991. This biography traces the life of the czar who began the transformation of Russia into a modern state in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

St. Petersburg: A Cultural History Solomon Volkov, translated by Antonina W. Bouis. Free Press, 1997. The author presents the gateway to the West in his cultural biography of the city built in 1703 by Peter the Great, detailing the artists who have helped shape the city and its inhabitants.

26 WEB LINKS:

History-Part Three-Reconquest of Peter the Great This site describes Tsarskoe Selo, which, according to the site's author, “had been established as a country retreat by Catherine I, wife of Peter the Great.” The site is opulent in its design and beautifully illustrates the lifestyle of 18th century Russia. http://www.alexanderpalace.org/tsarskoe/historythree.html

History of St. Petersburg, Russia: Peter the Great This site is part of a cultural guide to St. Petersburg. Contains links to cultural and business resources in St. Petersburg as well as an excellent description of the city's history. http://www.cityvision2000.com/history/peterthe.htm

Peter the Great Here you can find a history of the dynasties of the Russian czar. http://www.sptimes.com/Treasures/TC.2.3.6.html

Peter the Great of Russia Click on the large picture of Peter the Great and move to a page with numerous links on royal Russia. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/Frank/Gifs/pgreat.html

A History of the Russian Navy Here is an extensive site on Russian naval history with a large number of pages dedicated to Peter I. http://www.neva.ru/EXPO96/book/book-cont.html

VOCABULARY: decree An order usually having the force of law. Context: A European dress code was enforced by decree. interrogation A systematic and formal questioning. Context: Suspecting a plot against him, Peter forced his guards to undergo cruel interrogation until the truth came out. regent One who governs a kingdom in the minority, absence, or disability of the sovereign. Context: Ivan and Peter shared the crown, with Sophia as regent.

27 regime A form of government. Context: The clock was already ticking on Sophia's regime. sacrilege Gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing. Context: Many thought Peter's decision to melt down Russia's church bells to make weapons was sacrilege, but he thought it was progress. serfs Members of a servile feudal class subject to the will of their lord. Context: The Russian serfs were enslaved to grinding poverty and harsh physical labor.

ACADEMIC STANDARDS:

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Subject Area: world history

Standard: Understands how European society experienced political, economic, and cultural transformations in an age of global intercommunication between 1450 and 1750.

Benchmarks: (6-8)Understands the emergence of strong individual leaders, monarchies, and states in Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries (e.g., the character, development, and sources of wealth of strong bureaucratic monarchies; the significance of Peter the Great's westernizing reforms; the emergence of the Dutch republic as a powerful European state; the reign of Elizabeth I and her efficacy as a leader and builder of a strong nation-state; the governmental policies of Catherine the Great; why St. Petersburg was called the window on the West). (9-12)Understands the accomplishments of significant European leaders between the 16th and 18th centuries (e.g., the success of Russian expansion in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Siberia, and the success of the czars in transforming the Duchy of Moscow into a Eurasian empire; the life and achievements of Louis XIV, and elements of absolutist power during this period; how Peter the Great and Catherine the Great expanded Russian territory; major achievements in the reigns of Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great, and Joseph II, and which of these leaders displayed the features of an “enlightened despot”).

28 Grade Level: 9-12 Subject Area: geography

Standard: Understands the forces of cooperation and conflict that shape the divisions of Earth's surface.

Benchmarks: Understands the changes that occur in the extent and organization of social, political, and economic entities on Earth's surface (e.g., imperial powers such as the Roman Empire, Han dynasty, Carolingian Empire, British Empire).

DiscoverySchool.com http://www.discoveryschool.com

29 Title: Evaluating Discrimination and Human Dignity

Overview: This lesson is for students to: • use observation skills • engage in a discussion

Lesson Focus: Social Studies Content Standard 4 Historical Perspective. “All students will evaluate key decisions made at critical turning points in history by assessing their implications and long term consequences. (Judging Decisions from the Past).” Benchmark # 2 high school

Materials: • teacher facts on Peter the Great • picture from the book: Chronicle of the Russian Tsars by David Warnes

What to Do: 1. Teacher shares facts on Peter the Great. See attached teacher fact sheet.

2. Students may choose to take notes. Teacher may supplement the facts with additional classroom reading which may be available on this topic.

3. Discussion using the following questions.

• What were some strengths of Peter the Great? • What were some of Peter’s weaknesses? • How did the Russian society, at this time, benefit from Peter’s work?

4. Teacher hands out copy of the picture (or shows it on an overhead).

5. Students are to reflect on the following questions.

• What do you think of this picture? Why? • How would you feel if this were happening to you? (beard being cut) Why? • What other historical events have taken place through history which show discrimination and persecution? • Is passing a law which states cutting a beard is to occur so bad? Why or why not?

6. Teacher leads a discussion involving the above questions.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 31

http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/barber.html

32 Translation- The Barber

Inscription in the upper right corner:

"The barber wants to cut off an Old Believer's beard."

Inscription in the upper left corner:

"The Old Believer says: Listen, barber, I neither want to cut my beard nor shave. Watch out, or I will call the guards to teach you to behave."

Translation Copyright: Alexander Boguslawski 1999

Secular content appeared in the folk print only in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. These worldly themes were a response to the secularizing policies of Peter the Great and to his program of reforms that affected all aspects of Russian life, turning the patriarchal and backward Russia into a modern and westernized empire. Of course, the forcible europeanization and secularization of the country found many opponents, especially among the streltsy, the Old Believers, and the conservative members of the upper classes. The satirical prints seem to reflect popular anti-Petrine feelings. Most traditionalists found the tsar's reforms controversial and difficult to accept. One of the best known lubki directed against Peter's policies is The Barber Wants to Cut Off an Old Believer's Beard, a protest against the forcible shaving of beards and mustaches.

http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/barber.html

33 Title: Russia’s Climate and Folk Music

Objective: Students will: • listen to Russian folk music • make connections as to how important folk music was to the Russian people • make a climate map of Russia

Lesson Focus: • Social Studies Strand II, Geographic Perspective, Content Standard 1. “All students will describe, compare, and explain the locations and characteristics of places, cultures, and settlements. (People, Places and Cultures)” • Benchmark # 3 middle school

• Social Studies Strand II, Geographic Perspective, Content Standard 2: “All students will describe, compare, and explain the locations and characteristics of ecosystems, resources, human adaptation, environmental impact, and the interrelationships among them. (Human/Environment Interaction)” • Benchmark # 1, 2, 3 middle school

Materials: • teacher input sheet on the Russian climate and the area • Selections of Russian folk music from CD • map of Russia • readings related to climate (see attached sheets) • tracing paper

What to Do: 1. Teacher sets the stage by asking students to visualize. See attached teacher input sheet.

2. Class discussion based on the students visualizations. Sample questions listed below. o What may life have been like for the Russian people in this area?

o What type of activities would people have done during these long months?

o How might the Russian people have felt given these environmental conditions?

3. Teacher shares more input and helps students to see the importance of folk music in the Russian culture. See attached teacher input sheet for more information.

4. Students listen to folk music while making a climate map of Russia. o Students trace or draw free hand a map of Russia. o Students show the 4 main climate regions of this country. o Students write 2-3 sentences explaining, in their own words, 2 of the climates found in Russia

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 34 Teacher Input

Imagine a huge mass of land. A country 3 times larger than the USA

A climate that is dangerous to the agricultural zone

Long and very snowy winters

Villages that are very far away from major cities

Sitting in the house for 8-9 months each year, before the invention of TV, video, radio, CDs

A small house where family members gather in one room

For hundreds of years people within this country did not have enough food

The goal is for the teacher to help the students see the importance of how folk music developed.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 35 Text is from Boehm, R.; Armstrong, D.; Hunkins, F. Geography the World and its People.National Geographic Society New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 1996.

Tundra Climate The climate of the Arctic tundra area is harsh and dry. The tundra is a vast rolling plain without trees. The top few inches of the ground thaw during summer months, however. This allows sturdy grasses, small berry bushes, and wildflowers to sprout. In parts of the tundra and the subarctic regions, the lower layers of soil are known as permafrost because they stay permanently frozen.

Subarctic Climate

Just below the Arctic Circle lie the subarctic areas. The few people living here face severely cold and bitter winters, but temperatures do rise above freezing during summer months. Huge evergreen forests grow in the subarctic region, especially in northern Russia.

Humid Continental Climate If you live far from the oceans in inland areas of North America, Europe, or Asia, you face a harsher humid continental climate. In these areas, winters can be long, cold, and snowy. Summers are short but may be very hot.

Steppe Climate Many deserts are surrounded by partly dry grasslands known as steppes. They get more rain than deserts, averaging 10 to 20 inches (25 to 51 cm.) a year. Bushes and short grasses cover the steppe landscape.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 36

Title: Appreciation of Folk Music

Overview: This lesson is for students to: • listen to various music pieces • write their opinion of the music selection *This lesson could be used with folk music selections and/or classical music pieces.

Lesson Focus: • English Language Arts Content Standard 2, Meaning and Communication: “All students will demonstrate the ability to write clear and grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs, and compositions.” • Benchmark # 1 middle school • Benchmark # 1 high school

Materials: • CD of music selections • CD player

What to Do: 1. Play a piece of Russian music for students to hear.

2. Students are welcome to jot any notes while listening to the music. As a structure, students could write comments related to these questions. See the sheet entitled overhead questions.

3. After listening to the musical piece, students write a paragraph formulating their views on the piece.

4. Students may choose to address in their writing piece the question of: “What effect does this type of music have in my life?

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 38 Title: Reading about Musical Folk Instruments

Overview: This lesson is for students to: • read 4 articles related to Russian folk instruments • formulate questions based on their reading • answer the various questions

Lesson Focus: • Reading comprehension and higher level thinking as students read about Russian folk instruments. • Question formation.

Materials: • 3 x 5 index cards • articles on folk instruments (See the 4 articles which have been included in this packet of materials.) Articles are on the jaleika, gusli, bayan and the domra. • teacher information sheet on the balalaika

What to Do: 1. Teacher models the activity entitled Send a Problem (Kagan Cooperative Learning Structure) by first sharing information on the balalaika (see attached teacher note sheet on the balalaika). Teacher actually shares the facts on the balalaika and then demonstrates writing questions related to this folk instrument.

2. Students read article. Each student at a group of 4 reads a different article.

3. Students write questions (related to the topic folk instruments) on a 3 x 5 index card. Write one question per card . On the back of the card write the answer. Students should try to write a minimum of 5 questions.

4. Students stack cards per group of 4. If time allows, results are best if teacher reviews the questions before students play the activity entitled “Send a Problem”.

5. Students read additional 3 articles on the remaining instruments. Students share the articles at their group of 4. Each student reads all 4 articles.

6. Teams of 4 pass their stack of questions to another team. The receiving team responds in the following fashion. a. Student 1 reads the first question. b. Team members try to answer the question. If the team reaches consensus, turn over the card to find the answer. If the team disagrees on the answer, they write their alternative answer on the back of the card.

7. Student 2 reads the next question in the stack of question cards and the same procedure is followed.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 39 8. The card decks can be sent on to a third and fourth group.

9. When card decks returns to the original group, opportunity is available to discuss and clarify questions.

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Teacher Information Sheet on the Balalaika

• an instrument • looks like a guitar but with a triangular body • 3 strings • fretted fingerboard • triangular soundboard • comes in different sizes • often mythical figures are painted on the soundboard • popular instrument in early Russia • still played in villages and also with folk music bands • considered a national instrument of Russia

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Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 54 Title: Getting to Know St. Petersburg

Overview: Students will: • gather information and knowledge about the city of St. Petersburg, Russia • work in pairs to solve problems with answers from an article • check with another team of two and celebrate their agreement

Lesson Focus: • partner and team work • learning about the city of St. Petersburg, Russia

Materials: • worksheet • reading (sample article is included) on St. Petersburg • teacher facts

What to Do: 1. Students work within a team of 4. Students will do Pairs Check (Kagan Cooperative Learning Structure).

2. Each team of 4 is divided into pairs (person A and person B).

3. One person (A) in the pair individually reads and searches for the answer. Their partner (B) checks their work when done. Person B corrects the work if it is wrong or praises if the work is correct.

4. Continue the process with person B individually doing the next problem. Person A checks the work.

5. Periodically all 4 students who are sitting together check answers among the 4 and celebrate with a cheer.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 58 Pairs Check Name______Name______Directions 1. Work in pairs (2) in your team of 4. 2. Person 1 in the pair does the first problem, person 2 is the coach. 3. Coaches, when you agree the person has done the first problem correctly, give praise and switch roles. 4. Once you have completed the first two problems, do not continue. Check your first two problems with the other pair. All 4 people share and check answers at this time. 5. When you agree on the answer, give praise/celebrate and move on to the next two problems. 6. Switch roles after each problem.

What used to be the name List the years when St. Petersburg of St. Petersburg? was the capital of Russia.

St. Petersburg has several Who was the last Russian Tsar? nicknames. Name one.

Where is Nicolas II buried? Name the greatest city built in Europe during the 18th century.

What items made it possible What is the Hermitage? to build St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg is known as the When did the Romanov dynasty fall? birthplace of what?

Write one question related Write one question related to the to the article. article.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 59 Reading from: www.roxana.spb.ru/aboutspb.htm

St. Petersburg (Leningrad from 1924 to 1992) was founded in 1703 by Russian

Tsar Peter the Great to bring an unwilling Russian nation into the fold of Europe.

Unlike some cities, it was not created by a process of gradual, graceful

development but was forcibly constructed, stond by stone, under the force and direction of Peter the Great, for whose patron saint the city is named. When it was nine years old, it became the capital of Russia and retained this status till 1918. Even now it is referred to as the “northern capital” of Russia. World-class architects participated in the building of the city and today it remains an imperial city of golden spires and glided domes, of pastel palaces and candlelit cathedrals.

St. Petersburg is a fascinating place which dazzles the eye of a visitor with numerous architectural landmarks, museums, palaces, parks, wide avenues, spectacular bridges and stylish monuments. Born in the heart of an emperor, St. Petersburg is

Russia’s adopted child, so unlike the Russian cities that came before it. St. Petersburg - with its strict geometric lines and perfectly planned architecture – is almost too European.

St. Petersburg is situated on 44 islands in Neva River’s delta and is famous for its bridges, embankments, museums, and, of course, for its magical White Nights, which begins in the beginning of June and lasts up to the middle of July.

During the season of White Nights St. Petersburg undoubtedly is the most beautiful city in the world. The space needed to describe all the beauty of this city, known as the “Venice of the North”, would fill unaccountable pages. The world famous

Hermitage State Museum, St. Isaac’s Cathedral – the second largest basilica in the world

– and the Peter and Paul Fortress – resting place of the last Russian Tsar Nicolas II – are

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 60 only three of the main architectural beauties to be seen and admired. In the summer, especially during the White Nights, you can enjoy the wonderful parks and gardens in the city with their statues and fountains.

“The most abstract and international city on earth” – to quote Fyodor

Dostoyevsky – became the birthplace of Russian literature, the setting for Dostoyevsky’s

Raskolnikov and Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. From here, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov,

Prokofiev, and Rimsky-Korsakov went forth to conquer the world with Russian music. It was here that great architects were summoned by 18th-century empresses to build palaces

that transformed the city into a symphony of marble, malachite, and gold.

St. Petersburg is not just about its fairy-tale setting, however, for its history is

integrally bound up in Russia’s dark side too – a centuries-long procession of wars and

revolutions. In the 19th century, the city witnessed the struggle against czarist oppression.

Here the early fires of revolution were kindled, first in 1825 by a small band of starry-

eyed aristocratic officers, the so-called Decembrists, and then by organized workers’

movements in 1905.

The full-scale revolutions of 1917 led to the demise of the Romanov dynasty, the

foundation of the Soviet Union, and the end of the city’s role as the nation’s capital. But

the worst ordeal by far came during World War II, when the city – then known as

Leningrad-withstood a 900 – day siege and blockade by Nazi forces.

Nowadays, St. Petersburg is a modern city and plays a very important role in

Russia’s political, scientific, and cultural life. It is really worth visiting.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 61

St. Petersburg Teacher facts

*focus of cultural reform

*May 16, 1703 is the traditional date of the founding of St. Petersburg. May 27 is the date on the modern calendar.

*Peter the Great wanted sea power.

*On May 16, 1703 Peter and Paul Fortress was founded.

*By Fall 1703 the wall and bastions of the fortress were finished. Many people died (soldiers and peasants) due to the damp climate, poor housing and primitive conditions.

*The city spreads to over 44 islands. Bridges join to the islands.

*St. Petersburg was thought to be an unhealthy town due to its climate and flooding. Peter the Great built in this location despite the many deaths and risks. By 1712 the city was large enough to be the capital of Russia.

*The city was unfinished when Peter the Great died.

*Today it is the second largest city in population in Russia.

*It is located in northwest Russia.

*Located on the Neva River

*Close to the Gulf of Finland

*Current manufacturing in this town includes textiles, scientific equipment and machinery.

Notes Compiled by Carol Mohrlock 62

Midnights in Moscow

Nye slýshný f sadu dazhe There is nothing to be heard in the shorokhi, garden, everything here has died down till the fsyo zdyes zamerlo do utra. morning. Yesli b znali vý, kak mnye dorogi If you only knew how I love podmoskovnýe vetshera. these nights in the suburbs of Moscow.

Ryetshka dvizhetsya i nye The little river is flowing without dvizhetsya, movement, fsya iz lunovo serebra. it is all silver, shining in the moonlight.

Pyesnya slýshitsya i nye You hear a song from afar, then it's slýshitsya quiet again v eti tikhiye vetshera. in these silent nights. Why do you, my dear, look at me from Shtozh tý, milaya, smotrish the side iskasa, your head so tightly nestled against nizko golovu naklanya? mine. Trudno výskazat' i nye výskazat' It is so hard to say, and so hard not to fsyo shto na sertse u minya. say all that is on my mind.

66 A rastswyet uzhe fsyo It is already dawning more and more. samyetneye. So, please, be so kind: Tak, pazhaluista, bud' dobra: Don't also you forget these summer Nye zabud' i tý eti letniye nights podmoskovnýe vetshera. in the suburbs of Moscow.

Words: M. Matusovski Music: W. Solovyov-Sedoi Pronunciation: a as in "bar", e as in "bed", i as in "bid", o as in "bore", u as in "blue" y = as in "yellow" / ý = dull i, as in "bill" s = always voiceless, as in "son" / z = voiced, as in "zone" sh = voiceless, as in "mesh" / zh = voiced, like the s in "measure" kh = mostly rough, like the ch in Scotch "loch", but smooth when "e" or "i" follows a, e, i, o, u, y = the underlined vowel signifies the stressed syllable of a word. Musical notation, transcription and analogous translation: Kai Kracht Comment: This is not a traditional folksong. But the first line of this nice melody for a long time was the signature tune of Radio Moscow, so the song soon became very popular all over the country. © Kai Kracht 2002

http://www.kaikracht.de/balalaika/english/songs/nyes_not.htm

67 Midnights in Moscow

Ryetshka dvizhetsya i nye The little river is flowing without dvizhetsya, movement, fsya iz lunovo serebra. it is all silver, shining in the moonlight.

http://www.kaikracht.de/balalaika/english/songs/nyes_not.htm

67 The following lesson plan comes from www.teachervision.com

Rhythm and Melodic Phrase in "Little Birch Tree"

This song is a selection in World's Largest Concert – March 8.

Provided in partnership with MENC

Objectives

• Students will listen to and describe the variations of a theme in a classical selection.

Materials

• Copies of "The Little Birch Tree" Recording of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony • Audio playback equipment

Procedures

1. Have students sing "The Little Birch Tree." Call attention to the relative simplicity of the rhythm and melodic phrase. 2. Ask students to notice when they sing the song again what kind of mood it seems to convey. Have the students join you in singing the song again while you accompany them on the keyboard. Discuss the mood of the piece with the students. 3. Have the student(s) accompany on flute or recorder while the class sings the song again. Discuss how the addition of the flute affects the mood of the song. 4. Inform the students the Peter Illych Tchaikovsky was a 19th-century Russian composer who sometimes included folk music in his compositions. Explain that he used "The Little Birch Tree" as the theme in his Second Symphony and created variations on the theme. 5. Have students listen to the recording of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony and raise their hands each time they hear the theme occur. 6. Have students listen again and write a brief description in musical terms on the changes in the theme, including mood, tempo, instrumentation, etc. After listening, discuss the students' answers.

This lesson plan is found in the MENC Publication Strategies for Teaching Middle-Level General Music. This publication is available for purchase at 1-800-828-0229 or online at www.menc.org.

BIRCHES

By Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

http://www.geocities.com/john_deere_b/Birches.html

Epoch: Romantic Country: Russia Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

Detailed Information about

• Picture Gallery • List of Works • Bibliography

Introduction

(born Karevo, 21 March 1839; died St. Petersburg, 28 March 1881).

His mother gave him piano lessons, and at nine he played a Field concerto before an audience in his parents' house. In 1852 he entered the Guards' cadet school in St Petersburg. Although he had not studied harmony or composition, in 1856 he tried to write an opera; the same year he entered the Guards. In 1857 he met Dargomïzhsky and Cui, and through them Balakirev and Stasov. He persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons and composed songs and piano sonalas.

In 1858 Mussorgsky passed through a nervous or spiritual crisis and resigned his army commission. A visit to Moscow in 1859 fired his patriotic imagination and his compositional energies, but although his music began to enjoy public performances his nervous irritability was not entirely calmed. The emancipation of the serfs in March 1861 obliged him to spend most of the next two years helping manage the family estate; a symphony came to nothing and Stasov and Balakirev agreed that 'Mussorgsky is almost an idiot'. But he contiuned to compose and in 1863-6 worked on the libretto and music of an opera, Salammbô, which he never completed. At this time he served at the Ministry of Communications and lived in a commune with five other young men who ardently cultivated and exchanged advanced ideas about art, religion, philosophy and politics. Mussorgsky's private and public lives eventually came into conflict. In 1865 he underwent his first serious bout of dipsomania (probably as a reaction to his mother's death that year) and in 1867 he was dismissed from his post.

76 Mussorgsky spent summer 1867 at his brother's country house at Minkino, where he wrote, among other things, his first important orchestral work, St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain. On his return to St. Petersburg in the autumn Mussorgsky, like the other members of the Balakirev-Stasov circle (ironically dubbed the 'Mighty Handful'), became interested in Dargomïzhsky's experiments in operatic naturalism. Early in 1869 Mussorgsky re-entered government service and, in more settled conditions, was able to complete the original version of the opera Boris Godunov. This was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre and Mussorgsky set about revising it. In 1872 the opera was again rejected, but excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successtul production was mounted in February 1874.

Meanwhile Mussorgsky had begun work on another historical opera, Khovanshchina, at the same time gaining promotion at the ministry. Progress on the new opera was interrupted partly because of unsettled domestic circumstances, but mainly because heavy drinking left Mussorgsky incapable of sustained creative effort. But several other compositions belong to this period, including the song cycles Sunless and Songs and Dances of Death and the Pictures at an Exhibition, for piano, a brilliant and bold series inspired by a memorial exhibition of drawings by his friend Victor Hartmann. Ideas for a comic opera based on Gogol's Sorochintsy Fair also began to compete with work on Khovanshchina; both operas remained unfinished at Mussorgsky's death. During the earlier part of 1878 he seems to have led a more respectable life and his director at the ministry even allowed him leave for a three-month concert tour with the contralto Darya Leonova. After he was obliged to leave the government service in January 1880, Leonova helped provide him with employment and a home. It was to her that he tumed on 23 February 1881 in a state of nervous excitement, saying that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets; he was suffering from alcoholic epilepsy. He was removed to hospital, where he died a month later.

Many of Mussorgsky's works were unfinished, and their editing and posthumous publication were mainly carried out by Rimsky-Korsakov, who to a greater or lesser degree 'corrected' what Mussorgsky had composed. Boris Godunov, in particular, was reshaped and repolished, with drastic cuts, wholesale rewriting and rescoring, insertion of new music and transposition of scenes. It was only many years later that, with a return to the composer's original drafts, the true nature of his rough art could be properly understood, for Mussorgsky shared with some of the painters of his day a disdain for formal beauty, technical polish and other manifestations of 'art for art's sake'. His desire was to relate his art as closely as possible to life, especially that of the Russian masses, to nourish it on events and to employ it as a means for communicating human experience.

Extracted with permission from The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music edited by Stanley Sadie © Macmillan Press Ltd., London.

This project was created by Matt Boynick. © 1 February 1996

Classical Music Pages Homepage Last Revision - 10 October 2000

http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/mussorgsky.html

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov 1844-1908

Rimsky-Korsakov's Operas by Elizabeth Smead

Rimsky Korsakov's music is exciting and moving. Although his orchestral pieces such as the Russian Easter Overture are more well-known, his operas are much more important. He did a great deal of work in making fantastical, mystical operas, which were previously uncommon in that genre of music. When Rimsky-Korsakov wrote an opera, he was not creating a drama, but musical fairy tales. His characters have been called "puppets," for they are more instrumental in the music, rather than vice versa. Opera allowed Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral work to create a great variety of effects, such as fantasy, humor, and eroticism. Operas such as Snow Maiden were centered around a mysticism of the natural world.

List of Operas The Tsar's Bride (1898) Maid of Pskov (1868-72) Tsar Salton (1899) May Night (1878) Servilia (1899-1900) Snow Maiden (1880-81) Kaschei the Immortal (1901-02) Mlada (1889-90) Pan Voevoda (1902-03) Christmas Eve (1894-95) Kitezh (1903-04) Sadko (1894-96) Le Coq d'Or (The Golden Cockerel) 1906- Mozart and Salieri (1897) 07

Brief Summaries and Sound Clips

Snow Maiden

The libretto of this fantastical tale was written by Rimsky-Korsakov himself. It is based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, which was originally taken from a Russian folk tale.

78 Plot: As winter is ending, the Snow Maiden asks Spring to let her stay a bit longer in the world. She is granted this request, only if is innocent of love. If not, the sun's rays will kill her. A merchant, Mizguir falls in love with her, leaving his sweetheart. The Snow Maiden, in return falls in love with him, trying to keep this secret from the Sun, but fails. She disappears from the sun's rays, and Mizguir then drowns himself.

(Sound files are in RealAudio format. To download a player visit www.realaudio.com)

"The Dance of the Tumblers"

Sadko

Its premiere was January 7, 1898, in Moscow, and the libretto was written by Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. It is considered the best of his fairy tale operas. The story comes from Russian legends. The main character, Sadko is an 11th century minstrel sent off by the merchants of Novgorod to find wealth for the city. His travels allow him to meet the Sea Princess, Volkhova. She falls in love with him, eventually they are married, but the morning after the marriage she is transformed into the Volkhova River. Sadko is found by his wife, Lyubava. The Volkhova River is the river which becomes the water route to the sea from the district of Novgorod, in fact bringing wealth to the area.

Act I- "Budit krasen den'v palavinu dn'a" (chorus, Sadko)

Act II- "Svet'at rasoju medv'anaju kosy tvai" (Sadko, Sea Princess, chorus)

The Golden Cockerel (Le Coq d'or)

This opera had its debut in Moscow, October 7, 1909. Its libretto is by Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky, and it is based on a work by Alexander Pushkin. The story line begins as King Dodon is going to war. He receives the Golden Cockerel as a gift from his astrologer because the bird has the ability to warn of danger. When it crows, there is some sort of danger. It crows twice, and needless to say, King Dodon finds his two sons and their armies dead on the battlefield. He then meets the Queen of Shemakha, who he brings back to his kingdom to marry. The astrologer asks as payment for the Golden Cockerel to take the Queen from King Dodon. The cockerel crows as a sign of danger, and danger comes to the astrologer, who is killed by King Dodon. As the opera comes to an end, the King is pecked by the Golden Cockerel, and dies. This was Rimsky-Korsakov's satire of Tsar Nicolas II's actions in the Russo-Japanese War.

"The Marriage Feast and Lamentable End of King Dodon"

Bibliography

Ewen, David. Encyclopedia of the Opera A.A. Wyn, Inc.: New York, 1955.

Orrey, Leslie,ed. Encyclopedia of the Opera. Charles Schribner's Sons: New York, 1976.

Sadie, Stanley, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol 16. Macmillan Publishing: London, 1980. 27-34. www.geocities.com/Vienna/3606

Rhodes Project Index Rimsky-Korsakov Index College

http://www.patriciagray.net/Musichtmls/NatDocs/rkop.html

The St.Petersburg State Conservatory, the first public school of music in Russia was inaugurated on September, 20th, 1862. The foundation of the Conservatory crowned the efforts of a group of progressive-minded musicians of the XIX century. It boasts Anton Rubinstein, Henrick Wieniawski, Karl Schubert, Gavriil Lomakin as founding members. By that time the distinctive features of Russian musical performance style had been developed by generations of Russian singers, pianists, conductors, string and wind players, who were competing successfully with their foreign colleagues in the Imperial and private opera companies, various ensembles, orchestras and choir. Musicians from Italy, Bohemia, and Germany would flock to Russia, and would, in most cases, settle there permanently. In the first half of the 19th century, St.Petersburg, on a par with Vienna, Paris, Prague, London and Berlin, began to attract the world-famous artists. Thus it was here that the first performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis was given in 1824, and subsequently a second performance of his Ninth Symphony was heard. Among the renowned guest performers who visited St.Petersburg were Liszt, Berlioz, Schumann and Wagner, to name but a few. It was from here that Beethoven received a commission to write string quarters and Verdi was commissioned to compose opera. Finally, it was in St.Petersburg that a remarkable school of composition arose which was to shape and develop, in the works of the great Russian national composers Dmitry Bortnyansky, Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Mikhail Glinka and their contemporaries, the distinguishing features of the style and idiom of Russian music. In the middle of the 19th century, in an atmosphere of social, cultural and political ferment and reforms, the new Imperial Music Society was founded which launched an extensive programme. One of the most important projects undertaken by the Society, which was active throughout Russia, was organization of conservatories in the country.

Russia's first Conservatory was opened in St.Petersburg in 1862 and was headed by the outstanding pianist, composer and conductor Anton Rubinstein. The initial staff members were Henryk Wieniawski (violin), Theodor Leszetycki (piano), Anton Rubinstein (piano), Nikoly Zaremba (composition), Karl Schubert (cello), Gavril Lomakin (choral singing), and others. Although it had taken some time to get all the teaching staff vacancies filled and to perfect educations programmes, in 1865 the Conservatory gave the world the genius alumnus -- Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The period between 1870-1890 saw the ascendancy of the Conservatory when, with the advent of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (he joined the staff as a professor) and his disciples, exponents of the New Russian school of composition -- Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov, the aesthetic ideals were finally formulated and realized in the Conservatory's educational programmes, thus forming the solid basis for the new generations of musicians. Homage to the genius of Rimsky-Korsakov was paid in 1944 when his centenary was marked and the Conservatory was named after him. The present building of the Conservatory dates back to the 1890s when the old theatre (called the Bolshoi) was pulled down to give place to a purposebuilt Conservatory.

81 Another important period in the development of the Conservatory lay between the years 1905- 1928, when it was headed by Glazunov. Having come into the office in 1905, this distinguished musician and remarkable man remained the heart and soul of the Conservatory, its professional and moral symbol for nearly a quarter of a century. The illustrious musicians, who were members of the professorial staff then, were Leopold Auer (violin); Nikolay Tcherepnin (conducting); Anatoly Lyadov, Alexander Glazunov and Maximilian Steinberg (composition); Anna Yessipova, Sergey Lyapunov and Leonid Nikolayev (piano). Many of their pupils won world acclaim. The legendary alumni are the composers Nikolay Myaskovsky, Sergey Prokofiev, Dmitry Shostakovich; violinist Jascha Heifetz, Miron Polyakin, Efrem Zimbalist, Yuri Eidlin; pianists Samary Savshinsky, Nadezhda Golubovskaya, Vladimir Sofronitsky; conductors Nikolay Malko, Mikhail Klimov. All of them made an outstanding contribution to the world musical culture.

The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 led to a break in the continuity of musical development; many composers and musicians emigrated. Those who stayed in Russia were in for another ordeal during World War II, when some professors and students were suffering in besieged Leningrad while others were evacuated to Central Asia. In 1938-1977, with some short intermissions, the Conservatory was headed by Pavel Serebryakov, a brilliant Soviet pianist. The Conservatory saw a revival of the fame of old traditions. In the 1950s, for instance, the violinists Mikhail Vaiman and Boris Gutnikov won several international competitions. In the 1950s - 1960s, graduates of the Conservatory included the world-famous singers Yelena Obraztsova, Yevgeny Nesterenko, Vladimir Atlantov and celebrated conductors, Vladislav Chernushenko, Dmitry Kitayenko, Yuri Temirkanov, Alexander Dmitriev, Maris Yansons. In the 1970s, educated at the Conservatory were the pianist Grigory Sokolov and Pavel Yegorov, the conductor Valery Gergiev, and many others who now represent the Russian performing art. The end of the period was marked by great achievements at major competitions both in this country and abroad. The winners of national and international prizes have been taught by professors now active at the Conservatory, viz. Tatyana Kravchenko (piano), Viktor Sumerkin (trombone), Gleb Nikitin (flute), Anatoly Nikitin (cello). From 1979, Rector of the St.Petersburg Conservatory is Vladislav Chernushenko, one of the celebrated conductors, who is also Artistic Director of Russia's oldest musical institution, the St.Petersburg Academic Capella (the former Imperial Court Capella).

Loyal to the traditions of its founders and numerous generations of progressive musicians of the home-land, the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in St.Petersburg is striving to lofty professional ideals and active propaganda of the world musical culture.

Epoch: Romantic Country: Russia

Piotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Detailed Infomation about

• Symphonies • Operas • Ballets • Concerti • Chamber Music • Picture Gallery • List of Works • Bibliography

Introduction

(born Kamsko-Votkinsk, 7 May 1840; died St. Petersburg, 6 November 1893).

His father was a mine inspector. He started piano studies at five and soon showed remarkable gifts; his childhood was also affected by an abnormal sensitivity. At ten he was sent to the School of Jurisprudence at St. Petersburg, where the family lived for some time. His parting from his mother was painful; further, she died when he was 14 - an event that may have stimulated him to compose. At 19 he took a post at the Ministry of Justice, where he remained for four years despite a long joumey to western Europe and increasing involvement in music. In 1863 he entered the Conservatory, also undertaking private teaching. Three years later he moved to Moscow with a professorship of harmony at the new conservatory. Little of his music so far had pleased the conservative musical establishment or the more nationalist group, but his First Symphony had a good public reception when heard in Moscow in 1868.

Rather less successful was his first opera, The Voyevoda, given at the Bol'shoy in Moscow in 1869; Tchaikovsky later abandoned it and re-used material from it in his next, The Oprichnik. A

83 severe critic was Balakirev, who suggested that he write a work on Romeo and Juliet: this was the Fantasy-Overture, several times rewritten to meet Balakirev's criticisms; Tchaikovsky's tendency to juxtapose blocks of material rather than provide organic transitions serves better in this programmatic piece than in a symphony as each theme stands for a character in the drama. Its expressive, well-defined themes and their vigorous treatment produced the first of his works in the regular repertory.

The Oprichnik won some success at St. Petersburg in 1874, by when Tchaikovsky had won acclaim with his Second Symphony (which incorporates Ukrainian folktunes); he had also composed two string quartets (the first the source of the famous Andante cantabile), most of his next opera, Vakula the Smith, and of his First Piano Concerto, where contrasts of the heroic and the lyrical, between soloist and orchestra, clearly fired him. Originally intended for Nikolay Rubinstein, the head of Moscow Conservatory, who had much encouraged Tchaikovsky, it was dedicated to Hans von Bülow (who gave its premiere, in Boston) when Rubinstein rejected it as ilI-composed and unplayable (he later recanted and became a distinguished interpreter of it). In 1875 came the carefully written Third Symphony and Swan Lake, commissioned by Moscow Opera. The next year a journey west took in Bizet's Carmen in Paris, a cure at Vichy and the first complete Ring at Bayreuth; although deeply depressed when he reached home - he could not accept his homosexuality - he wrote the fantasia Francesca da Rimini and (an escape info the 18th century) the Rococo Vanations for cello and orchestra. Vakula, which had won a competition, had its premiere that autumn. At the end of the year he was contacted by a wealthy widow, Nadezhda von Meck, who admired his music and was eager to give him financial security; they corresponded intimately for 14 years but never met.

Tchaikovsky, however, saw marriage as a possible solution to his sexual problems; and when contacted by a young woman who admired his music he offered (after first rejecting her) immediate marriage. It was a disaster: he escaped from her almost at once, in a state of nervous collapse, attempted suicide and went abroad. This was however the time of two of his greatest works, the Fourth Symphony and Eugene Onegin. The symphony embodies a 'fate' motif that recurs at various points, clarifying the structure; the first movement is one of Tchaikovsky's most individual with its hesitant, melancholy waltz-like main theme and its ingenious and appealing combination of this with the secondary ideas; there is a lyrical, intermezzo-like second movement and an ingenious third in which pizzicato strings play a main role, while the finale is impassioned if loose and melodramatic, with a folk theme pressed into service as second subject. Eugene Onegin, after Pushkin, tells of a girl's rejected approach to a man who fascinates her (the parallel with Tchaikovsky's situation is obvious) and his later remorse: the heroine Tatyana is warmly and appealingly drawn, and Onegin's hauteur is deftly conveyed too, all against a rural Russian setting which incorporates spectacular ball scenes, an ironic background to the private tragedies. The brilliant Violin Concerto also comes from the late 1870s.

The period 1878-84, however, represents a creative trough. He resigned from the conservatory and, tortured by his sexuality, could produce no music of real emotional force (the Piano Trio, written on Rubinstein's death, is a single exception). He spent some time abroad. But in 1884, stimulated by Balakirev, he produced his Manfred symphony, after Byron. He continued to travel widely, and conduct; and he was much honoured. In 1888 the Fifth Symphony, similar in plan to the Fourth (though the motto theme is heard in each movement), was finished. A note of hysteria

84 in the finale was recognized by Tchaikovsky himself. The next three years saw the composition of two ballets, the finely characterized Sleeping Beauty and the more decorative Nutcracker, and the opera The Queen of Spades, with its ingenious atmospheric use of Rococo music (it is set in Catherine the Great's Russia) within a work of high emotional tension. Its theatrical qualities ensured its success when given at St. Petersburg in late 1890. The next year Tchaikovsky visited the USA; in 1892 he heard Mahler conduct Eugene Onegin at Hamburg. In 1893 he worked on his Sixth Symphony, to a plan - the first movement was to be concerned with activity and passion; the second, love; the third, disappointment; and the finale, death. It is a profoundly pessimistic work, formally unorthodox, with the finale haunted by descending melodic ideas clothed in anguished harmonies. It was performed on 28 October. He died nine days later: traditionally, and officially, of cholera, but recently verbal evidence has been put forward that he underwent a 'trial' from a court of honour from his old school regarding his sexual behaviour and it was decreed that he commit suicide. Which version is true must remain uncertain.

Extracted with permission from The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music edited by Stanley Sadie © Macmillan Press Ltd., London.

This project was created by Matt Boynick. © 1 February 1996

Classical Music Pages Homepage Last Revision - 10 October 2000

85 Title: Vocabulary Activity

Overview: This lesson is for students to: • draw and create pictures which correspond to the definition of unit vocabulary words

Lesson Focus: • Language Arts Content Standard 3: Meaning and Communication. “All students will focus on meaning and communication as they listen, speak, view, read and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic contexts.” • Benchmark # 6, high school.

Materials: • unit vocabulary words (sample words included, though teacher should create his/her own list of relevant words for the unit) • paper * this could be a possible homework assignment

What to Do: 1. Select any 5 words from the unit. 2. Draw a picture or find a picture that represents the vocabulary word. 3. On the back of the picture write the definition of the word (definition can be given by the teacher or researched by the student) 4. Teacher could have students share their work with student groups within the class when the assignment is completed. Students hold up one picture of the vocabulary word. Students are to guess what word the picture represents.

Possible vocabulary words to include within the unit

• empire • tsar (czar) • execute • theme • symphony • composer • import • nationalist • conservatory • icon • revolution

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 86

Title: Population and St. Petersburg

Objective: Students will: • Make a population map • Make connections as to what effects population had on St. Petersburg

Lesson Focus: • Social Studies Strand II, Geographic Perspective, Content Standard 4: “All students will describe, compare characteristics of ecosystems, states, regions, countries, major world regions, and patterns and explain the processes that created them. (Regions, Patterns, and Processes).” • Benchmark # 4 high school

Materials: • Map of Russia or tracing paper • Population figures of St. Petersburg at various time periods • Questions

What to Do: 1. Students make a population map showing the population of St. Petersburg during the 1700s, the 1800s and 1900s. See teacher fact sheet on population.

2. Students reflect and discuss the following questions.

o What do these changes in population show?

o What economic changes may have taken place with an increase in population?

o What cultural changes may have taken place with this population growth?

Lesson Created by Carol Mohrlock 87

Population Facts on St. Petersburg, Russia Facts from: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Rus1900.htm

In the 1700s the population of St. Petersburg was 150,000 by the reign of Elizabeth in 1741.

In 1869 the population of St. Petersburg was 1,044,587. 667,207 men and 377,380 women

In 1881 the population of St. Petersburg was 13,334,532. 861,303 men and 473, 229 women

In 1897 the population of St. Petersburg was 1,749,532. 1,132,677 men and 616,855 women.

In 1900 the population of St. Petersburg was 1,260,000.

In 2003 the population of St. Petersburg is approximately 4.7 million.

Lesson Created by Carol Mohrlock 88 Title: A Look at Two Twentieth Century Russian Composers

Overview: This lesson is for students to: • read about 2 composers from the twentieth century • form questions about the composer • look at similarities between these two composers

Lesson Focus: • English Language Arts Content Standard 7: Skills and Processes “All students will demonstrate, analyze, and reflect upon the skills and processes used to communicate through listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing. • Benchmark # 1 middle school • Benchmark # 1 high school

Materials: • venn diagram sheet • articles on composers (see attached sample articles on Stravinsky and Prokofiev)

What to Do: 1. Research a composer by reading an article.

2. Students create a worksheet and answer guide based on the article. Teacher should encourage student use of maps and charts. Teacher should check the student-made worksheet for accuracy.

3. Students select another student in the room, upon completion of reading and worksheet design. Students trade worksheets. Students read about another twentieth century Russian composure and complete the worksheet.

4. The two students who traded articles/worksheets work together to complete a venn diagram of the two Russian composers.

Lesson created by Carol Mohrlock 89

Teacher Notes on Russian Music and Composers

• Prokofiev gave up his popularity and wrote music to please Stalin. He wrote music to please the government.

• Stravinsky is known as the great inventor of Russian music.

• The 19th century was a time of great musical achievement in Russia. This was the time period in which “The Five” became known. They were:

Rimsky-Korsakov (most influential, 1844-1908) Borodin Mussorgsky Cui Balakirev

• Tchaikovsky (1840-’93) was not know as one of “The Five”.

• Near the end of the Stalinist Period Prokofiev and Shostakovich produced music so peasants could listen to it as they worked.

• During the 17th century, Russian music consisted of sacred vocal music or folk type songs.

• Peter the Great liked military music (such as the drums). He liked trumpet music, church bells and simple Polish music. He did not like French or Italian music. Nor did Peter the Great like opera.

Notes Compiled by Carol Mohrlock 90

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (1882-1971) I gor Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg, Russia, he died on April 6, 1971, in New York City

H e was Russian-born composer particularly renowned for such ballet scores as The Firebird (performed 1910), Petrushka (1911), The Rite of Spring (1913), and Orpheus (1947).

The Russian period

S travinsky's father, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, was a bass singer of great distinction, who had made a successful operatic career for himself, first at Kiev and later in St. Petersburg. Igor was the third of a family of four boys. As a child he loved music. He was accustomed to hearing his father practicing his operatic roles at home. From an early age he attended opera and ballet performances at the neighboring Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Regular piano lessons started when he was nine, and a little later he received training in harmony and counterpoint. Despite his obvious bent for music, his parents refused to allow him to pursue a musical career. Sent to St. Petersburg University to study criminal law and legal philosophy, he was graduated in 1905.

M eanwhile, his musical interests had turned to composition. In the summer of 1902, a few months before his father's death, he obtained an introduction to the Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov through one of Rimsky-Korsakov's sons, who was also a student at the university. Rimsky-Korsakov was sufficiently interested in the young man's early attempts at composition to advise him not to enter the conservatory for academic training but to pursue his studies privately. This advice was followed. A year later Rimsky-Korsakov agreed to tutor him privately, mainly in instrumentation. The arrangement continued for about three years (1903- 1906). It was Stravinsky's habit to discuss his compositions with his mentor as they were planned and written. Rimsky-Korsakov arranged for several of these, including the Symphony in E Flat Major (1905-1907), to be performed at private or public concerts in St. Petersburg. The last composition to be presented in this way was Fireworks (1908), a brief symphonic poem that Stravinsky intended as a wedding present for Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter. Rimsky-Korsakov died in the summer of 1908, before it could be performed. After his death the mourning pupil wrote a funeral dirge (1908) in memory of his master. It was performed in St. Petersburg the following season; the score is lost.

S travinsky left the university in 1905. The following year he married his first cousin, Catherine Nossenko. They lived in two rooms of his family's apartment in St. Petersburg and spent their summers in the country at Ustilug in Volhynia, an area of Ukraine. A son (Theodore) was born to them in 1907 and a daughter (Ludmila) a year later.

92 His Collaboration with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes

W hen Fireworks and earlier orchestral piece, Scherzo Fantastique (1907-08), were performed in St. Petersburg on Feb. 6, 1909, they were heard by the impresario Sergey Diaghilev, who was then busy making preliminary arrangements for the summer season if his Ballets Russes to be held in Paris. He was so favorably impressed by Stravinsky's promise as a composer that he invited him to join his small group of artistic collaborators. For the 1909 ballet season Stravinsky was invited to orchestrate various peaces of ballet music, including two piano numbers by Frédéric Chopin for Les Sylphides. For the 1910 season, Diaghilev commissioned from him a new ballet score,The Firebirds

T he next few years were a period of intensely close collaboration between the two men, for Diaghilev was anxious that all of Stravinsky's major new works should be mounted by his company. After the decisive success of The Firebird at the Paris Opéra (June 25, 1910), Stravinsky started to write a Konzertstück ("concertpiece") for piano and orchestra; but, yielding to Diaghilev's arguments, he agreed to adapt the music he had already written to fir a new ballet scenario, and this work, Petrushka, received its first performance during the Ballets Russes 1911 season in Paris. Before this, Stravinsky had had the idea of writing a kind of primitive spring symphony to be called Great Sacrifice; here, too, Diaghilev persuaded him that it should be cast in the form of a ballet. The composition of The Rite of Spring (as it was finally called) was spread over two years (1911-13). The music of this dynamic score created a major scandal when the ballet had its first performance the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Paris (May 29, 1913). Stravinsky then reverted to the task of finishing a short opera based on the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Nightingale," which he had started in 1908-09 but which had been interrupted by the commission of The Firebird. This opera was now requested by the Moscow Free Theatre, but when that new venture suddenly collapsed, Diaghilev saw his chance and, taking over the work, arranged for it to be produced as part of the Ballets Russes seasons in Paris and London in the summer of 1914.

T hat summer also marked the conception of a new ballet cantata to be called The Wedding, which Stravinsky decided to base on Russian peasant themes and customs. Had World War I not intervened, this new score might have been ready for production by The Ballets Russes in 1915 or 1916. Although the actual composition was completed by 1917, the final form of the instrumentation was not decided until 1923.

I gor Stravinsky's close connection with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes meant that during the five years 1910-14 he spent considerable part of his time outside Russia. He was usually in Paris for the company's summer seasons and occasionally followed them on tour to Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, and London. He still managed to spend part of each summer in his Russian country home at Ustilug, the quiet atmosphere of which he found conducive to composition. His visits to St. Petersburg, however, became increasingly rare. The health of his family was precarious, and a tendency to tuberculosis made the climate of Switzerland attractive. His second son (Soulima) was born at Lausanne, Swiss in 1910, his second daughter (Milena) at Leysin in 1914. Parts of The Rite of Spring and The Nightingale were written at Clarens, Swiss in the

93 intervening years, and the war years were spent entirely in Switzerland, first at Clarens and later at Morges. The Years of exile

T hese were years of isolation that ultimately led to years of exile, for as the war progressed, Stravinsky became cut off, not only from Russia but also from the Ballets Russes - the European engagements of which had to be abandoned and replaced by an American tour - and from his music publishers, who had their headquarters in Berlin. He tried to overcome these difficulties in various ways. He found a local publisher in Geneva for many of his wartime compositions. In collaboration with the Swiss novelist Charles Ferdinand Ramuz he created The Soldier's Tale (1918), an entertainment "to be read, played, and danced" that was intended to be played on tour by a small traveling theatre. The project collapsed after a successful first performance in Lausanne, owing to a sudden epidemic of Spanish influenza.

The French period

As soon as the war was over, Stravinsky decided to move from Switzerland and settle in France; during the next 20 years (1920-39) he lived in various places there - Biarritz, Nice, Voreppe, and Paris. These years were marked by an important change in his music - the abandonment of the Russian features of his earlier style and the adaptation of a neoclassical idiom. Such a radical change cost him a great effort and only after several years of what he called "samplings, experiments, and amalgamations" did he find his way to new works such as Oedipus Rex (1927) and the Symphony of Psalms (1930), capable of holding their own against the best of his earlier works.

I n the early postwar years, Stravinsky's ties with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes were renewed. They were now on a much looser basis, however, than in the prewar years, for he saw that in the case of itinerant company, without a firm base, there could be no guarantee of permanence. The only new ballet commissioned by Diaghilev from Stravinsky was Pulcinella (1920), the score of which consisted of music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi that was arranged by Stravinsky and adapted to a Neapolitan commedia dell'arte scenario. Apollo Musagetes (1928) was the last new ballet of his to be mounted by the Ballets Russes. The following year (1929) Diaghilev died, and his ballet company folded.

The need to build up his income as a result of the loss of his private property in Russia had led to Stravinsky's embarking on subsidiary careers as concert pianist and conductor. Some of his new works - such as the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1923-24), Sonata for piano (1924), Serenade in A Major for piano (1925), Capriccio for piano and orchestra (1929), and Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (1935) - were written primarily for himself as soloist. A considerable part of each year was devoted to touring, as either solo performer or conductor. Most of these tours were in Europe. He also made three visits in North America in 1925, 1935,

94 and 1937 and on to South America in 1936.

Stravinsky's composition of ballet scores did not come to an end with Diaghilev's death. In the late 1920s, the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein assembled a company of her own and commissioned two ballet scores from Stravinsky - The Fairy's Kiss (1928) and Persephone (1934). The former was based on a selection of the piano and vocal music of the Romantic Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. The latter was a setting of a poem by the 20th- century French writer André Gide as a melodrama with song and speech, dance, and mime. For the then recently founded American Ballet he wrote The Card Party (1937).

T he years 1938 and 1939 were marked by a succession of family bereavements. In the autumn of 1938 his elder daughter died of tuberculosis. The deaths of his wife and mother followed in March and in June 1939.

The American period

T he outbreak of World War II led to a completely new orientation of his life. An invitation from Harvard University to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures during the 1939-40 academic years gave him the opportunity to leave Europe and settle in the United States. Early in 1940 he married the artist Vera de Bosset, whom he had known for many years. When the lectures at Harvard on the poetics of music had been given, the Stravinskys traveled to California and acquired a house in Hollywood, where they were to live for more than a quarter of a century.

During the war years, two important symphonic works were composed - the Symphony in C Major (1938-40) and Symphony in Three Movements (1942-45). Whereas the Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920) display an original and ingenious treatment of typical musical material from his Russian period on symphonic lines, the Symphony in C Major represents a summation of neoclassical principles in symphonic form, and the Symphony in Three Movements successfully combines the essential features of the concerto with those of the symphony.

D uring the years 1948-51 he worked on The Rake's Progress, a full-length, neoclassical opera with a libretto by the Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden and the U.S. writer Chester Kallman. When it was finished, Stravinsky returned to Europe for the first time since 1939 and conducted the first performance of the work at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice. While he was working on this score, he invited a young U.S. musician, Robert Craft, to help him with certain musical tasks at his home in Hollywood. The visit was a success, and Craft eventually became established in the Stravinsky household as a friend, consultant, and musical assistant. This was a particularly important moment in Stravinsky's musical development because after the composition of The Rake's Progress he felt he had outgrown "the special incubator" in which the works of his neoclassical period had gestated. Craft's natural liking for serial music stimulated Stravinsky into examining carefully the music of the Austrian composer Anton von Webern and also some of the works of the Austrians Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, with which he was not very familiar at that time. His interest was aroused and he found his own idiom becoming profoundly affected.

95 To begin with, his serial essays were cautious experiments carried out within a framework of tonal music, featuring note rows and procedures involving inversion, retrogression, and retrograde inversion. The Canticum Sacrum (1955) and the ballet Agon (1953-57) were larger scale works, in which the music traveled from a modal and tonal beginning into a fully serial score, reverting at the end to the modal and tonal music of the beginning. The first of his fully serial compositions was Threni (1958); this was followed by Movements (1959), Variations (1964), and Requiem Canticles (1966), which occupy just as honored a place in his output as the masterpieces of his Russian and Neoclassical periods. It is a characteristic of these serial works that in comparison they are much briefer than the composer's tonal works but seem to have a much greater musical specific gravity.

A fter the Requiem Canticles, ill health caused a slowing down of Stravinsky's compositional activity, but even as late as 1970 he was working on instrumental transcriptions of some of Bach's preludes and fugues. He was buried in Venice on the island of San Michele. His Contribution to music

Stravinsky's special contribution to music in the 20th century was wide and varied. He never seemed to start a composition with preconceived ideas but always examined his raw material with a fresh and critical ear. He was not prepared to accept established practice about development but preferred to subject his musical material to a personal system of tests. This had particularly interesting results whenever time, metre, and dynamics were concerned.

S travinsky explored with zest the asymmetrical patterns of compound metres and, by using devices of prolongation and elision, broke down the tradition of symmetrical phrasing. He was meticulous about degrees of articulation and emphasis. He restored to music the sense of healthy, unwavering pulse, and this helped to make so many of his compositions suitable for dancing. His music made a "clean" sound - there was no filling in merely for the sake of filling in - and, after his symphonic poem The Song of the Nightingale (1917), his orchestral practice became mainly a question of using concertante groups of instruments with plenty of breathing space around them. He never worked to an instrumental formula, but every work, regardless of idiom, had a different instrumental specification and a different sound.

Stravinsky's most important works:

• Apollo (ballet) • Concerto "Dumbarton Oaks" • Firebird (ballet suite) • l'Histoire du soldat: Suite • Petrouchka (ballet) • Sacre du printemps • Symphony in C • Symphony of Psalms

http://www.maurice-abravanel.com/more_stravinsky.html

• Summary • Childhood (1891-1904) • Enfant Terrible: The Conservatory Years (1904-1914) • Exploration and Revolution (1914-1918) • America and Europe (1918-1932) • Return Home (1933-1941) • The War (1941-1945) • Twilight (1945-1953)

• Further Reading...

Enfant Terrible: Exploration The Childhood The Conservatory and America and Europe Return Home Twilight War Years Revolution

Born on 23-April-1891 (11-April-1891 old style) in Sontsovka, Born: 23-April-1891 Ukraine of the former Russian Empire, Sergei Sergeyevich

Died: 05-March-1953 Prokofiev is considered one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. He was also an accomplished pianist and

conductor. He attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1904 to 1914, winning the Anton Rubinstein prize for best student pianist when he graduated. Like other great composers he mastered a wide range of musical genres, including

97 symphonies, concerti, film music, operas, ballets, and program pieces. At the time, his works were considered both ultra- modern and innovative. He traveled widely, spending many years in London and Paris, and toured the United States five times. He gained wide notoriety and his music was both reviled and triumphed by the musical press of the time. He returned to his homeland permanently in 1936. He died on 05-March-1953 in Moscow.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was born on Wednesday 23-April in the year 1891. The date of his birth according to the 'old style' Julian calendar is 11-April. The calendar was changed in 1918 when the newly formed Soviet Union adopted the Gregorian calendar used by the rest of the world. Sergei was born in the Church in Sontsovka. [link] farming village of Sontsovka in what is now the Ukraine, and what was then part of the Russian Empire. His father Sergei Alekseevich Prokofiev was an agricultural engineer, and his mother Maria Grigoryevna Prokofieva (born Zhitkova) was a well-educated woman with a keen musical sense and piano skills to match. She was to be the most important influence in young Sergei's musical development.

By all accounts, young Sergei had an idyllic childhood -- spoiled by loving, doting parents who had twice earlier tried to have children (two daughters died early in infancy.) Sergei spent his first thirteen years in Sontsovka, enjoying the privileges of living in the manor house on a large farming estate, treated like gentry even though his father was merely the estate manager.

Although Sontsovka was located far from the cultural centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg, young Sergei was not isolated from music. In his memoirs, he wrote of his childhood:

When I was put to bed at night, I never wanted to sleep. I would lie there and listen as the sound of a Beethoven sonata came from somewhere far off, several rooms away. More than anything else, my mother played the sonatas of Volume I.

Next came Chopin's preludes, mazurkas, and waltzes. Sometimes there was a piece by Liszt -- something not too difficult. Her favorite Russian composers were Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein. Anton Rubinstein was at the height of his fame, and my mother was convinced that he was a greater phenomenon than Tchaikovsky. A portrait of Rubinstein hung over the grand piano.

The seeds of his musical genius had been sown. The piano would remain at the core of his musical soul throughout his life.

Sergei was a precocious child, although not a prodigy on the level of Mozart. Prokofiev's mother taught him to play the piano and by age five he had written his first composition -- a tune which his

99 mother helped to transcribe as "Indian Galop." Far from immature musical ramblings, Prokofiev's early piano compositions revealed a mature understanding of established musical forms, imprinted with hints of harmonic and rhythmic innovations which would characterize his later style. In fact, he meticulously collected these works, which he called his "little puppies", into notebooks that he would use many times later in life. His mother nurtured his piano skills although she never forced him to study. She did not begin formal music lessons with Sergei until he was seven, preferring instead to let him discover music on his own. In fact, Prokofiev's parents focused most of his educational energies on non-musical subjects, particularly mathematics and the sciences. Thus it is not without surprise that the young Prokofiev took a liking to the game of chess. He taught himself the rules of the game by age seven. Much like music, chess was a passion which was to remain with Prokofiev throughout his life.

Although Sontsovka was isolated far from major cities, Maria Grigoryevna usually travelled at least once a year to visit family in St. Petersburg. She also recognized the importance of exposing young Sergei to the cultural offerings of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Sergei did not accompany his mother on the long trips to the major Russian cities until he was eight. Sergei's first big-city trip occured in 1900 when he accompanied his mother to Moscow. There he saw two operas, Charles Gounod's Faust and Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor. Both Sergei at the piano with his performances had a profound effect on Prokofiev. As soon as he opera "The Giant." [link] returned to Sontsovka, he set about writing his own opera, which he called "The Giant." Sergei wrote both the libretto and music, 'staging' a production of the work with family members and friends in 1901.

Recognizing her son's prodigious musical talent and her limitations as a music teacher, Maria Grigoryevna decided her son needed better instruction. In December of 1901, Maria and Sergei senior took their son back to Moscow, stopping first in St. Petersburg. In Moscow, Maria arranged a meeting with Yuri Nikolayevich Pomerantsev, a friend of the family who was then studying at the Moscow Conservatory. Pomerantsev recognized the ten-year old's potential and arranged an audition for Sergei in front of the famous Moscow professor and composer Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev. Taneyev was impressed enough to convince another music teacher from Moscow to travel to Sontskova in the summer of 1902 to teach Sergei. The teacher was Reinhold Moritsevich Gliere (1875-1956), a young, but accomplished composer and capable pianist. Gliere immediately took to the eleven year old Sergei and the lessons were roundly successful. Gliere returned again in the summer of 1903 to teach Sergei. By then, Sergei had composed another opera, a four-movement symphony with Gliere's help, and about 70 small piano pieces.

By this time in his young life, Prokofiev recognized his future lay in music. He was self-assured and had developed a confident stage presence, forged from frequent recitals and performances in front of friends, family, and the Sontsovka staff. In spite of a disciplined upbringing by his father and mother, Sergei still possessed a

100 mischievous and playful streak -- his love of fairy tales and youthful innocence would show in his music throughout his life.

The year was 1904, Prokofiev was thirteen, and it was clear to Maria Grigoryevna that the geographical isolation of Sontsovka was not conducive to the development of her son's burgeoning musical potential. Much to the lament of his father who stayed behind in Sontsovka, Maria and Sergei moved to St. Petersburg in the spring of 1904.

101

Now thirteen years old, Prokofiev began his formal musical training in St. Petersburg. Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936), noted Russian composer and professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, heard Sergei and suggested he apply. Gliere helped St. Petersburg him prepare and in September 1904, Prokofiev took the Conservatory in 1912. [link] Conservatory entrance examination. In his memoirs, Prokofiev wrote: The entrance examination was quite sensational. The examinee before me was a man with a beard who had nothing to show the examiners but a single romance without accompaniment. Then I came in, bending under the weight of two huge folders containing four operas, two sonatas, a symphony and a good many pianoforte pieces. 'Here is a pupil after my own heart!' observed Rimsky-Korsakov, who headed the examining board. Prokofiev was accepted -- the youngest student ever to be admitted. He was a young boy in the greatest musical conservatory in Russia amongst men and women twice his age. His most well-known teachers in the Conservatory, Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakov and Anatol Liadov, were respected, if not erudite, composers stuck in the shadow of the earlier Russian greats Mikhail Glinka (1803-1857) and Modest Mussorgsky (1839- 1891). Prokofiev strove to develop his own style -- his memoirs indicate that even in his early Conservatory years he was self- confident, generally critical of his fellow students, yet disapproving of criticism he often received from his teachers. His unfailing belief in his own innovative musical style and his criticism of fellow students was interpreted as arrogance by many around him. This arrogance and propensity to shock his teachers with his music earned him the reputation as an 'enfant terrible' -- a label Prokofiev actually enjoyed.

In 1906, Prokofiev met Nikolai Miaskovsky, another student in the Conservatory who was ten years his elder. A seemingly unlikely match, they quickly became best friends -- bonded by an intense interest in new music. Bored and disenchanted with the music of the Russian standard-bearers Glazunov and Glinka, whom their teachers championed, Miaskovsky and Prokofiev drew inspiration instead from composers such as Max Reger and Alexander Scriabin. Miaskovsky and Prokofiev would remain friends until Miaskovsky's death over forty years later. They attended concerts, played duets, and more importantly, tried out their new compositions on each other. Miaskovsky was vital in providing

102 support and critical advice to Prokofiev. Sergei was by now a prolific composer -- drawing extensively from the notebooks he so meticulously maintained during his youth.

At the same time, Prokofiev was also developing a formidable piano technique. He played his first public performance on 18- December-1908 in St. Petersburg at one of the 'Evenings of Contemporary Music.' These weekly concerts were disorganized affairs in appearance, but critically important in the avant-garde of musical Europe. Most of the city's leading composers, musicians and music critics attended the concerts. The list of composers who played at the series is a veritable 'Who's Who' of contemporary Russian music at the time -- Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Miaskovsky. At his debut performance, Prokofiev performed his own compositions, most notably four pieces which were later to be published as Opus 4: Reminiscence, Elan, Despair and Diabolic Suggestions. The performance was a rousing success. Critics and composers from around Europe took note.

Prokofiev continued to play at the 'Evenings of Contemporary Music,' as well as continuing to frustrate his teachers in the Conservatory. He received only passing marks in composition. While his music was undoubtedly too advanced at the time for most of his composition and music theory professors, he at least caught the eye of his piano and conducting teachers. In 1909, Glazunov wrote of one of Prokofiev's examinations:

Technical preparation exceedingly brilliant. Interpretation unique, original, but not always in the best artist taste... Prokofiev completed his composition courses in 1909 to disapproving reviews by his teachers, but he was invited back to take courses in piano and conducting. He studied piano under Anna Esipova and Nikolai Tcherepnin from 1909 to 1914. Undaunted by the criticism from his professors, Prokofiev continued to write music on his own. During this time his works are characterized by continued brilliance at the piano (e.g. Piano Concertos No. 1 & 2, Toccata Op. 11 in D Minor), and a struggle to master new forms (the one-act opera Maddalena, and several sketches for Orchestra including Autumnal and Dreams).

While the poor reception accorded his early orchestral works in this period (Dreams, Autumnal, and Maddalena) temporarily tarnished the luster on his rising star, he took the criticism in stride. Prokofiev's darkest days in this period followed the death of his father in 1910. Although he had left Sontsovka when he was five, he regularly corresponded with his father and returned home during the summers.

It was perhaps this confluence of events that inspired him to re- establish his reputation as a formidable composer-pianist. The vehicle for him to do this was his first Piano Concerto. He later called it his "first more or less mature composition as regards to conception and

103 fulfillment." He premiered the work on 07-August-1912 at a summer concert in Sokolniki, a suburb of Moscow. The public reaction was positive, the critical reaction scathing. When the composer premiered the work in the United States six years later, New York Times music critic James Gibbons Huneker shredded the work:

The First Piano Concerto of Prokofiev was in one movement, but compounded of many rhythms and recondite noises...The first descending figure -- it is hardly a theme -- is persistently affirmed in various nontonalities by the orchestra, the piano all the while shrieking, groaning, howling, fighting back, and in several instances it seemed to rear and bite the hand that chastised it...There were moments when the piano and orchestra made sounds that evoked not only the downfall of empires, but also of fine crockery, the fragments flying in all directions. He may be the Cossack Chopin for the next generation -- this tall, calm young man. The diabolic smiles press upon you as his huge hands, the hands of a musical primate, tear up trees and plow the soil. That fetching, old expression, 'Hell to pay and no pitch hot,' applies to Prokofiev: only he owns his Hades and has the necessary pitch in abundance. In contrast to other composers such as Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky who wilted under critical assaults, Prokofiev welcomed the disapproving reviews. Throughout his career, in fact he would purposely push the limits of his compositions, all the while provoking and shocking listeners and critics. He relished his role as 'enfant terrible' of the music world.

He completed his Second Piano Concerto in 1912, and its premiere in Pavlosk on 05-September caused even more of an uproar than did the First. Music critic N. Bernstein called the work: a cacophony of sounds that has nothing in common with civilized music...Prokofiev's cadenzas, for example, are unbearable. They are such a musical mess that one might think they were created by capriciously emptying an inkwell on the paper. Prokofiev entered his tenth and last term in the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1913 at age 22. His teachers had long abandoned any hope of making a 'proper' composer of him. Liberated from the short- sightedness of his composition teachers, Prokofiev eyed instead the one goal that he could still attain in the Conservatory -- the coveted Anton Rubinstein Prize awarded to the best student pianist. Knowing the risk it entailed, Prokofiev again stirred the waters by daring to perform his own work. He chose to play his First Piano Concerto, thinking the Second would be "too outlandish within the Conservatoire walls." Prokofiev recalled the final examination recital: At my request, Jurgenson printed the piano score of the First Concerto in time for the examination. I bought 20 copies and distributed them to the examiners. When I came out on the stage the first thing I saw was my concerto spread out on 20 laps -- an unforgettable sight for a composer who has just begun to appear in print! My most serious competitor was Golubovskaya...a very subtle and intelligent pianist. We were extremely gallant and courteous to each other: on the eve of

104 the examination we inquired after the condition of each other's fingers, and in the long hours of suspense while the judges were deciding our fate, we played chess. After a long and stormy session the prize was awarded to me... It was vintage Prokofiev -- to hell with tradition. He would do it his way and he would succeed. Thus ended a tumultuous, but ultimately triumphant ten years in the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

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Following his graduation from the Conservatory, Prokofiev took little note of the momentous changes afoot in his native Russia. World War I had just broken out and Russia had launched a daring (but ultimately disastrous) invasion into East Prussia. A Russian invasion of the European musical world had also begun. Fellow countryman and composer Igor Stravinsky had caused something of a furor with the premiere of his ballets The Firebird and Petrouchka. Sergei Diaghilev, the famous Russian ballet impresario and Stravinsky's partner, had also launched his Ballet Russes in Paris in 1909 to enormous success. Prokofiev was eager to be in the thick of it.

Thus he set off for the West in June 1914 to learn more about the successes of the Ballet Russes, Stravinsky, and others, and to make a name for himself. He met Diaghilev in London in 1914 and played his Second Piano Concerto for him. Diaghilev was so impressed, he toyed with the notion of staging a performance to the Concerto. Although he finally rejected the idea, he did ask Prokofiev to write a ballet based on Russian themes.

Diaghilev had a close relationship to Stravinsky, of which Prokofiev came to be envious. At the time, Stravinsky was at the forefront of the contemporary music movement and Prokofiev desperately wanted to share the spotlight. The tremors caused by The Firebird and Petrouchka were minor compared to the tumultuous premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913. At the premiere in Paris a riot broke out in the theater and spilled onto the streets. Prokofiev felt the temblor. He hoped to cause an even bigger stir with the premiere of his Diaghilev- commissioned ballet Ala and Lolli. In his memoirs, Prokofiev acknowledged "it is quite possible that I was now searching for the same images in my own way." In 1914-15 Sergei concentrated his composing efforts on the score. Although he performed several times as a pianist and composed the character piece 'The Ugly Duckling' for voice and piano, he focused most of his energy on the ballet. Unfortunately, when Prokofiev showed Diaghilev the unfinished score, Diaghilev rejected it. Some debate has continued as to just why Diaghilev turned it down -- musically Ala and Lolli was not as dissonant as The Rite of Spring. It seems likely that Diaghilev did not want a repeat of The Rite of Spring debacle and simply lost his nerve. It is certain that he had at least some confidence in Prokofiev's composing ability because as fast as he rejected Ala and Lolli, he commissioned Prokofiev to write another ballet.

Rattled but not defeated, Prokofiev began composing his second ballet,

106 "Chout" (also known as "The Tale of the Buffoon"). However, he thought Ala and Lolli "was well worth saving", so he reworked the ballet score into an orchestral suite in four movements, which he renamed "The Scythian Suite." To simply throw away two years of effort was unacceptable. He premiered the work on 29-January-1916 in St. Petersburg. He was hoping to eclipse Stravinsky's riotous Rite of Spring premiere:

The concert is going to take place. Do you know that the price of rotten eggs and apples has gone up in St. Petersburg? That's what they'll throw at me! Although a riot did not occur, the premiere of The Scythian Suite was a spectacular disaster. Even the progressive Russian music critics panned it. The French and American press were still less kind. A reviewer in "Musical America" wrote: Crashing Siberias, volcano hell, Krakatoa, sea-bottom crawlers. Incomprehensible? So is Prokofiev. A splendid tribute was paid to his Scythian Suite in Petrograd by Glazunov. The poor tortured classicist walked out of the hall during the performance of the work. No one walked out of Aeolian Hall, but several respectable pianists ran out. Glazunov had indeed stamped out during the performance. But Prokofiev was nonplussed. As much as the critics and classicists hated it, most of the public loved it. He had developed a fervent following among avant garde listeners ever since the days of his piano performances at the 'Evenings of Contemporary Music', and they cheered wildly for their hometown hero at the conclusion of Scythian Suite's premiere.

The spectacle now over, Prokofiev had to deal with the aftermath. "Chout" was put on the back burner by Diaghilev. Brushed aside by Diaghilev a second time, Prokofiev turned instead to an opera he had been commissioned to write in 1915 by the Maryinsky Theater. "The Gambler," based on the story by Dostoevsky, consumed most of Prokofiev's composing energies in 1916 and 1917. Along the way, he also composed the brilliant Visions Fugitives for piano, while managing to alienate Rachmaninov and Medtner. It was vintage Prokofiev -- his burning drive to surpass his peers inevitably got the better of him in public. A similar petty incident would complicate his friendship with Stravinsky in 1933.

1917 was a momentous year in Russia, as it was in Prokofiev's life. Czar Nicholas II was overthrown in March 1917 ending Imperial Russian rule forever. The Provisional Government didn't last long. Prokofiev's home town of St. Petersburg was renamed Petrograd and became the hotbed of a brewing Bolshevik revolution. The Great October Revolution later that year saw the overthrow of the interim government and the triumph of Marxist Leninism. Russia became the leading state in the new Soviet Union and thereafter followed five years of civil war. Petrograd was a battleground for most of 1917 -- hardly the place for a composer looking for a quiet place to write. As a result, Prokofiev spent nine months of 1917 living in the Caucasus. Despite being isolated from Petrograd, 1917 proved enormously

107 productive for Prokofiev. The staging of "The Gambler" had been interrupted by war, but during the year he completed revisions of the Third and Fourth Piano Sonatas, he completed the Violin Concerto No. 1 and the Classical Symphony (No. 1), and he began writing the choral work "Seven, They are Seven" and the Piano Concerto No. 3. This is an especially impressive streak given he didn't have his piano with him during much of the time. He returned to Petrograd in the Spring of 1918, where he premiered the 'Classical Symphony.' Unlike recent premieres, the work was warmly accepted, even by the new Soviets who had seized all vestiges of power, cultural and social as well as economic and political.

The Bolshevik takeover in 1917 was a watershed event for most artists in the former Russia. While on the one hand most artists, musicians and composers became part of the privileged class in Soviet society, they lost all artistic freedom. Music could be neither published nor performed without official authorization. Given many of the composers and musicians had allied themselves with the Whites during the Revolution, it is understandable that many fled the country. Foremost among the early emigres was Stravinsky, who left Russia for the West in 1914. Prokofiev, on the other hand, was less ideologically opposed to the Bolsheviks and preferred to walk a fine line between staying in good graces with them, and continuing his musical development in the West. Weighing more heavily in his decision to leave were the deteriorating living conditions in the Soviet Union. World War I was still raging, a new Civil War between Reds and Whites had erupted, old enemies seized upon the opportunity to settle old scores (e.g. Poland invaded the Ukraine) and drastic new Communist economic policies plunged the country into famine. These were tough times for a young composer coming into his own. Prokofiev knew his prospects were much brighter in Western Europe. Blocked from heading west by war, Prokofiev headed east instead, toward the Pacific port of Vladivostock. It was May 1918 and the beginning of long travels abroad.

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Prokofiev left Vladivostock in May 1918 and stopped for a brief visit in Japan. Although generally unfamiliar with Western Music, the Japanese knew enough of Prokofiev to ask him to play several recitals in Tokyo and Yokohama. These completed, he boarded a ship for the United States, stopping briefly in Hawaii. He arrived in San Francisco in August 1918. He was broke. He borrowed $300 to travel to New York, where he arrived in September. His name more renowned than in Japan, he was soon asked to play a recital. This he did on 20-November-1918. The reception was both sensational yet inauspicious -- critics railed against his "savage" music and "steely, mechanistic" playing, while many in the listening public were delighted. Also impressed were music producers -- at their request he made several piano roll recordings and wrote the Tales of an Old Grandmother and Four Pieces for Piano Op. 32.

Unfortunately, the stodgy American musical press and the novelty of being a product of the emerging Bolshevik state cast a shadow on his new music. He was billed as the "Bolshevik Pianist" in promotional posters, and his playing was often described as "barbaric." The negative reviews and close-mindedness of many musicians took their toll on Prokofiev. He quickly grew bitter about America:

At times, as I roamed New York's Central Park and looked up at the skyscrapers facing it, I would think with cold fury of all the wonderful orchestras in America that cared nothing about my music; of the critics who never tired of uttering platitudes such as 'Beethoven is a great composer' and who balked violently at anything new; of the managers who arranged long tours for artists playing the same old hackneyed programme fifty times over. I had come here too soon: the child was not old enough to appreciate new music. Before he left America, he did score some triumphs, though. On a trip to Chicago in December of 1918, performances of his First Piano Concerto and Scythian Suite were unequivocally successful. After the concerts, the Chicago Opera asked him to stage one of his operas. He had only one completed opera by that time, The Gambler, the score of which he had left in Russia. And since he had abandoned Maddalena, he offered to complete the unfinished Love for Three Oranges. The Chicago Opera accepted and a contract was written to premiere the work in the Fall of 1919. After one of his performances in New York, Prokofiev scored his most lasting triumph -- he met his future wife Carolina Codina, a

109 soprano more well recognized by her stage name, Lina Llubera.

Despite meeting Lina, these were difficult times for Prokofiev. He was stricken with diphtheria and scarlet fever and his performances in New York were now regularly reviled in the press:

In these days when peace is heralded and the world is turning from dissonance to harmony, it comes as a shock to listen to such a program. Those who do not believe that genius is evident in superabundance of noise looked in vain for a new musical message in Mr. Prokofiev's work. Nor in the Classical Symphony, which the composer conducted, was there any cessation from the orgy of discordant sounds.

Musical America, New York, 21-December-1918

Even though he finished the Love for Three Oranges on time, the director of the Chicago Opera, Cleofonte Campanini died suddenly in December 1919 and the premiere was postponed until the following year. Prokofiev was left unpaid for his opera, and concert appearances were drying up. Once again poor and out of work, Prokofiev set sail for Paris in the spring of 1920 to hook up with Diaghilev.

It is ironic that Prokofiev left American shores on such bitter terms. When The Love for Three Oranges finally did premiere in Chicago in December 1920, it was an immediate hit. So successful was the reception in fact, that it was staged in opera houses throughout Europe.

Upon arriving in Paris, Prokofiev sought out Diaghilev. Diaghilev asked Prokofiev to stage his ballet The Buffoon for the Ballet Russes. So Prokofiev took up residence in a rented house in Mantes-La-Jolie and began revising the score for The Buffoon. Having avoided returning to Russia, Prokofiev asked his mother, who was in poor health, to join him in Paris. That she did in spite of the tremendous difficulties entailed by the move. They were also joined by Lina, who visited them in Paris for a short period. Prokofiev spent the better part of 1920 reworking The Buffoon. The Buffoon premiered in Paris on 17-May-1921 and in London on 09-June-1921. The public praised the work and the critics tore into it. The British musical press was particularly harsh. It is generally agreed that the critical disapproval of The Buffoon had more to do with its bizarre storyline than Prokofiev's music. Whatever the reason, the work had a short life on the stage. More impressed were Prokofiev's adoring fans. He also won over new listeners, among them Henri Matisse, who liked The Buffoon so much he sketched a portrait of Prokofiev. Around the same time, Prokofiev also met Pablo Picasso and Maurice Ravel. The Scythian Suite also received its Paris premiere in 1921.

110 Prokofiev took a detour back to America in the autumn of 1921 to oversee the premiere of his Love for Three Oranges and the Third Piano Concerto. Both premiered in Chicago in December of 1921. The Chicago Opera gave the premiere of The Love for Three Oranges and the composer performed his Third Piano Concerto. While the response in Chicago was enthusiastic for both works, premieres in New York a few months later provoked hostility. Prokofiev was bewildered by the opposite reactions: "The American season, which had begun so brilliantly, completely fizzled out." Again the idiosyncratic American response to his music prompted a return to the comfort of Europe.

Rather than return to the bustle of Paris, Prokofiev sought instead the quiet of the Bavarian Alps. He settled in a rented home in the town of Ettal, where he would spend most of 1922-23. While the prolific Prokofiev cleaned up a number of works for publication, he devoted most of his energies during this time to his new opera The Fiery Angel. Based on a mystical novel by Valery Bryusov, the Fiery Angel was a purely Prokofiev-inspired endeavor. The work languished in various incarnations, never to be performed while the composer was alive.

During this Ettal period, Lina studied opera in nearby Milan. The quiet of the Bavarian Alps also nurtured Prokofiev's budding romance with Lina. They were married in September of 1923. Prokofiev also devoted much time to caring for his mother, whose sight had finally failed her. His recent marriage and continued devotion to the care of his mother probably weighed heavily in Prokofiev's decision to turn down an official invitation to return to Russia to perform with the Leningrad Philharmonic. Now part of the Soviet Union, Russia was enduring harsh times -- the civil war had recently ended and the harsh economic policies of Lenin and Stalin were taking their toll. Prokofiev's friends who had stayed in the Soviet Union, including Miaskovsky, had remained in touch during his American and European travels. They urged Prokofiev to return, letting him know that his music was being performed in Soviet concert halls.

Although Prokofiev decided to stay in Europe, he left his options open for an eventual return to his homeland. Thus he returned to Paris in the autumn of 1923, with Lina and his mother in tow. The move was accompanied with both happiness and tragedy. Lina gave birth to their first son, Sviatoslav, on 27-February-1924. But Prokofiev's joy at becoming a father was tempered by the loss of his mother in December 1924. The events proved distracting to his composing. The only major work to emerge in 1924 was the development of a Symphonic Suite from his opera Love of Three Oranges. Although written initially to satisfy conductors eager to play his music without having to stage extravagant, multi-hour productions, the Symphonic Suite became one of Prokofiev's strongest musical forms. He would eventually write no less than twenty-five Symphonic Suites derived from various stage and film

111 works.

At about this time, Koussevitzky commissioned Prokofiev to write a new Symphony. While Prokofiev worked on his Second Symphony, Koussevitzky premiered in Paris several works which had gone unperformed, most notably the Cantata "Seven, They are Seven" and the First Violin Concerto. Both works were completed in that prolific year of 1917, but had remained unplayed. The premiere of the lyrical First Violin Concerto in 1923 was poorly timed. Accustomed to new, daring works by Stravinsky and Prokofiev himself, the audience found the concerto too conventional. If the First Violin Concerto would take years to gain favor, the Second Symphony enjoyed no such reprieve. Prokofiev aimed to make the symphony "hard as iron and steel". This objective he achieved. It flopped when premiered by Koussevitzky in Paris on 06-June-1925. Even Prokofiev found it lacking: Neither I nor the audience understood anything in it. It was too thickly woven. There were too many layers of counterpoint which degenerated into mere figuration... This was perhaps the first time it appeared to me that I might be destined to be a second-rate composer. Never one to turn his back on a work, even one as poorly liked as the Second Symphony, Prokofiev tried to rescue it later in life as Opus 136, but never realised the re-working. While the Second Symphony is more remembered for its inauspicious debut, it did have a few supporters. The French composer Françis Poulenc liked it, and, more importantly, Sergei Diaghilev took note. Diaghilev had up until then fallen out with Prokofiev, spurned by Prokofiev's refusal to create a ballet version of The Love of Three Oranges.

For whatever reason, Diaghilev made amends and asked Prokofiev to compose a new ballet, Le Pas d'Acier (The Steel Step). Much of the scoring was done while he and Lina gave a concert tour of the United States in 1925. Half of the American tour was with Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. They returned to Paris, toured Italy in 1926, and Prokofiev completed writing Le Pas d'Acier. The premieres in Paris and London in 1927 were both wildly successful with the public -- thanks in part to the bold stage and costume designs of the artist Georgy Yakulov.

While his notoriety grew in Europe, Prokofiev longed to return to his homeland. He had maintained correspondence with friends inside the Soviet Union and towards the end of 1926, he began negotiations in earnest with Soviet authorities on the terms of a return tour. To the Soviet music authorities, Prokofiev's return presented a dilemma. On the one hand he was an unquestioned leader of the new music movement and could bring legitimacy to their fledgling state, at least on a musical level. On the other hand, Prokofiev's modernism was still foreign to much of the Soviet public and a highly publicized return might promote unrest. The Soviet leadership was still smarting over Stravinsky's departure and vow never to return. His unimpeachable stardom in the west and Prokofiev's similarity in style also foreshadowed trouble. Thus it was at great risk that the Soviet music

112 apparatchiks approved Prokofiev's return.

Prokofiev returned to his homeland in January of 1927. He toured for two-and-a-half months. Everywhere he played, eager crowds packed music halls. The return tour was a resounding success. He was celebrated as a Russian hero whose revolutionary music had conquered the West. While the accolades were perhaps out of proportion to his real stature in Western music, the experience etched in Prokofiev's mind the notion that perhaps a return to the Soviet Union some day could afford him the chance to escape Stravinsky's shadow once and for all. While Prokofiev returned to Paris following the tour, the genesis for a permanent return "home" had been made.

Prokofiev's second son Oleg was born in 14-December-1928.

The failure of his epic Second Symphony weighed on Prokofiev's mind when he returned to Paris. Koussevitzky, now one of Prokofiev's strongest champions, had recently conducted orchestral performances of part of the opera The Fiery Angel. Encouraged by the strength of the material, Prokofiev set about to make a Symphonic Suite based on the opera. However, he turned that thought into the development of a full symphony, the Third (Opus 44). Based on thematic material from The Fiery Angel, the Third Symphony also afforded Prokofiev a chance to redeem himself for the failure of the Second Symphony. Pierre Monteux premiered the Third Symphony on 17-May-1929 in Paris. Prokofiev (and the critics) were much happier with the results. Prokofiev later remarked, "I have succeeded in deepening my musical language."

Before the Third Symphony was completed, Diaghilev commissioned Prokofiev to create another ballet. The work, entitled The Prodigal Son, was completed fairly quickly, although its production was another story. The designer, George Rouault, did not deliver his sketches as promised, thus prompting Diaghilev to break into his apartment and take them. The leading dancer, Serge Lifar, disliked his role so much that on opening night he refused to go to the theater, until pangs of guilt at abandoning Diaghilev prompted him to reconsider. Meanwhile, Prokofiev patiently waited at the podium for Lifar to arrive. The work was well received by audiences, critics, and even Prokofiev himself. But the behind-the-scenes shenanigans continued: shortly after the premiere, Prokofiev was sued by the scenarist for publishing The Prodigal Son without his permission. Nothing much came of the lawsuit. More importantly, and tragically, Diaghilev died two months later in Venice. The loss was another important factor that weighed in Prokofiev's impending decision to return to the Soviet Union.

After the drama surrounding The Prodigal Son, Prokofiev turned his attention next to the Fourth Symphony. Koussevitzky had commissioned several contemporary composers, Stravinsky and Prokofiev foremost among them, to write new works to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony. Prokofiev borrowed heavily from The Prodigal Son for the new Symphony, so much so that

113 he would later write at length in his memoirs justifying the similarities:

...in some passages of the Symphony I have used the same musical material which is introduced in the ballet The Prodigal Son. This does not lead to the conclusion that the Symphony is written on the material extracted from The Prodigal Son or that The Prodigal Son on the material from the Symphony. Merely, in the Symphony I had the possibility to develop symphonically what a ballet-form did not enable me to do. A precedent may be recalled with Beethoven's Ballet The Creatures of Prometheus and his Symphony No. 3. Koussevitzky conducted the premier performance with his Boston Symphony on 14-November-1930. The public reception was lukewarm. The tepid response, accompanied by accusations of too much borrowing from The Prodigal Son, would prompt Prokofiev to revisit the work in 1947, whereupon he substantially revised (and lengthened) the Fourth Symphony.

Prokofiev had also returned to the United States in 1930 for a tour which extended into Canada and Cuba. The tour was enormously successful, even prompting a commission for a new String Quartet from the Library of Congress. The work, the String Quartet No. 1 Opus 50, contains a profoundly sweeping Finale. Prokofiev liked it so much, he re-scored the fourth movement (Andante) for string orchestra as Opus 50bis.

The period 1930-32 were to be Prokofiev's last in the West. He had made a brief return to the Soviet Union in 1929, but it was clouded in controversy. The polarization between East and West was growing and Stalin had recently taken over the reigns of power. The result was a much greater conflict of vision between free Europe and America, and the communist Soviet Union. This conflict extended well into cultural and social avenues as well as economic and political. Prokofiev's works were viewed as too bourgeois, some Soviets descending to label him an 'enemy of Soviet culture.' The criticism from his homeland troubled Prokofiev deeply. A string of compositions followed which were mostly disliked by the public.

The first of these poorly-received works was a ballet newly commissioned by the Paris Opera. Started in the summer of 1930, Sur le Borysthene (On the Dneiper) premiered in Paris in December of 1932. It was harshly received, and closed shortly after it opened. Thereupon followed another failure -- the Fourth Piano Concerto. Commissioned in 1931 by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm in World War I, the Fourth Piano Concerto was one in a number of piano works Wittgenstein had commissioned from major composers including Strauss and Ravel. Wittgenstein disliked all the works he commissioned, including Prokofiev's. When Prokofiev sent him the completed score, Wittgenstein promptly returned it with a note attached: "I thank you for your concerto, but I do not understand a single note and I shall not play it." The work was sadly shelved, never to be performed while Prokofiev was alive. It

114 eventually premiered on 05-September-1956 by pianist Siegfried Rapp.

Ten years had elapsed between the Third and Fourth Piano Concertos and Prokofiev found a renewed interest in his favorite instrument, the piano. Shortly after completing the Fourth Piano Concerto in 1931, he began composing the Fifth. Smarting from accusations of recycling his music in the Fourth Symphony, Prokofiev strove for new musical ideas in his Piano Concertos.

More than ten years had passed since I had written a piano concerto. Since then my conceptions of the treatment of this form had changed somewhat, some new ideas had occurred to me, and finally I had accumulated a good number of vigorous major themes in my notebook. I had not intended the concerto to be difficult...but in the end it turned out to be complicated, as indeed was the case with a good many other compositions of this period. What was the explanation? In my desire for simplicity I was hampered by the fear of repeating old formulas, of reverting to 'old simplicity', which is something all modern composers seek to avoid. For certain, the Third and Fourth Concertos are worlds apart. The Fifth Piano Concerto is even more distant from the Third in melodic complexity. Prokofiev admitted, "I had enough melodies to make three concertos." However, he compacted the numerous ideas into a five movement concerto that lasts only twenty-odd minutes. Prokofiev premiered the Fifth Concerto on 31 October 1932 with the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Wilhem Furtwängler. While Prokofiev was pleased with the premiere, the concerto went unplayed by other pianists until it was championed by the brilliant young Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter almost a decade later in the 1940s.

His latest piano concertos poorly received, Prokofiev thus embarked to the Soviet Union on his third concert tour in 1932. His second return in 1929 had been marked with controversy, the Bolshoi having refused to stage Le Pas d'Acier after pressure from the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM). The third Soviet concert tour in 1932 was less tumultuous. The RAPM had dissolved and thus open criticism of his "anti-Soviet" ideas had died down. As in the past, the Soviet public greeted their hero with loving adoration. Prokofiev had become recognized as one of Russia's greatest living composers. In the Soviet Union, he did not have to contend with fickle crowds and a consistently hostile musical press. Most importantly, Prokofiev was at his core a Russian. His best friends were Russian and he longed to be back among his people. Some historians speculate that Prokofiev was creatively tired with the direction of his music in Europe and America. Whatever the root causes, the third Soviet tour in 1932 further convinced Prokofiev that he should return for good. The Soviet government employed some good old-fashioned capitalist incentives to further persuade Prokofiev to stay -- they promised him an apartment in Moscow and a new car. In his memoirs, Prokofiev explained his decision to return thusly:

115 Here is how I feel about it: I care nothing for politics -- I'm a composer first and last. Any government that lets me write my music in peace, publishes everything I composed before the ink is dry, and performs every note that comes from my pen is all right with me. In Europe, we all have to fish for performances, cajole conductors and theatre directors; in Russian they come to me -- I can hardly keep up with the demand...

116

Prokofiev's return to the Soviet Union took several years -- from 1933 to 1936 he still considered Paris his home, but he frequently travelled to Moscow. More importantly, he began to receive commissions for new works from the Soviet Union. Prokofiev did not become a permanent Moscow resident until 1936.

This period between Paris and Moscow is marked by a number of new works, the most important of which were the ballet Romeo and Juliet, the Second Violin Concerto and the music for the film Lieutenant Kijé. The latter work was Prokofiev's first Soviet commission. Based on an original story by Yuri Tynyanov, the film was created by Alexander Fienzimmer, with musical scoring by Prokofiev. Prokofiev reworked the film music into the now famous Symphonic Suite (Opus 60).

The Second Violin Concerto was written for the French violinist Robert Soetans and received its premiere by Soetans in Madrid on 01-December-1935. It was an immediate success and became even more popular when championed by Jascha Heifetz starting in 1937. The Second Violin Concerto is typical of the three major works in this period. They mark a transition from his 'Toccata' and 'Grotesque' lines into his 'Lyrical' and 'Classical' lines. The 'lyrical' line actually can be found in earlier works such as the First Violin Concerto and many of his songs for voice and piano. The Second Violin Concerto is indeed very rich in it lyricism, yet very simple in rhythm -- in stark contrast to the complex, toccata rhythms of the Fourth and Fifth Piano concertos.

Romeo and Juliet was originally commissioned as a ballet work by the Kirov Theater in 1934. However, when Prokofiev proposed Romeo and Juliet as the subject, the Kirov objected ("living people can dance, the dying cannot.") So instead, Prokofiev signed a contract to stage Romeo and Juliet instead with the Bolshoi Ballet Theater. As with other Prokofiev stage productions, the journey from commission to premiere was anything but smooth. Upon seeing the score in the summer of 1935, the Bolshoi declared the work undanceable. The work languished unperformed for several years. It finally received a premiere on 30-December-1938 at the Brno Opera House in Prague. Not one to waste music, Prokofiev did not wait for the Boshoi to stage his work. He crafted two Symphonic Suites and a piano transcription (Opus 75) out of the ballet score in 1936 and 1937 respectively, and a Third Symphonic Suite in 1946. Both the symphonic and piano transcriptions were warmly accepted by the public. The

117 reception of the ballet at Brno in 1938 was equally positive. Only after this success did the Kirov and Bolshoi take notice again. The Kirov eventually staged Romeo and Juliet in 1940 and the Bolshoi in 1946.

Lieutenant Kijé also marks the beginning of a period of intense interest by Prokofiev in film music. He scored music for Sergei Eisenstein's epic Alexander Nevsky in 1939, followed shortly by scores for Lermontov (1941), Partisans in the Ukranian Steppes (1942), Tonya (1942), Kotovsky (1942), and Ivan the Terrible (1942-5). Prokofiev even undertook a special trip to Hollywood during his last tour of the United States in 1938. He closely studied the techniques of filmmakers and composers in the Hollywood studios, with an eye towards taking the knowledge back with him to the Soviet Union. Alexander Nevsky afforded Prokofiev the opportunity to apply what he had learned in Hollywood. The collaboration between Eisenstein and Prokofiev was extraordinary in its synchronicity. Prokofiev later scored a Cantata from the film music in Opus 78. To this day, it remains a landmark work in the choral repetoire.

Prokofiev also applied his superb scoring skills to the theatrical stage as well. He wrote music for several plays including Egyptian Nights (1934), Boris Godunov (1936), Eugene Onegin (1936), and Hamlet (1937). In the same genre and at the same time, Prokofiev was asked by the Central Childern's Theater to write a new musical symphony just for children. The intent was to cultivate 'musical tastes in children from the first years of school.' Intrigued by the invitation, Prokofiev set about the project with usual aplomb and completed Peter and the Wolf in just four day's time. The debut on 02-May-1936 was, in the composer's words, inauspicious at best: "(attendance) was rather poor and failed to attract much attention."

By this time, all of Prokofiev's commissions were coming from within the Soviet Union. He had moved permanently to his Moscow apartment and in May of 1936 Lina arrived with Oleg and Sviatoslav. The return to Moscow now completed, Soviet officials no longer afforded Prokofiev special treatment. Whereas in previous years they had bent over backwards to accommodate his preference for living in the West, now they turned a cold shoulder. The Soviet Union had endured extraordinary depravity in its nascent years, bloodied by World War I, invaded by the Western allies and Japan in 1918 in an oft-forgotten intervention , further ravaged by a long and brutal Civil War, followed by years of generally disastrous economic experiments, and a period of horrific repression by Stalin in the 1930's. Life was harsh by most measures. Millions of Soviets had died either at the hands of their own government or from starvation. Although rapid industrialization during the Five Year Plans of 1928-1937 improved the situation somewhat, the standard of living even in Moscow was a far cry from the comforts of burgeoise Paris. However harsh the conditions and increasingly strict the official

118 party line, Prokofiev persevered.

The change in the process of composing music was stark. In Europe, a composer's creative vision was tempered only by economic realities. If the public didn't like your music, theater owners would not pay you to write new music. And unless you were supported by rich benefactors, you didn't eat. At its worst, it was a competitive arena and a composer had to temper artistic integrity with an occassional dose of popular music. Fortunately, Paris, London, Chicago and the other centers of music in the West were very advanced in their musical tastes compared to the Soviet Union. For this reason, contemporary music generally flourished.

In the Soviet Union, the environment was completely different. From the beginning, the Soviet Union was centrally controlled -- by party leaders in Moscow who dictated everything that was to be created, consumed or conceived. Artistic freedom was non- existent. Creativity was stifled by the whims of appointed party bureaucrats who created the official rules. Changes in Soviet leadership since the October Revolution only worsened the situation for artists and writers. In 1932 Stalin introduced his cultural policy of 'Socialist Realism.' A year later, the party bureaucrats had distilled this notion into guidelines for composers:

The main attention of the Soviet composer must be directed towards the victorious progressive principles of reality, towards all that is heroic, bright and beautiful.This distinguishes the spiritual world of Soviet man and must be embodied in musical images full of beauty and strength. Socialist Realism demands an implacable struggle against folk-negating modernistic directions that are typical of the decay of contemporary bourgeois art, against subservience and servility towards modern burgeois culture. In practice, the results were stifling. New compositions out of step with 'Socialist Realism' were criticized and their composers publically ridiculed. Both Shostakovich and Prokofiev were to suffer far worse privations for stepping outside the boundaries of officially proscribed doctrine. By comparison, though, composers and musicians under the Soviet yoke fared far better than Soviet writers, artists and architects.

Initially, Prokofiev at least publically embraced the Soviet ideology. He composed the monumental Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution in 1936-37, and the Zdravitsa (Hail to Stalin) Cantata in 1939. The 20th Anniversary Cantata was rejected as too modernist and never performed during Prokofiev's lifetime. Prokofiev again tried to tow the party line in the summer of 1938 when he began a new opera, which he hoped to compose on a contemporary Soviet theme. The work, Semyon Kotko, followed the story of a young hero during the occupation of Ukraine by the Germans after the revolution. The

119 Germans were the villain of the story -- a wrinkle which unbeknownst to Prokofiev would doom the work to an ugly fate.

Prior to 1939, relations between Germany and Russia had rapidly deteriorated. Hitler's rise to power in Germany foreshadowed yet another World War in Europe in two decades. In 1938, Germany annexed the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. The Soviets stood ready to defend the Czechs against Hitler's aggression when Chamberlain and the French capitulated at the infamous Munich meeting in September of 1938. Now completely isolated, the Soviets sought security through appeasement. Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression treaty on 23-August-1939, paving the way for Hitler's invasion of Poland a week later.

More importantly in its effect on Prokofiev, Germany was suddenly an ally of the Soviet Union. The imminent staging of Semyon Kotko with its portrayal of a brutal German occupation was unfathomable to Stalin. Vsevolod Meyerhold, Prokofiev's longtime friend and the producer of Semyon Kotko, was arrested during the production of the opera and executed. The Germans in the opera were re-cast as unnamed villains. Even such drastic actions did not soothe Stalin's paranoia -- Semyon Kotko was 'removed' from the official repetoire and was not 'politically rehabilitated' until 1970. Even more detrimental to Prokofiev's fortunes, the Soviet Union's rapprochement with Germany severed ties with France, Great Britain, the United States, and the rest of the Allies. As a consequence, there was no longer any need to let Prokofiev travel abroad as an ambassador of music. And so it was decreed. Prokofiev no longer was allowed to tour outside the Soviet Union. The heavy-handedness would soon have tragic consequences on Prokofiev's family life. Lina was Spanish by birth -- a dangerous fact in Stalin's paranoid state. Foreigners were mistrusted. Ethnic minorities outside Russia proper suffered far worse. At least for now Lina was safe from deportation, starvation or execution -- the preferred methods for dealing with non- Russians.

In this increasingly dangerous environment, Prokofiev continued to compose. Even the outbreak of the Second World War did not diminish his productivity. In fact, Prokofiev became more prolific -- perhaps an indication of his withdrawal from politics and daily hardships into his music. In 1939, he worked simultaneously on a huge number of works: three Piano Sonatas (Nos. 6, 7 and 8), the Sonata for Violin and Piano in F minor, Semyon Kotko, and several patriotic works.

Prokofiev began writing his last complete opera, The Duenna (Betrothal in a Monastery), in 1940. Its staging was delayed by the outbreak of war. When it finally premiered after the War in 1946, it was roundly praised within the Soviet Union. The Duenna was also important because it marked the beginning of Prokofiev's relationship with the poet Mira Mendelssohn. Mira had met Prokofiev in 1938, when she was but twenty-three years old. Mira collaborated with

120 Prokofiev on the Duenna and wrote many of the verses. She later helped write the lyrics for his next opera, War and Peace, and several other minor works.

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The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 came as a complete surprise to most Russians, most notably Stalin. Typical of Stalin during this period, his paranoia prompted bizarre overreactions. He ordered all senior cultural leaders out of Moscow, fearing they might be the target of German spies. Prokofiev was among those named to leave Moscow for the Caucasus. The year had already started badly for the composer. He had suffered a heart attack in the Spring. The sudden decree to leave Moscow caused even more disruption in his life. Lina stayed behind in Moscow with their two sons. Strangely, Mira was evacuated from Moscow along with Prokofiev and other 'cultural leaders.'

Despite the separation from his family and the harsh conditions imposed by war, Prokofiev remained prolific. He completed his 'War' sonatas for the Piano (Nos. 6, 7 and 8). He wrote his most sweeping opera yet, War and Peace, based on Tolstoy's monumental novel. Prokofiev's treatment was equally monumental. It would take him nearly ten years to complete the work. He also began sketches for another opera, Khan Buzay, but later abandoned it. During this time, Prokofiev also wrote incidental music for four films, the epic Cinderella ballet, a number of Symphonic Suites, the String Quartet No. 2, a Sonata for Flute and Piano, a transcription of that same Flute Sonata for Violin and Piano (made at the request of violinist David Oistrakh) , two military Marches, several folk songs, and the towering Fifth Symphony. This is an amazing string of works by any measure.

The 'War' sonatas are magnificent in their dynamism and span, almost orchestral in their sonority. The Sixth Sonata has emerged over the years as Prokofiev's most oft-recorded sonata. He gave the premiere performance himself in a Moscow Radio broadcast in 1940. By the time the Seventh Sonata was completed in 1942, Prokofiev's health had deteriorated for many reasons and he was unable to premiere the work. Sviatoslav Richter was selected to debut the work, which he did in 1943. The motoric Third Movement is the pinnacle of Prokofiev's 'toccata' line, unrelenting in its rhythm and power. He was awarded his first Stalin Prize for the Seventh Sonata. When the Eighth Sonata was completed in 1944, Prokofiev was again unhealthy enough to play the premiere. This time he selected another brilliant young Soviet pianist, Emil Gilels, in his stead. Gilels premiere performance came on 29 December 1944. Although not as popular as the Sixth and Seventh, the Eighth Sonata stands as perhaps the greatest of the cycle. Richter called it "the richest of all of Prokofiev's sonatas. It has

122 a complex inner life with profound contrapositions."

The Second String Quartet also was extremely successful. Prokofiev's lifelong friend Miaskovsky, ever critical and never one to mince words, called it simply "magnificent music."

Cinderella, second only to Romeo and Juliet in popularity among Prokofiev's ballets, followed a circuitous route to its premiere on the Bolshoi stage in 1945. The work was originally commissioned by the Kirov Theater just prior to the outbreak of the German invasion. Prokofiev was in fact working on the piano score to the second act of the ballet when the invasion began. The tumultuous days after the invasion placed the project on hold. In fact, Prokofiev laid aside the work for two years to focus his energies on the opera War and Peace and other smaller works. When Prokofiev resumed work on Cinderella at the end of 1943, he completed a set of piano transcriptions (Opus 95 and 97) before he completed the orchestration (he completed a third set of piano transcriptions later as Opus 102.) The ballet received its premiere on 21-November-1945 in Moscow, with famed ballerina Galina Ulanova in the title role. Ulanova had danced the lead in Romeo and Juliet as well. The premiere was enormously well received, and its premiere by the Kirov in Leningrad five months later was also successful.

But of all the works in the wartime period, the most successful is his Fifth Symphony. Work began on the Fifth Symphony in 1944 immediately after he completed the orchestral score for Cinderella:

I wrote my Fifth Symphony in the summer of 1944 and I consider my work on this symphony very significant both because of the musical material put into it and because I returned to the symphonic form after a sixteen-year interval. The Fifth Symphony completes, as it were, a long period of my works. I conceived it as a symphony of the greatness of the human spirit. Prokofiev conducted the premiere of the Fifth in Moscow on 13- January-1945, on the eve of the Allied victory in the War. The work was highly praised. It quickly emerged as his most popular symphony and has remained to this day one of his greatest orchestral works. He was awarded his second Stalin Prize for it.

This brilliant culmination to a brilliant period in his composing life was short-lived. Later in January of 1945, Prokofiev fell and suffered a severe concussion. He nearly died in the following days, his recovery hampered by his earlier heart attack and general fatigue from overwork. He would suffer recurring headaches and periods of dangerously high blood pressure until his death eight years later. Prokofiev never fully recovered from this accident, although the greatness of works which were to follow gave no indication of it.

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Prokofiev had since become involved with Mira Mendelson. He separated from Lina in 1941, although he never formally divorced her. Meanwhile, Lina had endured terrible hardships during and after the war. Separated from Sergei for several years and forced to raise Oleg and Sviatoslav on her own, Lina endured in war-torn Moscow. She was stricken with diphtheria towards the end of the war. To pile insult on top of tragedy, the Supreme Soviet decreed in February 1947 that Soviet citizens were forbidden from marrying foreigners. The law was one in a series of increasingly draconian measures passed by Stalin and his henchmen in the years following the war. The law was applied retroactively, thus nullifying Prokofiev's marriage with Lina. Times were desperate for her. Many other spouses and friends of prominent Soviet citizens at the time were exiled or executed on phony charges. It was in this climate that Lina tried to leave Russia with her sons.

It is not known how much Prokofiev tried to help Lina in her attempts to flee the Soviet Union. For certain Prokofiev had much to fear from attempting to assist his wife. Thousands of military and cultural leaders suspected of disloyalty were executed in Stalin's brutal purges after the war. Prokofiev married Mira in 1948, barely a year after the decree nullified his marriage with Lina. A month after Sergei and Mira were married, Lina was arrested on phony charges of espionage and sent to a labor camp in Komi. There she remained for eight years. Lina was eventually released from prison and lived in Moscow until 1972, when she returned to the West.

Meanwhile, Prokofiev, in spite of his deteriorating health, continued to compose. His work ethic, which is to say his propensity to overwork, complicated his health problems. Even long spells in the hospital did not deter his composing.

In commemoration of the end of the war, he wrote the Ode to the End of the War for a mixed ensemble including 8 harps, 4 pianos, wind, percussion and double basses. Among major works completed after the War, Prokofiev wrote the Symphony No. 6 (1945-4), the magnificent Violin Sonata No 2 in D Major (1947), the ballet the Tale of the Stone Flower (1948-50), and two striking works for Cello: the Sonata for Cello and Piano Op.119 (1949) and the Sinfonia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra (1950-51.) Both of the cello works were composed with the collaboration of Prokofiev's friend Mstislav Rostropovich. Rostropovich and Richter premiered both pieces.

124 More characteristic of pieces in the last years are either revisions to earlier works, or works which were never completed. In the latter category, Prokofiev returned to one of his vaunted forms, the piano sonata. He started early sketches for the Tenth Piano Sonata, but never completed it. He planned an Eleventh Piano Sonata and a concerto for two pianos and string orchestra, but never put notes to paper. The last of his complete Piano Sonatas, the Ninth, was completed in 1947 and premiered by Richter.

Complicating life was the increasing cultural repression of paranoid Soviet leaders. With the onset of the Cold War, Stalin further isolated his people from the countries of the West, reaffirming the superiority of Communist orthodoxy in culture and ideology. Chief architect of the return to Soviet orthodoxy in the arts was Andrei Zhdanov, then a member of the newly reformed elite Politburo. Zhdanov systematically went through works of literature, film, and art, publically denouncing works with any reputed tie to the West. This orgy of government denouncements, censorship, and intimidation became known as Zhdanovshchina ('Zhdanov's Terror'.) Prokofiev became the target in early 1948. Zhdanov denounced Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Khatchaturian among other composers, as too cosmopolitan and formalist.

The effect on Prokofiev, weakened by illness, was demoralizing. He made a few half-hearted attempts to defend himself and his music. Now out of official favor, Prokofiev struggled to balance his inner artistic desires with his love of country. To appease Zhdanov and the cultural apartchiks, Prokofiev churned out a series of unspectacular and bland patriotic works, including the Festive Poem "Thirty Years" for Orchestra (1947), the opera Story of a Real Man (1947-48), Winter Bonfire (1949-50), and the oratorio On Guard for Peace (1950).

Further compounding Prokofiev's worsening conditions were the deaths of many of his dearest friends. Miaskovsky's death in August of 1950 culminated this low point in his life.

Down but not beaten, Prokofiev still managed to compose works of import. Perhaps Prokofiev's final substantive work is his somber Symphony No. 7, composed in 1951 and 1952. Composed for young listeners and in such a dark period of tragedy and cultural repression, the Seventh Symphony is variously viewed as overly simplistic or banal by its critics, but with dark emotions beneath the surface it endures as one of his more oft-played symphonies today. The public debut of the Seventh Symphony was to be Prokofiev's last public appearance.

The end was tragically ironic. Sergei Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin -- 05-March-1953. In fact, his death went unpublished and unknown to anyone but close friends for days. He had died of a massive brain hemmorage about an hour before Stalin. The excess of

125 state-ordered mourning after the death of Stalin cast one final, disgraceful shadow over Prokofiev. Because of the official mourning for Stalin, only about 40 people were able to attend a civil funeral the next day at the Composers' Union. David Oistrakh played the first and third movements from the First Violin Sonata in F minor. Richter also attended the ceremony. Prokofiev's body was later buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Prokofiev was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize in 1957 for his Seventh Symphony.

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• By Title • By Popularity NEW! • Ballets • Flute • By Opus • By # of Recordings NEW! • Operas • Band Music • By Date • By # of Concerts NEW! • Cantatas/Oratorios • Piano • Cello • Symphonies • Chamber Music • Violin *Note: All known works are contained in this catalog except the • Vocal 'Juvenilia' early piano works. These works will be added in the near • Concertos future. • Film/Incidental Music

= Click to see Orchestration

Title Date Genre Alexander Nevsky, Cantata for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, Op 78 1938-1939 Cantata Chout (The Tale of the Buffoon), Ballet in Six Scenes, Op 21 1915-1920 Ballet Cinderella, Ballet in Three Acts, Op 87 1940-1944 Ballet The Fiery Angel, Op 37 1919-1927 Opera Lieutenant Kijé - Symphonic Suite, Op 60 1934 Orchestral Suite The Love for Three Oranges: Symphonic Suite, Op 33bis 1924 Orchestral Suite Peter and the Wolf, Op 67 1936 Speaker & Orchestra Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor, Op 16 1912-1913 Piano Concerto Piano Concerto No 3 in C major, Op 26 1917-1921 Piano Concerto Piano Sonata No 6 in A major, Op 82 1939-1940 Piano Sonata Piano Sonata No 7 in B flat major, Op 83 1939-1942 Piano Sonata Piano Sonata No 8 in B flat major, Op 84 1939-1944 Piano Sonata Romeo and Juliet, Ballet in Four Acts, Op 64 1935-1936 Ballet Scythian Suite, from Ala and Lolli, Op 20 1914-1915 Orchestral Suite Sonata for Violin and Piano No 1 in F minor, Op 80 1938-1946 Violin Sonata Symphony No 1 in D major "Classical", Op 25 1916-1917 Symphony Symphony No 5 in B flat major, Op 100 1944 Symphony Symphony No 6 in E flat minor, Op 111 1945-1947 Symphony Toccata in D minor, Op 11 1912 Piano Violin Concerto No 1 in D major, Op 19 1916-1917 Violin Concerto Violin Concerto No 2 in G minor, Op 63 1935 Violin Concerto Visions Fugitives, Op 22 1915-1917 Piano War and Peace, Op 91 1941-1952 Opera

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