Prokofiev - the precocious little ****

I tend to have one music book on the 'go'. The last one to be finished was 'How equal temperament ruined harmony'. A great book you should read it.

For my next book I have returned to a book I lost in the bowels of the RCM halfway through reading it - Prokofiev's Diaries (1907-1914) translated by Anthony Phillips. I am always hooked by (good!) books about composers. Some suggestions:

Prokofiev Diaries - translated by Anthony Philips:

http://bit.ly/domZXp

Messiaen - Hill and Simeone

http://bit.ly/9JIvNF

Stravinsky - Walsh

http://bit.ly/cfNcpL

The diaries of Prokofiev have changed how I think about his music. I have to admit I have always sat on the Shostakovich side of the fence when it comes to 'Soviet' music. However, young Sergey is so witty, shallow, needy and outrageously flirtatious that I think I am now seeing a different side to his early compositions (especially his first two piano concerti). I think two things have really shone out in the first book, so far: His absolute need for a very close male companion (a complete display of platonic love) and also his infatuation at winding up the female race!

It's not just his character that is displayed but also the life of the conservatoire and more interestingly the internal wrangling of society and the musical world in Russia.

He has given me a great idea for a programme - directly lifted from one he went to in February 1913: Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead and Second Piano Concerto, followed by Scriabin's Extase. Scriabin's Poem of Exstasy was played tonnes in St Petersburg!!

On hearing Stravinsky's Infernal Dance from the Firebird he remarks: 'simply excellent' and hearing Petroushka in Paris : the staging sent him into 'ecstasies as did the orchestration and the wit constantly displayed...so engaging it was...the music...there is certainy something not real about it'. Its interesting to think that the Ballet Russe put on Petroushka followed by Daphnis - again I think a really exciting programme highlighting the amazing colour in Stravinsky's work, although I think I would put the works the other way around.

One of my favourite stories he recounts is a message he sent to a girl, Ariadna, after hearing she didn't play particularly well in an exam, as she was 'suffering from anaemia (?!)' :

'But I was then struck but a brilliant notion, which we spent the rest of the day executing.

From the photograph of our group we cut out Radochka's impassioned physigonomy and stuck

it onto the body of another, fatter girl, then attached the whole thing to a silhouette of a grand

piano I cut out of cardboard. It worked splendidly, and resulted in a well-upholstered Radochka

sitting convincingly at a piano. Lavrov we cut out complete from the same group photo, and

Nikolayev (who had been Niolskaya's examiner) from another group we acquired Kaspari

especially for the purpose. The whole ensemble was then pasted on to dark green card, above

this was written: 'Professor (to examiner) - Oh, my dear colleague, please do have pity, give

her a 5! After all, she suffers from anaemia...See how thin she is...(whispering in his ear) and how

pretty! (Aloud) When her health permits she must walk along Morskaya and enjoy herself in all kinds

of distractions and tire herself out at the piano, the cause of her disgraceful performance!'

Below, written in Max's hand: 'But the incorruptible Examiner disdains to succumb either to these

honeyed words or to the feminine wiles, and with iron justice awards a mark not quite equivalent

to 5+'

I suggest you read it - WARNING - it makes you think Prokofiev is a precocious little **** ...

F

Sibelius – A poor mans Mahler?

As I was walking the dog this frosty morning, I decided just how good the LPO sounded with Vanska the other week. The string intensity was incredible – the beginning of the 4^th Symphony was searing. You can see why the Vienna Phil gave up with it after initial rehearsals! But it got me thinking.

Sibelius 5 (1915) - based on the interval of the 5^th, swans flying etc. and then Bruckner 4 (1874) and Bruckner 3 (1873) both obsessed with intervallic dominance in its thematic material…

It’s a comparison I had never thought of before – probably due to my ignorance. I then thought about the string writing, use of the horns and I got this feeling that maybe I was thinking about Bruckner in the wrong way.

I have recently started to ‘get’ Bruckner, or so I thought. I have to admit that I use to always think of him as a poor man’s Mahler, like Nielsen a poor man’s Sibelius. I am now convinced that’s totally wrong. There are obviously similarities but it’s like saying Mahler is a poor man’s Strauss. Bruckner recently, I have been thinking is so academic (in a good way), but so rustic – thinking of the 2^nd subject in Bruckner 4 1^st movement – sing ‘on a walk in the country, on a walk in the country’ to the second subject and you will see what I mean. There is this amazing freedom, created out of an almost obsessive approach to construction. I suppose it is slightly how I feel about Dvorak 6 Symphony – possibly one of the most neglected masterworks of the symphonic repertoire.

I was so surprised when I first heard Bruckner’s slow movement from his 3^rd Symphony, it sounded like a premonition of Elgar. The string writing was clear of tremolo and there was this rounded nature and serious intensity. This tremolo business - it plagues string players in Bruckner, how to do it, how to survive it! I like David Halen’s (leader of St Louis Symphony approach) – many different speeds of tremolo create a powerful fuzziness! It reminded me of Sibelius’s approach in his symphonies (although not quite such an obsessive approach) and also the opening of his orchestral song Luonnotar.

What do all these random musings mean? No, Sibelius is by no means a poor man’s Mahler. However, it has made me think more romantically about Bruckner, less about the ‘tunes’ in Sibelius and more the orchestral atmosphere he is trying to create and thirdly that Mahler is so different to Bruckner.

Nielsen is still…yawn!