Ballet Composer Profile: Sergei Prokoviev | Part 1
“In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify life and defend it. He must be a citizen first and foremost, so that his art might consciously extol human life and lead man to a radiant future.”
Name: Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev
Birth: 27th April 1891, Sontsovka, Ukraine (part of the Russian Empire at the time)
Death: 5th March 1953, Moscow, Russia
Musical Study:
It was Prokofiev’s mother, Maria, who initially provided him with the inspiration to study music. Having lost two daughters prior to Prokofiev’s birth, Maria had devoted her life to music, spending two months a year in Moscow or St Petersburg learning to play the piano, throughout her son’s childhood. As he was used to listening to her practice each evening, he was motivated to compose his first piano composition entitled ‘Indian Gallop’, which was transcribed by his mother.
In the summer of 1902, an eleven-year-old Prokofiev started studying piano and composition under Reinhold Glière, originally attempting to write his first symphony. This summer education was repeated in 1903, however by 1904, Prokofiev’s family were starting to think more seriously about his education. They visited St Petersburg to explore the possibility of relocating there for their son’s education. There they met the composer Alexander Glazunov (professor of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory), who on seeing Prokofiev’s music urged him to apply to the Conservatory. He was successful and enrolled that year. Over the years he studied harmony and counterpoint with Anatoly Lyadov, conducting with Nikolai Tcherepnin, piano with Alexander Winkler and orchestration with Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov.
Known as a musical rebel, in 1909, Prokofiev graduated his composition class with unimpressive marks. Nevertheless, he continued studying conducting with Tcherepin and piano with Anna Yesipova at the Conservatory until 1914.
Ballet Scores:
Ala and Lolli (1916)
Soon after leaving the Conservatory in 1914, Prokofiev received his first commission from Sergei Diaghilev (of the Ballet Russes) to write his first ballet- Ala and Lolli. However, when Prokofiev showed Diaghilev his initial ideas and sketches in 1915, Diaghilev was displeased, rejecting the work as ‘non-Russian’. So as not to waste the composed music, Prokofiev transformed the score into an orchestral suite for concert performance, now known as ‘Scythian Suite’, which was premiered in January 1916 in the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg.
Chout (1915/1921)
After rejecting Ala and Lolli, Diaghilev then commissioned the ballet Chout (The Buffoon/ The Tale of the Buffoon who Outwits Seven Other Buffoons), urging Prokofiev to compose ‘music that was national in character’. This ballet was based on a folk tale about a deceptive buffoon, recorded by the ethnographer Alexander Afanasyev (known as the Russian counterpart to the Brother’s Grimm). In fact it was an idea previously suggested to Diaghilev by Stravinsky. Together, Diaghilev and choreographer Leonide Massine aided Prokofiev in shaping the story into an appropriate ballet scenario.
Although the score was initially written in 1915, Diaghilev was again unhappy with Prokofiev’s work. However, he was willing to continue working with the composer and have him rework the score into six scenes, retaining the best sections. It was not until 1920 that Prokofiev revised the work extensively, deleting or rewriting over 40% of the original score. In this time the ballet was not performed, and it wasn’t until 1921 that the score was complete and approved by Diaghilev. The ballet was premiered on the 17th May 1921, and was praised by the audience, with Ravel calling it ‘a work of genius’.
Trapèze (1925)
Trapèze is a ballet that was commissioned in 1924 by Boris Georgevich Romanov, who was a dancer and choreographer himself. However, as a ballet it is not well documented, and has almost entirely disappeared from the repertoire, likely due to the many issues that occurred during its creation.
Unlike Prokofiev’s two previous ballets, which were written under the strict inspection of Diaghilev, the score for Trapèze was essentially left entirely up to Prokofiev himself. Not even Romanov, the choreographer was all that involved. So, in true Prokofiev style, he decided to kill two birds with one stone, choosing to write the score for the ballet as a quintet so it could be transformed into and performed as a quintet once the ballet had been toured.
Once Prokofiev had completed the score, Romanov was facing financial trouble and having to go to great lengths to save his ballet company. Coupled with the fact that Romanov’s wife also fell dangerously ill, progress on the ballet was slow. It seems that throughout Romanov’s work on the ballet, he found that he had more demands on the music. Prokofiev was reluctant to make some of these changes, mostly because by this time he was already busy writing a new ballet for Diaghilev, entitled Le Pas d’Acier. Though, Prokofiev was eager to find a name for the ballet, which turned out to be a re-working of a previous scenario Romanov had choreographed before, entitled “What happened to the Ballerina, the Chinamen and the Tumblers?”. He rebuked the idea to call it Acrobats, preferring the final title Trapèze.
Romanov’s changes to the scenes and requests for musical changes started to weigh heavy on Prokofiev and caused some friction between the composer and choreographer. It was finally performed as a ‘circus ballet’ on Friday 6 November 1925 in Gotha, Germany, seemingly received fairly well. Whether it received performances in the larger German cities is unknown. However, by March 1926, Trapèze was included in a “ten-day season [that] was a disaster, [forcing them] to abandon scenery and costumes and return to Berlin, where the company disbanded.” Despite Prokofiev’s close involvement in the rehearsals, the ballet clearly failed to meet his expectations, since he didn’t turn up to see the premiere.
Prokofiev was, however, happy with his Quintet (Op. 39) that was born out of the music that he had written for Trapèze. As the original score for Trapèze was lost, it is hard to say whether the music for the Quintet was taken directly from the ballet score, or reworked to fit the different format. It is clear that last two movements from the ballet were not included in the quintet, and instead he used them to create a new symphonic work entitled Divertimento Op.43. And so that is a rather brief telling of the story of the quite unknown Trapèze.
Le Pas D’Acier (1926)
Le Pas D’Acier or The Steel Step is a ballet in two scenes and containing eleven dances that was commissioned by Diaghilev. He (Diaghilev) had been inspired by an exhibition in Paris entitled the ‘International Exposition of the Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts’ and wanted to ‘celebrate Soviet industrialization’. Prokofiev collaborated with constructivist artist Georgi Yakulov to create the scenario, before going onto write the score. The aim seemed to be to tell Russian stories inspired by contemporary life rather than fairytales.
The premiere occurred on the 7th June 1927 in Paris, receiving mixed reviews. Stravinsky apparently declared that it ‘made him ill’ and some people felt that it was more of a parody of Soviet life than an homage. Nevertheless, for the most part, for Diaghilev and Prokofiev it was a success as it was performed in Paris for three seasons. It later received performances in London and USA, where a newspaper mused that "one wonders whether [the ballet] is propaganda or music."
Symphony No.2 (Original Score)- Prokofiev
Sources:
Mann, N. - http://www.sprkfv.net/journal/three04/trapeze0.html
