Here are two Chandos
releases which n each case offer rare
pieces by Prokofiev if not recording
(or at least CD) premieres.
Prokofiev's return
to a Russia now thoroughly possessed
by the Soviet system posed its own challenges
and expectations. The composer had fled
the Soviet Union during its final Tsarist
shudders. In those nomadic years he
had become an international musical
celebrity. His return would need Soviet
affirmation. This he sought. Within
two years he had written the Cantata
for the 20th anniversary of the October
Revolution and the cycle Songs
of Our Days. These works were followed
by Zdravitsa, a cantata
written to celebrate Stalin's birthday
setting texts from all over the Union
each extolling the Leader.
These were not isolated
works. In 1947 he wrote Festive Poem
for the 30th anniversary of the Revolution
and also the short cantata Flourish
Mighty Land. The verses of the latter,
by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, praise the Union,
its founding fathers and the Party.
This patriotic cantata speaks confidently
of a nation emergent victorious from
War. Its themes look back to the ballets
of the 1940s. Its choral writing is
of the massed ‘stand-and-deliver’ type.
In this Chandos version the singing
is, as elsewhere, muscular and clearly
focused. It is by no means as varied
or as engaging as Zdravitsa.
Egyptian Nights
is another suite produced around
a theatrical event. This involved a
hybrid of Bernard Shaw's Caesar and
Cleopatra and Shakespeare’s Anthony
and Cleopatra as well as Pushkin's
unfinished tale of the same name. I
last heard this suite back in 1999 in
a BBC Philharmonic Orchestra studio
concert with that arch-Russian Edward
Downes conducting. It is moody, inventive
(listen to the minatory rhythmics of
The alarm. Both here, in the
burly sections of Dances and
in Roma Militaris it is the relentlessly
crushing Iron Foundry by Mossolov
that comes to mind. There are also portraits
of Anthony tr. 18 (rather indebted
to Romeo and Juliet) and of Cleopatra
facing death.
Songs of Our Days
was written in 1937 and was premiered
in Moscow on 5 January 1938 conducted
by Alexander Gauk. The work sank into
desuetude between 1953 and the 1990s
because of its explicit references to
Stalin. In the Khruschev and post-Khruschev
era such references were poison to any
chance of revival. This nine movement
suite is cheerful - a quality asserted
from the outset. You might know Prokofiev’s
suite Winter Bonfires once available
on Supraphon - it is similar in effect.
Folk-serenity and warm evenings take
over for the Golden Ukraine (tr.
16) but it is a brief interlude also
returned to in the lovely Lullaby
including delightful singing by
Victoria Smolnikova. This is however
a world away from the subtlety of Egyptian
Nights. The final October Flame
fervently hymns ‘our own wise and
beloved Stalin’.
After Songs of our
Days, the ballet On the Dnieper
is a triumph of half-lights and
refinement, of suggestion and subtlety.
The scenario presents a series of idealised
tableaux of the new Soviet life. While
invention is nowhere near as striking
as in Romeo and Juliet there
are some remarkable moments here in
The meeting, the gentle Fiancee's
Dance, in the lissom modesty of
Mime scene and in the crunching
harmonic collisions of Pas de Deux.
Man’s Variation and Finale rather
suggest one of Shostakovich's ruthless
scherzandos as well as Montagues
and Capulets. There are similar
stompingly scathing echoes in The
Fight (tr. 10). The public cheery
manner of the Classical Symphony
can be heard in the Epilogue,
ending amid the prescribed optimism.
It was Diaghilev's last commission.
Zdravitsa is,
at 12 minutes, something of a pocket
cantata though still four minutes longer
than Flourish Mighty Land. Its
serene opening material is familiar
from the balcony scene of Prokofiev's
Romeo and Juliet. Soon however
the choir enters in cheerful mode (it's
all very listenable before you become
too snooty or censorious about the subject
matter). One of the themes suggests
that comrade Khachaturyan had been listening
when he wrote the grand adagio for Spartacus
and Phrygia. The subtle harmonic
slides of the violins at 8.12 are one
of several striking effects. Some of
the pecking choral writing recalls Orff's
Trionfi. It is difficult not
to be swept along by the final fast-swaying
chorus which harks back to the Khachaturyan
theme at 12.20 even if the final blaze
of light is to the words ‘you are the
flame of our thoughts and blood Stalin!
Stalin!’
The contrast to be
found in Autumnal (sometimes
wrongly known as Autumn under
which you may know it from a Rozhdestvensky
recording from the 1960s) could hardly
be more extreme. Although picked over
by the composer in 1914 and 1934 the
work speaks of an earlier era with a
darker-hued atmosphere referring perhaps
to the early symphonies and tone poems
of Miaskovsky as well as to Rachmaninov's
Isle of the Dead written the
year before. In fairness the piece has
more clarity and light than the Rachmaninov,
aided by a clear-eared recording and
a finely textured approach by Polyansky
and the orchestra. It is something of
a mood essay and without strongly drawn
themes.
Hamlet dates
from 1938 and a theatre production by
Sergei Sradlov who had collaborated
with Prokofiev over the Romeo and
Juliet ballet. After a tense rather
than creepy Ghost Scene comes
a jejune carefree and balletic March
for Claudius (the Pantomime is
in the same mould), some rather vapid
fanfares and finally the subdued Fortinbras
March with some superbly captured
brass writing adding emotional colour
above the massed strings. The four Ophelia
songs are admirably sung with eerie
gravity by Tatiana Sharova and the oddly
sterterous Gravedigger's Song is
ringingly rendered by Andrei Baturkin.
Rob Barnett
see also review
by Paul Shoemaker CHAN10056
CHAN10044
Russian State Symphonic Orchestra and Capella/Valeri
Polyansky