Saturday 28 January 2012
Sergei Prokofiev Incidental music to 'Egyptian Nights' (1934)
7.30pm Royal Festival Hall
Andrey Breus baritone Simon Callow narrator Miranda Richardson narrator Gentlemen of the London Philharmonic Choir
– Prokofiev Incidental music to 'Egyptian Nights' (50') With excerpts from texts by George Bernard Shaw, Pushkin and Shakespeare
Interval Prokofiev (arr. Levon Atovmyan) Ivan the Terrible (world première of this version)* (50') – Vladimir Jurowski conductor Ewa Podleš contralto Andrey Breus baritone Simon Callow narrator Miranda Richardson narrator London Philharmonic Choir Surtitles by Paula Kennedy
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When Prokofiev moved to Moscow, he brought with him a new musical style emphasising greater melodiousness and economy of expression. The shift can be heard in his works for Soviet theatre and cinema from the mid-1930s, including the incidental music for Egyptian Nights. Prokofiev’s second Soviet commission, Egyptian Nights was a theatrical experiment directed by Alexander Tairov that brought together scenes from Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and the 1828 poem Cleopatra by Alexander Pushkin. As the composer explained in an article for Soviet Travel magazine, 'The reason that inspired Tairov to combine these plays lies in the fact that Shaw depicted Cleopatra in the bloom of her youth; and Shakespeare, at the moment of her decline.' The 44 numbers in his score represent the experiences of the principal characters and denote changes in locale: Rome is bellicose, oppressive, freighted with brass; Egypt is languorous, represented by harp, piano, and woodwinds. The music features mildly exotic dances, on- and off-stage choruses, and instrumental interludes (marking scene changes). The production was a success, though it did not take long for dilettantish Soviet critics to scorn Tairov for conflating canonic writers. © Simon Morrison
Performer biographies on pages 36–41. The timings shown are not precise and are only given as a guide. * Generously supported by The Serge Prokofiev Foundation
c. 9.45pm FREE post-concert event The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall Trapeze: A classical club night with music and dance See page 31 for details
INTERVAL – 20 minutes An announcement will be made five minutes before the end of the interval.
Sergei Prokofiev (arr. Levon Atovmyan, 1961) Ivan the Terrible (world première of this version) Ewa Podleš contralto Andrey Breus baritone London Philharmonic Choir In the summer of 2007, I met Svetlana Levonovna Atovmyan, the daughter of Levon Atovmyan, at her apartment in the House of Composers on a side street in the heart of Moscow. She fetched from the shelf a dusty, faded folder containing a manuscript with the inscription 'S.S. Prokofiev. Ivan the Terrible. Oratorio based on the film score of the same name. Compiled and orchestrated by L.T. Atovmyan. Full score.' This version of Prokofiev’s score has been hidden from history for almost 50 years. I received it as a gift from Svetlana Levonovna, who told me, in parting, 'I’m indebted to my father ... Do something to prevent his name from being forever confined to oblivion.' – Nelly Kravetz, January 2012 Following the success of Alexander Nevsky (1938), Sergei Eisenstein received a commission from Soviet State Cinema for another film on an historic subject, Ivan the Terrible. The first phase in the collaboration between Eisenstein and Prokofiev extended from June 1932 until the spring of 1943; the two worked together in Alma-Ata, where the Mosfilm studios had been relocated during the war. Prokofiev continued work on the music after his return to Moscow in 1944, at which time filming of Part 1 of Ivan the Terrible resumed.
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Still from Eisenstein's film Ivan The Terrible with Nikolai Cherkasov as Ivan
It was conceived as a trilogy. Part 1 was released on 18 January 1945; a year later the director and his crew received a FirstClass Stalin Prize for it. After a closed-door screening of Part 2, however, Eisenstein was accused of ignoring and distorting historical facts; on 4 September 1946 the Central Committee of the Communist Party resolved to ban the film. The prohibition of Part 2 was not lifted until 1958, five years after Stalin’s death. Part 3 went unrealized; the extant materials comprise a scenario, notes, drawings, and a few filmed excerpts. The epic film narrates Ivan the Terrible’s struggle to unify feudal Russia (or Rus’) as a powerful centralized state. In 1547 the 17-year-old Moscow prince Ivan Vasilyevich mounted the throne as the first Russian Tsar; several years later he achieved victory in the campaign against the Tatars. He had to endure the death of his beloved first wife Anastasia, the betrayal of a friend, defeat in the Livonian War, and the boyars’ plot against him. Ivan was merciless in his pursuit of power, thus earning the epithet 'Terrible'. Upon establishing the virtual police state known as the Oprichnina, he launched a campaign of mass terror throughout the Russian lands. Unlike the music for Alexander Nevsky, from which Prokofiev himself devised a cantata, and unlike the music for Lieutenant Kijé, which he transformed into an orchestral suite, Prokofiev did not generate a concert version of Ivan the Terrible. After the composer’s death this task was taken on by the conductor Abram Stasevich, who had recorded the original soundtrack for the film in 1945. From the musical excerpts for the film Stasevich arranged an oratorio for chorus, soloists, and orchestra. It was premièred on 23 April 1961 in posthumous celebration of Prokofiev’s 70th birthday. Unknown before now was the fact that three months before that première, on 16 January 1961, the Union of Soviet Composers arranged a hearing of an Ivan the Terrible oratorio for chorus, soloists, and orchestra by Levon Atovmyan. This version of the oratorio was thereafter forwarded to a repertoire control commission (Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the judges). The commission deemed the oratorio acceptable for performance and publication but recommended some changes and cuts. Immediately following the presentation of the score at the Union of Soviet Composers, however, Atovmyan suffered a pair of strokes: the setback brought the discussion of the oratorio to an end, and the manuscript was consigned to oblivion in Atovmyan’s private archive. There it remained unnoticed for over 50 years. In 2007, Atovmyan’s daughter Svetlana Levonovna Atovmyan (1926–2007) gave me the
manuscript in the hope of securing a performance. Levon Atovmyan (1901–73) is a shadowy figure in the history of Soviet music, despite occupying a position of influence. In November 1932, while serving as the chairman of a Moscow composers' collective, he received a directive from the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs to invite Prokofiev, then living in Paris, to tour the Soviet Union. Their initial acquaintance developed into a close collegial friendship. Atovmyan influenced Prokofiev’s ultimate decision to relocate to his homeland after 18 years abroad. And as the director of Muzfond, the financial division of the Union of Soviet Composers, Atovmyan commissioned numerous works from Prokofiev, published his music, and assisted with various day-to-day and material concerns. Prokofiev esteemed Atovmyan as a musician. On his request Atovmyan made some 25 transcriptions of his ballets, operas, and symphonies for piano. Prokofiev likewise entrusted him with the orchestration of his works. After Nikolay Myaskovsky, Atovmyan was Prokofiev’s most trusted confidant. There is no doubt that if Prokofiev had had to choose between Stasevich and Atovmyan for the oratorio, he would have selected the latter. And there exists indirect evidence that Atovmyan conceived the oratorio as early as 1947 and discussed it with Prokofiev, meaning that the composer probably not only knew about Atovmyan’s intentions, but also sanctioned them. Unlike Stasevich, who placed together episodes from the film side by side without making any changes, Atovmyan assumed the role of Prokofiev’s co-author. His oratorio is something in between a 'fantasy on a theme' and a reworking of the original score: it is not independent of the original, but at the same time it deviates from it. The following points distinguish Stasevich’s and Atovmyan’s versions: a. Atovmyan did not maintain the chronology of the cinematic narrative, but instead created a well-balanced score in keeping with musical conventions. Three of the odd-numbered movements (1, 3 and 7; see synopsis overleaf) take the form of grand, quasi-operatic scenes; the even-numbered movements (and movement 5) are smaller in scale and highlight one or two melodies. Atovmyan’s architectural design has a lyrical centre (movements 4, 5 and 6) with movements of increasing dramatic intensity radiating outward. b. Atovmyan altered Prokofiev’s scoring. He understood that film music conceived for a recording studio could not be brought into a concert hall unchanged. (Such was also Prokofiev’s belief, as evidenced by his work on the Alexander Nevsky cantata.) He made only minor changes to the overall size of the orchestra. c. Atovmyan made significant alterations to the choral score. d. Atovmyan excludes the Narrator that Stasevich employed to explain the story and to fashion the diverse episodes into a unified whole. Atovmyan evidently felt that the Narrator exerted too much of a drag on the unfolding of the music. e. Atovmyan excludes the passages in the score that Prokofiev did not compose, namely the traditional Orthodox Church singing. f. Atovmyan permitted himself some insignificant changes to the music and text.
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