Sunday, January \^, \Z[`, ]pm Hertz Hall

THE COMPLETE OF SERGEI PROKO FIEV (1891 –1953) Piano

PROKOFIEV No. 1 in F mino r, Op. 1 Alleg ro Meno mosso Piu mosso Menu mosso

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 2 in D mino r, Op. 14 Alleg ro, ma non t roppo Scherzo: Alleg ro ma rcato Andante Vivace

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 3 in A mino r, Op. 28 Allegro tempestoso Moderato Allegro tempestoso Moderato Più lento Più animato Allegro I Poco più mosso

Intermission

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 4 in C mino r, Op. 29 Alleg ro molto sostenuto Andante assai Alleg ro con brio, ma non leggie re

Funded, in part, by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ 2015 –2016 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. Additional support provided by Patron Sponsors Annette Campbell-White and Ruediger Naumann-Etienne Hamburg Steinway piano provided by Steinway & Sons of Cal Performances’ 2015–2016 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. [_ Friday, March ^, \Z[`, apm Hertz Hall

THE COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS OF SERGEI PROKO FIEV (1891 –1953)

Yefim Bronfman Piano

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 6 in A majo r, Op. 82 Alleg ro moderato Alleg retto di valzer lentissimo Vivace

Intermission

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 5 in C majo r, Op. 38 Alleg ro tranquillo Andantino Un poco alleg retto

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 7 in B-flat majo r, Op. 83 Alleg ro inquieto Andante calo roso Precipitato

Funded, in part, by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ 2015 –2016 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. Additional support provided by Patron Sponsors Annette Campbell-White and Ruediger Naumann-Etienne Hamburg Steinway piano provided by Steinway & Sons of San Francisco Cal Performances’ 2015–2016 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

PLAYBILL Sunday, March `, \Z[`, ]pm Hertz Hall

THE COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS OF SERGEI PROKO FIEV (1891 –1953)

Yefim Bronfman Piano

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 9 in C majo r, Op. 103 Alleg retto dolce Alleg ro st repitoso Andante tranquillo Alleg ro con brio, ma non t roppo p resto

Intermission

PROKOFIEV Sonata No. 8 in B-flat majo r, Op. 84 Andante dolce Andante sognando Vivace

Funded, in part, by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ 2015 –2016 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. Additional support provided by Patron Sponsors Annette Campbell-White and Ruediger Naumann-Etienne Hamburg Steinway piano provided by Steinway & Sons of San Francisco Cal Performances’ 2015–2016 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. ABOUT THE ARTIST of Boston, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, and Seattle. Following the success of their first U.S. tour last spring, Mr. Bronfman will rejoin Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lynn Harrell in May for a European tour that takes them from Madrid to Berlin, Moscow, and Milan. Always keen to explore chamber repertoire, Mr. Bronfman has collaborated with , Magdalena Kožená, , and , among many other partners. Mr. Bronfman works regularly with an il - lustrious group of conductors, including , Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, , Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, , Alan Gilbert, Mariss Jansons, , , , , Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Franz Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. Summer engagements have regularly taken him to the nternationally recognized as one of today’s major festivals of and the U.S. Imost acclaimed and admired , He has also given numerous solo recitals in Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of the leading halls of North America, Europe, artists regularly sought by festivals, , and the Far East, including acclaimed debuts conductors, and recital series. His command - at in 1989 and Avery Fisher Hall ing technique, power, and exceptional lyrical in 1993. In 1991 he gave a series of joint gifts are consistently acknowledged by the recitals with in , marking press and audiences alike. At the center of the Mr. Bronfman’s first public performances current season is Mr. Bronfman’s residency there since his emigration to Israel at age 15. with the Staatskapelle Dresden which includes That same year he was awarded the presti - all the Beethoven concerti, conducted by gious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest Christian Thielemann, in Dresden and on honors given to American instrumentalists. In tour in Europe. Mr. Bronfman will also be per - 2010 he was honored as the recipient of the forming Bartok concerti with the London Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance and Valery Gergiev in from Northwestern University. Edinburgh, London, Vienna, Luxembourg, Widely praised for his solo, chamber, and and New York. Recital performances will cap - orchestral recordings, Mr. Bronfman was ture audiences with complete cycles of the nominated for a Grammy Award in 2009 for daunting Prokofiev sonatas over three pro - his recording of Esa- grams in Berlin, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Pekka Salonen’s piano , with Salonen and Cal Performances, Berkeley. ; and in 1997 he won a Grammy As a regular guest, Mr. Bronfman will return Award, again with Salonen, for his recording to the Vienna, New York, and Los Angeles of the three Bartók piano concerti with the Los philharmonics; the Mariinsky, Cleveland, Angeles Philharmonic. His prolific catalog of and orchestras; as well as the recordings includes works for two by

PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTIST Rachmaninoff and Brahms with Emanuel Ax, concerto with Franz Welser-Möst and the the complete Prokofiev concerti with the Vienna Philharmonic, from Schoenbrunn, on Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, a Deutsche Grammophon; Beethoven’s fifth Schubert/Mozart disc with the Zukerman with Andris Nelsons and the Chamber Players, and the soundtrack to Royal Orchestra from the Disney’s . Mr. Bronfman’s most 2011 Lucerne Festival, and Rachmaninoff’s recent CD releases are the 2014 Grammy- third concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic nominated Piano Concerto No. 2 by Magnus and Sir Simon Rattle, on the EuroArts label. Lindberg, commissioned for him and Scheduled for DVD release later this year are performed by the both Brahms concerti with Franz Welser-Möst under Alan Gilbert, on the Dacapo label; and The . Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Born in Tashkent in the , Mariss Jansons and the Bayerischer Rundfunk; Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his a recital disc, Perspectives , complementing Mr. family in 1973, where he studied with Bronfman’s designation as a Carnegie Hall Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of “Perspectives” artist for the 2007 –08 season; Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United and recordings of all the Beethoven piano States, he studied at The Juilliard School, concerti as well as the Triple Concerto, Marlboro School of Music, and the Curtis together with violinist , cellist Institute of Music, under Rudolf Firkusny, Truls Mørck, and the Tönhalle Orchestra , and . He is a 2015 Zürich under David Zinman, for the Arte recipient of an honorary doctorate from the Nova/BMG label. Manhattan School of Music. Now available on DVD are Mr. Bronfman’s Yefim Bronfman became an American cit - 2010 performances of Liszt’s second piano izen in July 1989. PROGRAM NOTES

Prokofiev made an immense, priceless contribution to the musical culture of Russia. A of genius, he has expanded the artistic heritage left to us by the great classical masters of the country’s music — Glinka, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff. —

Within the vast, virtually limitless piano repertoi re, the piano sonatas of Se rgei P rokofiev occupy a special place. Apart f rom early in the centur y, P rokofiev was the only major twentieth-century composer to pay such consistent attention to the form …. They a re a constant presence in concert p rograms and a re conside red an indispensable part of the repertoi re by almost every serious concert pianist. —

What struck me about Prokofiev’s playing was its remarkable simplicity. Not a single superfluous gesture, not a single exaggerated expression of emotion, no striving for effect. There was a sort of inner purity of purpose behind his whole performance that made an unforgettable impression …. The tempestuous, defiant Prokofiev at [lyrical] moments became as touching as a child. The fact that he could be poetic and moving came as a surprise to many. —

Prokofiev played with his hands on a level with the keyboard, with extraordinary sureness of wrist, a marvelous staccato. He rarely attacked from on high; he wasn’t at all the sort of pianist who throws himself from the fifth floor to produce the sound. He had a nervous power like steel, so that even though he played level with the keyboard he was capable of producing sonority of fantastic strength and intensity, and in addition, the tempo never, never varied. —

While Stravinsky is much mo re tied to the Gods, P rokofiev is friendly with the Devils. — Se rgei Diaghilev

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES

Sonata No. 1 in F mino r, Op. 1 in 1912, for his graduation examination in Composed in 1906 and 1909. 1914. (He had al ready premièred his Concerto Premièred on Ma rch 6, 1910 in Moscow by the No. 2 at the resort town of Pavlovsk, outside compose r. St. Petersbu rg, the p receding summe r.) The work that became the Prokofiev’s appetite for music was first whet - No. 1 in F minor originated during the summer ted by his mothe r, who played Beethoven of 1906 at the family estate at Sontsovka as the sonatas to him while he huddled beneath the second of the half-dozen such works Prokofiev piano as a toddler in his home village of wrote during his Conservatory years. He was Sontsovka (today Krasnoye, ). He was fifteen. Three years later, after consulting with soon playing Beethoven for himself and show - his teachers Liadov and Yesipova, he discarded ing enough evidence of compositional talent the last two of the F minor Sonata’s original that in 1902 Mme. P rokofiev displayed her son three movements, revised the opening Allegro , to the highly respected pianist, composer and and included the work on his formal début p rofessor Se rgei recital, in Moscow on March 6, 1910. The score Taneye v, who was sufficiently imp ressed to was published the following year by Pyotr arrange lessons for the boy with his gifted stu - Jurgenson’s prestigious Moscow firm as his dent Reinhold Gliè re. Two years late r, at the Opus 1. “I’m very fond of it,” Prokofiev con - ripe age of thirteen, P rokofiev was admitted to fided to his diary when he finished the piece in the St. Petersbu rg Conservatory to study piano October 1909, “for the freshness of its themes, with Alexander Winkle r. He was also en rolled the absolute clarity of its part-writing, and the in the composition p rogram at the school, pianistic way it is laid out for the instrument.” whe re the brilliant but obst repe rous youngster Then he added, perhaps a bit smugly, “It is a found his classes with Liadov “ex - naïve and simple little piece and marked the tremely dull” and maintained that he “learned end of my early period.” nothing” f rom his o rchestration lessons with “Naïve and simple” the First Sonata may well Rimsky-Korsakov, but still completed the cur - have appeared to Prokofiev when he judged it riculum in 1909, submitting as his graduation against his later masterpieces, but it is a re - thesis a piano sonata (now lost) and an markable accomplishment for a fifteen-year- scene based on Pushkin’s A Feast in Time of old — assured (if conventional) in form, Plague . He remained at the Conservatory to virtuosic in technique, perfectly fitted to its in - study conducting with Alexander Tche repnin strumental medium, and immersed in the most (“a brilliant musician who played a very big advanced harmonic practices of the day. It is role in my musical development”) and piano also prophetic of Prokofiev’s dedication with Anna Yesipova, both highly rega rded dis - throughout his life to revitalizing the tradition ciplinarians who had taught a number of out - of the sonata, both as a genre type and as a gen - standing Russian musicians. erator of structure. The main and second During his years at the Conservator y, themes respectively pay homage to Alexander Prokofiev developed a fearsome keyboa rd Scriabin and , the two pre- technique and composed industriousl y, World War I titans of Russian pianism. The sketching much of an opera ( ), opening subject is agitated and impassioned, completing a symphony (never published but built from a three-note rising phrase whose re-worked as the Sonata No. 4), a , repetitions work their way insistently down the some songs and at least six piano sonatas (the keyboard. The transition begins skittishly but F minor Sonata was published as his Op. 1 in quickly accumulates energy to lead to the sec - 19 11; the A minor Sonata was revised as the ond theme, a romantic, lyrical, rising melody Sonata No. 3); he revived his own Piano to which Rachmaninoff, and perhaps even Concerto No. 1, which premièred in Moscow Tchaikovsky, stood as godfather. Both ideas are PROGRAM NOTES worked out confidently in the development Two hund red rubles, he said, was his price for section before being recapitulated in somewhat the new Sonata, and he would accept nothing compressed form. The Sonata closes with a less. Ju rgenson met his demand. sonorous and flamboyant coda. Prokofiev gave the première of his Second Piano Sonata on January 23, 1914 in Moscow at Sonata No. 2 in D mino r, Op. 14 one of the series of Evenings of Modern Music, Composed in 1912. a concert that also included his Ballade for Premièred on January 23, 1914 in Moscow by and Piano and Op. 12 Piano Pieces. the compose r. Though opinion was mixed, with the young iconoclast’s eliciting strong com - By 1912, two years befo re he completed his ments, the prominent critic Yuli Engel noted formal studies at the St. Petersbu rg “the Sonata’s powerful play of musical ideas, Conservator y, Se rgei P rokofiev had estab - the energy of the creative will; it has a kind of lished himself as a formidable p rodigy of both angularity, harshness and coldness, but at the piano and composition and as the leading en - same time a genuine freshness.” Prokofiev fant terrible of Russian music. The first work performed the piece frequently in recital, upon which he bestowed an opus numbe r, the and chose it for his New York début at Town Piano Sonata No. 1 of 1907, was good enough Hall on November 20, 1918, which was at - to win him an association with the publisher tended by many notable musicians, including (of Tchaikovsk y, among others) Ju rgenson. Rachmaninoff. Though there was a predictable Other compositions for solo piano, voice, and quantity of critical carping (the Second Sonata orchestra quickly followed the First Sonata, represented “a charge of mammoths across and P rokofiev’s performance of his own key - some vast immemorial Asiatic plateau,” ac - boa rd works established his reputation as a cording to the reviewer for Musical America ), brilliant and powerful virtuoso and a com - the recital was generally greeted with approving poser in the most daring styles of the da y, astonishment. “His fingers are steel, his wrists qualities matched by a fearsome egotism that steel, his biceps and triceps steel,” wrote the enabled him to batter his way to critical and New York Times . “ A parterre of pianists greeted public recognition. The most important of the newcomer with dynamic applause. Of his Prokofiev’s pre-graduation c reations was the instant success, there can be no doubt.” The Piano Concerto No. 1, which stir red spirited continuing popularity of Prokofiev’s music in comment, p ro and con, when he premièred it this country dates from that event. in Moscow on July 25, 1912. After playing the Though early listeners were quick to point Concerto again in Pavlovsk, he joined his out the harmonic piquancies and motoric mother at the Caucasian resort of Kislovodsk, rhythms of Prokofiev’s compositions, what has whe re he balanced a rigo rous schedule of maintained them in the repertory is their composition with hiking in the mountains wealth of expertly crafted melody, brilliant and reading. It was at Kislovodsk in August sonorities, lucid and logical forms, and, above that he completed the Piano Sonata No. 2, all, their expressive power. “The Second Piano begun the p revious Ma rch. “Every morning I Sonata presents a world of romantic transports, go to the local d rugsto re to work,” he reco rded seething energy and live and saucy laughter,” at the time. “The re is a good upright piano according to the composer ’s biographer Israel the re, the room is comfortable, no one bothers V. Nestyev, to which Lawrence and Elisabeth me, and it doesn’t smell of medicine.” He sent Hanson added, “One does not know which to the manuscript to Ju rgenson with a note stat - admire more — the freshness of the themes or ing that, in view of the inte rest excited by his the endlessly ingenious manipulation of them.” recent appearances in Moscow and Pavlovsk, The Sonata opens with a precisely regulated a ne w, higher scale of fees should be instituted. that traverses a superbly built main

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES theme of high rhythmic tension which rises the finishing touches on his “Classical” through a step-wise pattern, a transition of Symphony, a work of happy countenance and quiet intensity, and a contrasting second sub - bubbling spirits that, like most of his other ject in the style of a valse triste . A development music of the time, took little notice of the cata - built from motives of the earlier themes is fol - clysmic throes of war and revolution through lowed by a full recapitulation. The compact which his native Russia was then passing. He Scherzo , with its central section of ostinato-like went south in July to visit his mother, Maria, at octave figurations, is a reworking of a piece that the Caucasian resort town of Kislovodsk, where Prokofiev wrote in 1908 for Anatoly Liadov’s he played his First Piano Concerto and began composition class at the St. Petersburg the Seven, They Are Seven , based on a Conservatory. The Andante , whose depth of poetic reworking of some ancient Chaldean emotion masterfully balances the wit and verve cuneiform texts, a further evidence of the in - of the surrounding music, is based on two terest in primitive subjects that had burst forth themes. The first, presented after a gently rock - with volcanic power in his 1915 Ala and ing introduction, is a smoothly contoured Lolly (transformed into the thunderous melody of quiet motion; the second is more an - for concert purposes). imated and wide-ranging. A repeated-note mo - Prokofiev was back in St. Petersburg by early tive is introduced in the movement’s central September, but Lenin’s faction had gained suf - portion, and serves as the underpinning for the ficient strength to threaten the Provisional varied repetitions of the two themes that occupy Government, and violent confrontation in the the closing section. The finale is another sonata city seemed inevitable. Maria convinced her form (the main theme is impetuous and leaping; son to join her again in the , and he the second theme is built from short phrases in arrived back in Kislovodsk by the end of the longer note values) that recalls the valse triste month. Eager to continue his burgeoning con - theme of the opening movement at the begin - cert career and pining for the stimulation of city ning of the development section, to strengthen life, he planned to return to St. Petersburg by the Sonata’s overall formal unity. “The Second November, but the Bolsheviks seized the Sonata charms listeners with its theatrical con - Winter Palace on October 27th and Prokofiev creteness — its bold juxtaposition of youthful was stuck in the provinces. excitement, dreamy lyricism and infectious Despite the upheavals of 1917, those months laughter,” wrote Nestyev. “Unquestionably, it is encompassed one of the most productive peri - the willful romantic impulse, the tireless force ods of Prokofiev’s career — the Third Piano of life and youth that predominates here.” Sonata dates from the spring, and it was fol - lowed later that year by the “Classical” Sonata No. 3 in A mino r, Op. 28, “F rom Old Symphony, the First Concerto, Seven, Notebooks” They Are Seven , the Fourth Sonata, and exten - Composed in 1917. sive plans for the Piano Concerto No. 3 and the Premièred on April 15, 1918 in St. Petersbu rg opera The Love for Three Oranges . By March by the compose r. 1918, enough normalcy had been restored to the country to allow Prokofiev to travel north Sonata No. 4 in C mino r, Op. 29, to Moscow, where he met the influential con - “F rom Old Notebooks” ductor Sergei Koussevitzky, who had recently Composed in 1917. taken over the publishing house of Gutheil. Premièred on April 17, 1918 in St. Petersbu rg Prokofiev impressed Koussevitzky with both by the compose r. his galvanic pianism and his creative work, and the conductor-cum-publisher bought the Prokofiev spent the early part of the summer of rights to the Scythian Suite , the opera The 1917 on the outskirts of St. Petersburg putting Gambler , the ballet The Buffoon and the Third PROGRAM NOTES and Fourth Sona tas for a sum sufficient to In its precisely controlled sonata structure, its guarantee the tour to the that abundance of melodic and harmonic invention, Prokofiev had been contemplating since the and its expressive ethos, Prokofiev’s Third previous year. Prokofiev then went on to Sonata is a microcosm of the composer’s St. Petersburg, where he premièred both the creative personality during his early years, Sonatas No. 3 (April 15) and No. 4 (April 17) which Israel Nestyev summarized pe rcep - and the “Classical” Symphony (April 21) with tively in the following manner: “P rokofiev’s considerable success. Two weeks later, he music is an unusual combination of the sim - was on a train across Siberia to catch a ship ple and the complex — simple, well-defined at Vladivostok bound for the American rhythms combined with f resh, pungent har - West Coast. monies, impeccable classical form and textu re For the Thi rd and Fourth Piano Sonatas of with daring invention. In many respects, these 1917, P rokofiev raided some pieces he had stylistic features violated the aesthetic princi - composed while studying at the St. Petersbu rg ples of the fashionable schools of impression - Conservatory a decade befo re — both com - ism and . In place of ultra-refined positions bear the subtitle “F rom Old emotions and semi-mystical signs and por - Notebooks.” The single-movement Sonata No. tents, we find in Prokofiev a somewhat coarse 3 was based on one of the half-dozen such dynamism; in place of deliberately enigmatic works at which P rokofiev tried his hand at the images and nebulous other-worldliness, a academ y, and in his memoirs he reco rded an straightforward logic; in place of vague, dif - anecdote, a delightful sketch of mingled ado - fuse forms, a classical precision and simplicity. lescence and artistic p recocit y, concerning the This simplicity, however, was itself distinctly derivation of its lyrical second theme: “I had new. The young composer at times shied away no acquaintances among the girls of the from any easily recognized sort of simplicity, Conservator y, although the re was no lack of which he considered banal and too reminis - them: the re we re lots of them walking cent of well-known, traditional music. He th rough the corridors or sitting on window strove in every way possible to combine logic ledges.... I noticed several girls my own age and clarity of form, texture and rhythm with and watched them during b reaks between ac - harsh, unusual and timbres. He ademic classes. One of them had a rather created his own distinctive melodic design, in strange last name: Eshe. When I w rote her which simplicity of line is combined with un - name in F rench, ‘Eche,’ I noticed that each let - usual twists and angularities, and his own har - ter stood for a note. [Acco rding to German monic idiom, in which transparently diatonic notational convention, ‘H’ stands for B-nat - harmonies (much like old folk harmonies) al - ural.] Remembering that music had been ternate with sharp . Finally, he written on themes derived f rom names (for made great use of vigorous, clear-cut rhythms, example the variations on the theme B–A– C– H), inspired by elements of the march, the , I tried to write a theme based on E–C–H and human gestu re.” [B-natural]–E. And since it st ruck me as suc - Among the emotional seeds f rom which cessful, I used it — with imitations at that — sprang the Fourth Sonata, one of P rokofiev’s as the subo rdinate theme in my Thi rd Sonata.” most lyrical and life-affirming creations, was Prokofiev retained the thematic material and a dearly remembe red personal friendship. basic shape of the 1907 Sonata in his 1917 re- During his years at the Conservator y, the vision, though the piano writing was cast in a composer ’s closest friend was Maksimilian mo re grand manner and the harmonic details Schmidthof, a fellow student and a pianist of we re sharpened. sensitive temperament and intellectual

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES precocit y. The teenagers we re together con - Sonata No. 5 in C majo r, Op. 38 stantl y, sharing the experiences of school and Composed in 1923; revised in 1953. growing up, and their relationship was intense. Premièred in on Ma rch 9, 1927 by the “At that time I was not always myself, but half- compose r. Max,” P rokofiev later w rote to his friend’s sis - te r. “His influence on me was enormous.” In Ma rch 1922, after four years of wandering Prokofiev was stunned when, in April 1913, around America and Eu rope composing, giv - shortly after his 22nd birthda y, he received a ing concerts, and overseeing performances of note f rom Max that read, “I am writing to tell his works, Se rgei P rokofiev ret reated to the se - you the latest news — I have shot myself. The cluded village of Ettal in the Bavarian Alps, causes a re unimportant.” This grim an - two miles f rom Oberamme rgau, site of the fa - nouncement, which Schmidthof did indeed mous Passion Pla y. He p ronounced Ettal “a put fatally into e ffect befo re P rokofiev received pictu resque and peaceful spot, ideal for work,” the lette r, a ffected him mo re deeply than had and gathe red into the modest house he rented the death of his father th ree years befo re, and the re his fiancée, Lina Llubera, a talented he dedicated four compositions to Max in singer of Russian-Spanish ancestry who was later years: the Second and Fourth Piano just then beginning to enjoy some Eu ropean Sonatas, the Second Piano Concerto and the fame, and, f rom Russia, his mothe r, nearly “Allemande” f rom the Op. 12 Piano Pieces. blind and in failing health. Ettal and its beau - Nestyev wrote, “The charm of the Fourth tiful mountain scenery o ffe red P rokofiev not Piano Sonata lies in its thoughtful, restrained, only an escape f rom the tumult of city life but narrative tone. Here we find neither mirthful also a chance to ca re for his own health, which gaiety nor nervous frenzy; although an agitated had been seriously undermined by a bout of feeling prevails in the first movement, it is not scarlet fever he had su ffe red in America. His inten sely dramatic, but restrained. The principal c reative p roject in Ettal was The melodic outline and harmony are austere and Flaming Angel , which he hoped to have staged even, to some extent, in the Schumann– by the Chicago Opera, the company that had Brahms tradition. However, certain pungent int roduced The Love for Th ree Oranges in details — notably, the novel part-writing, with December 1921. He f requently had to inter - its moving basses and countermelodies, and rupt composition, howeve r, for concert ap - such distinctive harmonic devices as complex pearances in various Eu ropean cities, his main suspensions and clipped cadences — reveal sou rce of financial support during those years the composer ’s favorite style.” The carefully when he was still building his reputation as a sculpted sonata form of the first movement compose r. In o rder to add another entry to his begins with a brooding main theme (an - recital repertor y, in June 1923 he undertook nounced quietly in the bass register) that is the Sonata No. 5, the only major work for marked by a quick figure in sixteenth-notes. piano he composed between the Tales of the The subsidiary subject, more evenly paced in Old Grandmother (Op. 31) and the Four its rhythmic progress, is decorated with tiny, Pieces (Op. 32) of 1919 and the Two flashing arpeggios. The three-part Andante , (Op. 54) of 1931. He worked on the opera and the expressive heart of the Sonata, is one of the Sonata during the summe r, but much of Prokofiev’s most moving and openly romantic his attention at that time was devoted to his creations. After the thoughtful introspection upcoming wedding with Lina on September of the slow movement, the finale comes as a 29th. With a wife and mother to support and vibrant affirmation of the vital life spirit and a a child expected soon after the first of the yea r, brilliant tour-de-force of keyboard virtuosity. Prokofiev decided to quit rural to seek his fortune in the vibrant and lucrative artistic PROGRAM NOTES milieu of France, so he moved the family to wrong key) of the main theme, a device much Paris in Octobe r. He finished the Sonata No. 5 favo red by . Realizing its mis - the re two months late r, and gave its première take, the music quiets and recants th rough a in Paris on Ma rch 9, 1927. series of tonally ambiguous arpeggios that The Sonata No. 5 was not only written dur - lead to the p roper recapitulation of the earlier ing the time when P rokofiev relocated f rom themes. The Andantino is a sa rdonic waltz in America to Eu rope, but it also marked a shift th ree parts (A–B–A) that is unable to generate in his compositional style f rom the Russian- enough ene rgy to dance. It tosses o ff all man - influenced works of his early maturity to a ner of cheeky comments and ambles along mo re p ronounced international modernity in with a determined p resumptuousness, but the years befo re he was repatriated to the never shakes o ff its inhe rent letha rgy, and sim - Soviet Union in 1933. This idiomatic evolu - ply gives up at the end with a g rumbling com - tion is evident in the Sonata itself. The open - plaint. The finale, the most ene rgetic and ing movement, Alleg ro tranquillo , recalls virtuosic movement of the work, unfolds Prokofiev’s earlier keyboa rd style in its b roadly ac ross a sonata form based on two themes: a lyrical thematic material, extended tonal har - repeated-note motive hea rd immediately at mony and p recise formal st ructu re. The cen - the outset and a wide- ranging melody whose tral Andantino is mo re brazen in both its lyricism is counte red by its impertinent insouciant spirit and its harmonic acerbit y. “w rong-note” harmonic implications. The finale, written in Paris, was thorny enough that P rokofiev classed it with the Sonata No. 6 in A majo r, Op. 82 for , , Violin, and Composed in 1939-1940. (Op. 39) and the Second Première d on April 8, 1940 by the composer on Symphony as among “the most ch romatic a b roadcast f rom Mosco w. works I have written. The ch romaticism is la rgely due to the atmosphe re of the musical Prokofiev returned to Russia from his years in world in Paris, whe re complex patterns and the West in 1933, and by 1939, when the Sixth dissonances a re the accepted thing. This Sonata was conceived, he had become the lead - tempted that side of me which hankers after ing composer of his country with works written complex thinking.” In 1953, after twenty years in what he called “a style in which one could of imbibing the Soviet artistic ethos of music speak of Soviet life.” Lieutenant Kijé , Peter and for the masses, P rokofiev returned to the the Wolf , and are among the Sonata to smooth its angularity and soften its best-known realizations of that populist art. dissonances with a revision so tho rough that Many of Prokofiev’s efforts during the early he gave the result a new opus numbe r, 135. It years of the Second World War tempered his was the last work that he completed befo re his earlier modernistic style with this new musical death on Ma rch 5, 1953. vein, including the Piano Sonatas Nos. 6, 7, and The Sonata No. 5, the only one of his 8, all begun in 1939, but completed, respec - Sonatas that P rokofiev composed outside tively, in 1940, 1942, and 1944; inevitably, they Russia, opens with a flowing melody of re- were dubbed the “War Sonatas.” These three strained emotion coaxed along by a rocking works were his first contributions to the genre inne r-voice accompaniment. The music be - of the piano sonata in sixteen years, and the re - comes mo re active as it heads towa rd the sec - vitalization of his interest in the form may well ond theme, a st ream of parallel cho rds have been inspired by his recently conceived mounted upon an accompaniment of anxious love affair with Mira Abramovna Mendelson. rhythms. Both themes a re intricately t reated Prokofiev first met Mira during the summer in the development section, which concludes of 1939 while vacationing alone at Kislovodsk with a sono rous false recapitulation (i.e., in the in the Caucasus. She was 24 at the time, just

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES com pleting her student work at the Moscow by P rokofiev on a radio b roadcast f rom the Institute of Literature, and he was exactly twice ’ Union on April 8th; Sviatoslav her age, 48. They first worked together on fash - Richte r, in his formal début, gave the public ioning an opera libretto from Richard Brinsley première, on November 26th at the Small Hall Sheridan’s comedy The Duenna , but something of the Moscow Conservator y. The Sonata beyond just shared literary interests further raised considerable enthusiasm when it was drew them together, and during the following ne w. Dmitri Shostakovich, whose relationship months they became more than just friends. with his colleague was distant and often criti - Prokofiev, stealing time from his wife, Lina, cal, w rote to him f rom Leningrad, “The Sixth and his two sons, sought out situations to meet Sonata is magnificent, from beginning to end. Mira, and by the spring of 1940 he had fallen in I am happy that I had the opportunity to hear love with her. A family friend of the Prokofievs it two times, and reg ret that it was only two reported at that time seeing the composer times.” In their biography of P rokofie v, walking with a young woman she did not rec - Law rence and Elisabeth Hanson noted, “The ognize. What surprised her more than the composer ’s joyous, vigo rous, intensely musi - woman’s presence, however, was the unfamil - cal personality is exp ressed in every opus and iar expression on Prokofiev’s face— happy and in none mo re strikingly than the Sixth Sonata. relaxed and lighthearted. “He had always been It was one of the most ext roverted sonatas he rather grim and serious,” she said, “but after was to write, and one of the finest.” meeting Mira, he became more affectionate The opening sonata-form movement takes and friendly. The change in him was very no - as its main theme an aggressive, three-note ticeable.” By 1941, Prokofiev had left Lina and motive whose vehement rhythms recall the was living with Mira, who proved to be a de - motoric idiom that fueled many of Prokofiev’s voted and caring companion until the com - early compositions. The lyrical second sub - poser died twelve years later. Lina, a French ject, with its arching melodic phrases, pro - national, became caught up in Stalin’s ghastly vides contrast. The development section first political machine and was arrested on treats a repeated-note figure derived from the trumped-up charges of espionage in 1948. (A second theme, and then undertakes a con - year before, the Supreme Soviet issued a centrated consideration of the principal sub - retroactive decree forbidding Soviet citizens to ject. A long passage of wavering thirds bridges marry foreign nationals, thus suddenly an - to an altered and abbreviated recapitulation of nulling the Prokofievs’ marriage. Mira and the earlier thematic material. The Allegretto is Sergei formalized their relationship with a a brittle march, carried along by fragments of civil ceremony on January 13, 1948.) Lina was a slightly blowsy melody in the bass. The cen - released and returned to the West in 1972, al - tral episode of the movement is slower in ways claiming to be the composer ’s only le - tempo and more expressive in content. The gitimate wife. It was at the beginning of his third movement is a modern reminiscence of new life with Mira that Prokofiev conceived the waltz, often spiky in its harmonies and jar - his Sonatas Nos. 6, 7, and 8; he dedicated the ring in its dynamic and thematic juxtaposi - Eighth Sonata to her. tions. The virtuosic finale is woven from four Mira attributed the symphonic scale and themes: a dance- like strain cobbled from a dramatic demeanor of the Sixth Sonata to tiny circular pattern; a wide-ranging melody Prokofiev’s recent reading of Romain of dancing character; a motive of eight re - Rolland’s biography of Beethoven, though the peated notes followed by a quick flourish; and music’s attitude and style a re distinctly those a lugubrious subject in slower tempo whose of its compose r. The work was completed in opening rhythmic gesture (short–short–long) is Moscow on Feb ruary 11, 1940 and first played related to the main theme of the first move ment. PROGRAM NOTES

These ideas are developed as the finale un - Sonata No. 8 in B-flat majo r, Op. 84 folds, and lead to a bold restatement of the Composed in 1939-1944. first movement’s principal subject to round Premièred on December 30, 1944 in Moscow by out the Sonata. .

Sonata No. 7 in B-flat majo r, Op. 83 La rge parts of the Sonata No. 8 we re sketched Composed in 1939-1941. in 1939, but P rokofiev then set the sco re aside Première d on January 18, 1943 in Moscow by until the summer of 1944, when he completed Sviatoslav Richte r. it at the “Composers’ Home” run by the Soviet government at Ivanovo, fifty miles west of The Seventh Sonata was finished in May 1942 Mosco w. He tried out the new work for the in Tbilisi, where Prokofiev was evacuated after Composers’ Union that Octobe r, after return - the Germans had invaded Russia the preceding ing to Mosco w, but his p reviously fearsome June. premièred the work in piano technique had slipped badly into dis re- Moscow on January 18, 1943; two months later, pair by that time, and he ent rusted 28-yea r- Prokofiev received the Stalin Prize for the score. old Emil Gilels with the public première, given The Sonata’s three movements, arranged in the in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Classical succession of fast–slow–fast, progress Conservatory on December 30, 1944. The from the anxious, unsettled Allegro inquieto , Sonata inspi red considerable praise f rom p ress through the lyrical slow movement (to be and public alike, and it was hono red with a played “with warmth,” according to the score), Stalin Prize, First Class the following yea r. to the hammering motorism and emphatic B- The Eighth Sonata is rega rded as one of flat of the finale. Prokofiev’s greatest contributions to the gen re, The opening movement juxtaposes two “the richest of all — an abundance of riches,” broad musical paragraphs: one, app roximat - acco rding to the eminent Soviet pianist ing a main theme, is given in pounding Sviatoslav Richte r. , another rhythms immediately at the outset; the othe r, of today’s leading interp reters of P rokofiev’s a contrasting melody in slower tempo, springs piano music, called the Sonata “a masterwork from a motive reminiscent of Beethoven’s of the 20th-century keyboa rd literatu re; it ex - Fifth Symphony. Once mo re, with develop - pands the sonata, not only in terms of st ruc - mental elaborations, these sections alternate, tu re but as a total concept; it is the equivalent and the movement closes with a final return of a la rge-scale symphony for piano.” The of the main theme to p roduce a five-part, composer ’s claim that the work is “primarily symmetrical st ructu re: A–B–A–B–A. The sec - lyrical in character” is borne out by the open - ond movement follows a musical a rch form, ing movement, which exhibits an abundance beginning and ending with a theme of sur - of fine melodies in rich polyphonic settings. prising banality that utilizes some ripe, bar - Its sonata form rises to a level of considerable bershop harmonies, while the middle portion intensity in the development section, but the rises to t rue passion. The finale, marked pervading natu re of the movement’s exposi - Precipitato , has been called, because of its vig - tion and recapitulation is of a character that orous and incessant rhythmic natu re, a toc - matches the music’s performance inst ruction: cata, the modern scion of the moto perpetuo dolce — “sweetly.” The second movement, pieces of the Ba roque that we re designed to Andante sognando (“d reamily”) is a lovely in - show o ff the keyboa rdist’s digital dexterit y. st rumental song with just enough prickly har - The old, virtuoso form is couched in monic piquancies to keep it f rom lapsing into Prokofiev’s characteristic harmonic acerbity unabashed nostalgia. The finale is in a la rge and pe rcussive pianism. th ree-part form, with two subjects in each of the outer portions (a rippling triplet strain and

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES an ene rgetic passage seeded by a bounding oc - ruth lessly on artistic freedoms and condemn - tave motive) sur rounding a central section ing those who did not toe the party line. The that includes reminiscences of themes f rom first part of Prokofiev’s vast opera War and the first movement. Peace had been premièred in June 1946 to such official criticism of its alleged “historical inac - Sonata No. 9 in C majo r, Op. 103 curacies” that the staging of Part II, scheduled Composed in 1947. for the Maly Theater in Leningrad in July 1947, Premièred on April 21, 1951 at the Composers’ was summarily cancelled. The full fury of the Union in Moscow by Sviatoslav Richte r. political storm broke the following year, when there was a general purge of “formalistic” Israel Nestyev headed the chapter of his biogra - music by Soviet authorities that claimed such phy of Prokofiev dealing with the composer ’s internationally known figures as Shostakovich, life from 1945 to 1948, “The Difficult Years.” In Khachaturian, and Prokofiev himself. Prokofiev January 1945, Prokofiev conducted the pre - responded to the rising threat in 1947 by com - mière of the Fifth Symphony with great success, posing two works, a Festive Poem for orchestra and it seemed that, at age 53, he had many years and a jingoistic cantata ( Flourish, O Mighty of untroubled service to Soviet music in his fu - Land ), observing the thirtieth anniversary of ture. Such was not to be the case. Two weeks the Bolshevik Revolution, but, perhaps to main - after the Fifth Symphony was introduced, tain some artistic and psychological balance in Prokofiev was leaving a friend’s Moscow flat his creativity, he also wrote during that summer when he was suddenly stricken with a minor two abstract, “private” pieces — the Ninth Piano heart attack. He lost consciousness, fell down a Sonata and the Sonata for Unison . Both flight of stairs, and was taken to the hospital, works got caught in the tumult of the following where a heart condition and a concussion were months, however, and their premières were diagnosed. From that moment, his vigorous life greatly delayed: Sviatoslav Richter, for whom it style and busy social and musical schedules be - had been written, finally managed to perform came things of the past. “Almost everything that the Ninth Sonata in April 1951; the Sonata for made his life worth living was taken away,” Unison Violins was not heard until March 1960, wrote Lawrence and Elisabeth Hanson in their seven years after the composer ’s death. study of the composer. “He was forbidden to “The Sonata No. 9 is radiant, simple and smoke, to drink wine, to play , to drive a even intimate,” said Richte r, who welcomed car, to walk fast or far, to play the piano in pub - the work’s turn away f rom the agg ressive qual - lic, to conduct, to stay up late, to excite himself ities of the th ree p receding “ War Sonatas” and by much conversation, to travel more than a few played it f requently on his recitals. “It’s a do - miles.” He spent the rest of his life — he died in mestic Sonata — the mo re you hear it, the 1953, on the same day as — in and more you come to love it and feel its magnet - out of hospitals, though he did continue to work ism.” The opening Allegretto dolce ed espres - despite medical warnings about its possible sivo (“Moderately fast, sweet and expressive”) deleterious effect. One friend, for instance, re - eschews the muscularity, chromaticism, vir - ported that Prokofiev stationed him at his hos - tuosity, and febrile rhythms of much of pital door during his visits so he could warn the Prokofiev’s earlier piano writing in favor of a composer of any approaching nurses. While the spacious movement that takes three melodies coast was clear, Prokofiev scribbled a few notes as its thematic substance: a warm main theme on the pad he kept hidden beneath his pillow. that could have been used for a love scene in Diminished health was not Prokofiev’s only his masterful 1935 ballet Romeo and Juliet ; a concern when he wrote the Piano Sonata No. quirky strain with little scalar runs; and a folk - 9 in 1947, however, since that was also the ish tune of short, circling, repeated phrases. time when Stalin’s regime was clamping down All three ideas figure in the development PROGRAM NOTES section, which accumulates a certain intensity twice interrupts this lovely, wordless song. “It befo re calming itself for the recapitulation. An feels like a final attempt,” continued Mazza, unexpected outburst of triplets in the bass just “at concluding the emotional chaos of living befo re the movement ends p roves to be an in - through the times and travails of Prokofiev’s genious fo reshadowing of the Alleg ro st repi - life and era.” toso (“boiste rously”) that follows. The brief The sonata-form finale uses a buoyant, op - second movement, the Sonata’s scherzo, takes timistic strain as its main theme and a slightly up the rolling scales and mixes them with an cockeyed ma rch as its second. The develop - ungainl y, repeated-note figu re. The center of ment takes each motive up briefly but sepa - the movement is an ascetic exe rcise in coun - rates them with a contrasting Andantino terpoint that sounds like a 20th-century section of unsettled emotion. After the expo - analog to Bach’s two-part inventions. sition’s themes a re recapitulated in condensed In her liner notes for Anne-Marie form, the music becomes luminous when the McDermott’s recording of the complete “sweet and exp ressive” melody that opened Prokofiev sonatas on the Bridge label, Lynne the Sonata is b rought back as an almost S. Mazza wrote that the theme which opens dreamy postlude. the Andante tranquillo is “purely luscious writing, with no hint of perversity.” As an ex - —Program notes copyright © 2015 pressive and formal foil, bold, striding music Dr. Richa rd E. Rodda

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WHY PROKOFIEV, WHY NOW? by Anna Nisnevich

his season, Cal Performances features But the more we worked and experimented terabytes of music by the Russian com - with the vigorous, dynamic, truly visual Tposer (1891–1953). In sound, the better we were able to grasp its October, the and Orchestra inner choreography, its psychological sway.” performed Prokofiev’s ballet , a And indeed, Ulanova’s friend (and a tongue-in-cheek musical retelling of Charles Nobel laureate) Boris Pasternak was so taken Perrault’s famous fairy tale of an ill-treated- by the original Cinderella , whose première he yet-kind girl becoming a princess. In January attended in December 1945, that he rushed to and March, Yefim Bronfman plays all nine of write to Ulanova: “I spent all evening, my face Prokofiev’s virtuosic piano sonatas, ranging wet with tears, being moved by something big, from a brash take on the classical genre by the something that conveys so well the wondrous boney 16-year-old to the aging composer’s power of a childlike, unspoiled naivety. My somewhat bitter return to the classics. Also in old heart is with you.” March, the listeners are treated with one of Fast forward to the 21st century, and we Prokofiev’s zestiest and most brilliant works: find a similar sentiment voiced by today’s stars his Third Piano Concerto, a war horse of and music lovers alike. Young piano virtuoso many world-class piano competitions. has recently admitted to Euronews All these opuses have persisted in the reper - that, although she is intimidated by Prokofiev’s tory ever since their premières. The recurrent demanding scores, she feels special affinity supply suggests unremitting demand, an urge with his sometimes “very naughty, very sar - to engage with Prokofiev’s distinctive sound. castic” yet always “emotional, intense and psy - But what makes both performers and listeners chologically powerful” music. A brief glance at want to return to Prokofiev again and again? the customer reviews on amazon.com reveals Why Prokofiev, why then, and why now? that listeners, too, are ready to fall under the There are several ways to go about answer - spell of this rather uncommon pair of child - ing this question. We can ask diehard Pro - like whimsy and psychological intensity. How kofievites why they can’t have enough of his often, for instance, do you hear someone pub - music. We can turn to the composer’s biogra - licly confessing that he had had “mixed feel - phy to discover a relatable individual. We can ings” and just hoped that Prokofiev’s odd zoom in on his musical style to track the tech - music “would grow” on him, but, once he nical routes of his music’s continued allure. started listening, he just set there, captivated, Or, we can—and will here—try to briefly for “two hours and twenty minutes, the remote combine all of the above, in hopes of generat - hanging from [his] hand”? ing a multidimensional explanation. In a word, Prokofiev’s magic seems to re - side in his music’s strange doubleness: its Loving Prokofiev clashing novelty and yet the sureness (and thus predictability) of its effect. In what fol - Have you ever experienced a strong attraction lows we will ponder the circumstances that growing out of a less-than-favorable first brush? may have contributed to this fortuitous blend. This seems to have happened to Prokofiev’s music more than once. As reminisced by Perpetual Émigré the great Russian dancer , Prokofiev’s first Cinderella, “at first we didn’t There was a reason for both Prokofiev’s brash - understand Prokofiev’s music. It seemed so ness and his fidelity to the tried-and-true psy - strange, whimsical, nearly undanceable. chological pull that had to do with more than PROGRAM his talent: ever since his mid-twenties the whistleable tunes and virtuosic exuberance. composer was constantly on the move. In There is always a clear sense of form and tonal 1918, running away from the Russian motion here—but the ever-surprising turns of Revolution and the ensuing Civil War, he went musical phrase are unmistakably Prokofiev’s on tour in the United States—embarking in own. Re-invigorating longstanding conven - San Francisco and progressively moving east - tions, sometimes reaching as far back as the ward—and remained in the West for nearly 18th century (with its mannerly minuets and two decades. After America there was Europe, ), Prokofiev wins on two musical mainly France, and again move after move. fronts at once. On the one hand, he secures a Even when Prokofiev returned to Russia in the solid, well-tested experiential base for his mid-1930s, he found a place vastly different acoustic experiments. On the other, he com - from that of his youth: Stalin-era USSR. pels the listener to experience afresh familiar Changing places and changing times required musical gestures and processes—to renew, via constant adjustment—a challenging situation restored kinesthetic engagement, the emo - for this erstwhile prodigy who always strove tional pact with . to maintain a distinct and unparalleled artis - One such listener, Prokofiev’s friend (and a tic profile. fellow Russian émigré) symbolist poet To face the challenge, Prokofiev stayed , couldn’t help but re - competitive with other composers by engag - spond with a poem to hearing the Third ing with the latest trends, experimenting with Concerto for the first time. To him, pungent dissonances and other ways of mod - Prokofiev’s music spoke to human imagina - ernist provocation. Just as eagerly he sought tion at large, outside any one particular time marketability—the success predicated on or place; it conjured a reliably vivid dream - user-friendliness. But to his chagrin, in mod - scape, offering coherence in the era of crisis ern music both the most avant-garde and the and uncertainty: easiest-to-adore slots had already been taken by his former countrymen, now also expats, …Instances spin in a waltz. Centuries reel in a and Sergei Rachmaninoff. To . gain and maintain fame, Prokofiev had to Suddenly, a tied-up wild bull offer something these celebrities could not frees itself, its horns flashing threat. supply, a yet different, ingenious amalgam of But then again, a tender sound calls from new and old. afar… And he did—by melding a range of con - Prokofiev!... In you the orchestra longs for a ventional musical forms with purposely un - sonorous summer usual, one-of-a-kind melodic, harmonic and And the invincible Scythian plays the Sun like a rhythmic material. If, unlike the gushing tambourine. Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev welcomed brevity Modernist Romantic and even inelegance, he was just as far from the iconoclast Stravinsky concerned with re - The fresh familiarity of Prokofiev’s music formatting the established system of musical came in handy when the composer found expectations. If anything, Prokofiev needed himself firmly installed in the Stalinist Soviet time-proven effect for his innovations to Union. His homecoming coincided with the work. His music thrived on familiar theatri - formation of the ultimate Soviet dreamscape: cality, building on the psychosomatic experi - the vision of an ideal socialist individual as ence of a well-conditioned listener. both a legatee and a purveyor of all that’s best Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (1921), in European culture and art. It was in line with for instance, duly fulfills the time-honored re - that vision that Prokofiev’s first Soviet com - quirements of the genre, offering plenty of missions would include musical remakes of

PLAYBILL PROGRAM

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , Perrault’s really end but are rather put on hold by vari - Cinderella , Sheridan’s Duenna , Pushkin’s ous external activities. She is, as it were, lost —and, to top it all, Tolstoy’s in reverie, and so the whole story of her rise to . In a way, the Stalin-era society princesshood might just as well be a fruit of reasserted itself in the same fashion as her vivid imagination. Prokofiev: by re-invigorating the classics. Prokofiev’s self-assured promulgation of Ironically, just as Prokofiev grew ever the inherent goodness and nearly limitless po - keener on renovation, the nation that he now tential of creativity chimed well with the ide - served felt ever more self-assured in the safe alistic Stalinist stance of the 1930s and 1940s. harbors of reiteration. This, along with the In the absence of many basic everyday goods conservative criticism of his work during the in the USSR, spiritual products did much last, most paranoid years of Stalin’s rule, fac - more than provide surrogate valuables. They tored into Prokofiev’s eventual withdrawal supplied confidence in the rightness—and from the Soviet musical mainstream. He died righteousness—of the optimistic outlook, on the same day—some say, even in the same steering the inspired gaze toward the future hour—as Stalin, his passing unnoticed by the yet to be realized. (Never mind that that fu - press. But in another ironic twist of history, ture would never arrive.) his posthumous fame was to reach the heights But the value of wonder is still high circa he had only dreamt of during his life—for his 2016, whether in the United States, Russia, or music worked on a different level than that of elsewhere. That value has been kept steady by hard-and-fast political views and decrees. the concerted effort of the latter-day wizards, This doesn’t mean, of course, that Hollywood film folk. Herein lies perhaps the Prokofiev’s music is free of creed. For all their most evident explanation of Prokofiev’s con - modernist classicism, his symphonies, , tinuing sway. Even if you think that you and rely on sharp characterization and haven’t heard a single note by Prokofiev, broad-stroke dramatic trajectory. They deal in chances are that you have. There are scores of intense emotions ranging from frenzy to long - Prokofievisms in Star Wars , Jaws , Superman — ing to awe. And, perhaps most importantly, and of course don’t forget the certifiably they perpetuate the definite, unquestionable mag ical Harry Potter . Together with Wagner, reality of the wonder-worlds that human con - Tchaikovsky, and other romantics, Prokofiev sciousness is able to both inhabit and gener - (once a film music guru himself) lives on in ate. In a word, they continue the tradition of the opuses of our contemporaries John 19th-century romanticism, the domain of Williams, Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, and fairy tales and lyric poetry, originality and au - many other composers who have embraced thenticity, bizarre transformations, and ulti - his approach. Thankfully, there are enough mate transcendences. movies and no unrivaled autocrats in Prokofiev’s romanticist belief in the gener - Hollywood: some more Prokofiev-esque ative power of wonderment can be clearly ob - sound is surely in the works. served in his Cinderella , musically a tale of the triumph of dreaming over scheming. In this Anna Nisnevich is an Assistant Professor of Music ballet, the wickedness of Cinderella’s step - at the University of Pittsburgh and received her mother is conveyed not by the patently ugly PhD at University of California, Berkeley in 2007. music, but rather by an overdetermined, She appears in a symposium on Prokofiev on generically restricted sound. Cinderella, on Sunday, March 6, 2016, from 12:30 –2:30 in the other hand, mostly daydreams, steered by Wheeler Auditorium. Visit calperformances.org the sinuous, drawn-out melodies that do not for more details.

S O U N D B O A R D

Ben Finane, Editor-in-Chief of Listen: Life with Music & Culture, shares excerpts from Listen magazine’s interviews with distinguished artists. Visit ListenMusicMag.com.

Ever since her international debut at the Lucerne Festival in 1976, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has sustained G D

an exceptional career in classical / n a music. In 2008 the violinist established m f f o the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation H d l to support promising young musicians a r a

H worldwide.

Ben Finane: I was enjoying your Stravinsky Concerto en ré [, Deutsche Grammophon] in the office earlier today — from ’88. It was very fresh, and reminded me that sometimes players can get stuck playing Stravinsky ‘like Stravinsky’ or ‘Mozartean’ Mozart, ‘fiery Vivaldi,’ ‘pitiless Bach,’ et cetera. Then these ostensibly ‘authentic’ interpretations not only become cliché but can also be a trap. Anne-Sophie Mutter: I think once you think you have found a formula, then you are actually in a very fatal position; because it will almost, unavoidably so, numb your senses for reinvention, for reevaluation. I don’t think there is such a thing as an ‘authentic’ interpretation because there are too many layers of importance in a musical piece. That you could possibly bring all of them to life at a given single moment or performance! I’ve learned quite a bit through talking and living with living composers, especially ones who are performers themselves, that they are astonishingly open-minded toward different viewpoints, different tempi. According to the musicians they are working with, the different skills of orchestras, there are particular characteristics of bringing out the narrative qualities of music or the more technical oriented skills, depending on acoustics in the hall…. So what I’m saying is the moment you think, ‘This has worked yesterday, it has worked ten years ago, why shouldn’t I repeat it from now on? This is my recipe,’ it’s deadly. It’s too dogmatic. Music can only be an essay of reinvention and reassessing what you have done — why you have done it and why you want to have a different look at it.

BF: You have been focusing on the younger generation of strings soloists with the Anne- Sophie Mutter Foundation [which seeks to provide players with teachers, mentors and instruments]. ASM: What I try to encourage in the young generation is an idealistic thought process and the patience to think of a long life in music. Although our goal is to help the upcoming soloists, sometimes we have musicians who I happily have to reeducate in their understanding of the role of a musician. I would like to see a generation of soloists who see themselves as musicians. ‘He is a soloist, ergo he is a great musician; and he is a chamber player, ergo he is second-rate’ — that is a tragedy; it’s such a false conception that will breed generations of unhappy violinists. We just have to fill the role that is given to us and make the best out of it.

S O U N D B O A R D

Ben Finane, Editor-in-Chief of Listen: Life with Music & Culture, shares excerpts from Listen magazine’s interviews with distinguished artists. Visit ListenMusicMag.com.

Avi Avital was born in Be’er Sheva in southern Israel, where he began his G D

studies at an early age and joined / n a a mandolin youth orchestra. Avital went m f f o on to study at the Jerusalem Academy H d l of Music and then the Cesare Pollini a r a

H Conservatory of Music in Padua, Italy.

Ben Finane: You’re ‘classically trained’ in mandolin. What exactly does that mean? Avi Avital: When I was a kid in Israel I went to the local conservatory — it was something to do after school when you are eight. I started to study the mandolin and only found out as an adult that my teacher had been a violin teacher, so he had really educated me and my class to play classical pieces, especially those written for violin. And that was my introduction to classical repertoire.

BF: Your album Between Worlds [(Deutsche Grammophon)] has you on the cover leaping between heaven and earth, straddling the yellow line of a road. It’s clear that you’re making a statement about crossing borders. AA: It reflects the idea of playing with the border, the un-existing border, between folk music and classical music.

BF: There’s an interesting bit of intentional phrasing. Tell me why you feel that border is so permeable. AA: We consume entertainment — pop music, TV series, funny movies — because it’s enjoyable. With art, there is an extra component, a spiritual component — extra value added. We all know the difference between a pop song and classical music, a movie and a film, going to the disco and going to the ballet. We need both entertainment and art in our lives. Although it’s not a thick border, there is a functional difference: we all need that spiritual component in our lives, and art is one way to add that value. That’s how I see my role when I play classical concerts. Folk music, traditional music, shares that same function in life. It was more obvious in the old days, in ancient history, when music was the spiritual component used in religious services: shamanic music in ceremonies to create ecstasy and uplifting effect. And later on, art music as we know it grew out of a religious function. That’s why folk music/traditional music and art music/classical music share a lot in this sense. It’s all music and it hopefully moves you in a spiritual way.