Hello Again Kats & Kittens, Friend & Fiend,
Starving for sporting events? Most of us are…no Hockey = no smiles. HBO’s (it’s not TV, it’s HBO) JON OLIVER had this last week… MARBLE RACING! It’s a sport, maybe…
JELLE’s MARBLE RUNS! You might find the days passing more quickly after a few hours of this…stupid & perfect……nerds…
ONWARD!
To say SERGEI PROKOFIEV was a piano freak……is…….well weak…this Kat carried Russian music into the 20th century…every genre of music, symphonies, concerti, film music, operas, & ballets. KING! but all Kings tumble right? His story…hinterland RUSHKA 1890s, Father an Agronomist (hit buttons, look up), Mother, Serf lineage, theater, piano, art, what the Serfs did… SERGEI, only child, 2 sisters died as infants…prodigy in the making, he has the gift of Piano, writes first piece at five, first full Opera at nine…so if one thinks young SERGEI is headed to a well off conservatory, one would be correct…first Moscow’s Conservatory for piano lessons, two summers worth, then to St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1904-1914. The kid is GOOD, REAL GOOD but WILD…has a knack for unexpected changes, dissonant harmonies, & off-time time stamps…. so goes genius, right?
Genius 1918…
1914, PROKOFIEV ended Conservatory time by entering the school’s biggest contest a “piano-off!”…five best piano wunderkinds, slug out the notes, prize = Schroeder Grand Piano. Performing his own Piano Concerto No. 1…. never guess what happened…of course you did…SERGEI had a space in his apartment waiting for that piano.
Here’s the full “Piano Concerto No.1”. Right now, we feel a bit like PRESTON TROMBLY, ☜(remember buttons).
1917, Unrest in the homeland (February Revolution), not good for artists, PROKOFIEV moves to USA(couple years) then Paris for most of a decade. Opera “The Love of Three Oranges” is a hit…Early 1930’s the homeland is safe again, Mr. P & fam back to Moscow…becomes Moscow’s Music Ambassador to the West….things are looking up…comrades are in like…1936 produces his most famous piece the fairy tale, “Peter & The Wolf”. Hit button smile will commence.☟
PROKOFIEV also worked with RUSSIAN Film whiz SERGEI EISENSTEIN. 1938 epical, historical, flickal (went to far, we know) “Alexander Nevsky”. Russian hero took out the invading Teutonic Knights of the Roman Empire…13th century.
EISENSTEIN’S first use of sound in a filem…very Kool collab here….some of the scenes were shot to PROKOFIEV’s music…that’s backwards in today’s film world….some “importants” have opined this is the best music composed for picture…ever! The Battle on the Ice scene is insane!
Push ahead to 1987, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, LALA…MR. ANDRE PREVIN with the stick, LAPHIL in chairs, ready, LA MASTER CHORALE, surrounding the PHIL…Mezzo-Sprano CHRISTINE CAIRNS awaits her turn…the screen lowers, hush over the place…the film starts…MAGIC!
This Reporter & loved ones were at this concert…so much power, live music to a nearly silent film. Gooseflesh…indeed. Here are a few samples from the film…
All good things end, right? The King is beheaded or burned or kicked out… 1948, the SOVIET Autocrats have a new thing…the ZHDANOV DOCTRINE “get on the PARTY LINE or else”…well you know…it rhymes with SMOOLAG. PROKOFIEV’s music was considered to have too much ‘formalism’ (renunciation of the basic principles of classical music) & eight of his major works were banned. (GET A GRIP) Fearing persecution, musicians stopped performing his other works as well. Out of light into darkness… SERGEI continued to write & play, until health issues took over….
He passed March 5, 1953……The same day big man JOSEPH STALIN died. Living so close to RED SQUARE, made for clumsy doings at his funeral……because DEAD RED JOE was instate down the street, the masses massing…no hearse allowed in the area…PROKOFIEV’s casket had to be hand carried, upstream thru the crowds, blocks to the Soviet HQ for Composers (don’t ask why, it’s 50s USSR).
UNFUNFACT: The passing of JOSEPH STALIN was also the end of the ZHDANOV DOCTRINE. Mr. PROKOFIEV missed it by “that much….” (Get Smart anyone?)
Some years later, SERGEI PROKOFIEV’s music got a new audience, new popularity, also the Russians came to realize he’s their best composer of the 20th century. Comrades in arms once again, they even put him on a stamp.
His music (classical that is) is played more in the USofA than anyone other than RICHARD STRAUSS.
Other compositions = WAR & PEACE, CINDERELLA, ROMEO & JULIET, Score for EISENSTIEN’s film IVAN the TERRIBLE (1&2)…plus, plus, plus. Here’s a few from “Cinderella”, written from 1940-44…(“War & Peace” written in the middle).
Это конец сегодняшнего роудшоу
Thanks for listening, until tomorrow.
Peace & Distance.
