Sunday Classics preview: It's no disrespect to to call Prokofiev's "Love for Three Oranges" March his most wonderful music

The famous March from Prokofiev's side-splitting opera The Love for Three Oranges bridges the scene change in Act II as the Prince is carried from the his chamber to the palace courtyard, where the King of Clubs has engaged entertainers to try to cheer up his grievously ill son, suffering from "incurable hypochondria." This Glyndebourne production was designed by Maurice Sendak and directed by Frank Corsaro.

by Ken

We launched our look at "musical funny business" some weeks back with a quick look at a pair of beautiful and hilarious orchestral suites that have found themselves frequently, and happily, paired on records: Prokofiev"s Lt. Kijé and Kodály's Háry János. We've since done pretty much all we were going to do for now with Kodály, straying into the musical world of his great countryman and friend Bartók. This week it's time to get back to Prokofiev.

We'll finish up on Kijé tomorrow. Among other works, we're also going to taking a quick look at Prokofiev's hilarious comic opera The Love for Three Oranges. Buried in it, covering the scene change in Act II is a minute and a half of music that is probably the composer's best-known, the famous March, most of which we've already heard as it appears in the opera, transporting us to the courtyard of the King of Clubs, where entertainments are prepared in hopes of cheering up the King's seemingly doomed son, who is suffering from "incurable hypochondria."

The March appears so briefly in the opera that you have to think the composer didn't realize how powerful a hold it would exert on music lovers. It is so compulsively engaging that it has been transcribed generously for solo instruments, for use as as a crowd-grabbing show-off encore. Here are two great soloists performing their own arrangements, plus a fascinatingly different performance of one by a third-party soloist:

PROKOFIEV: March from The Love for Three Oranges

arranged for solo piano by Arthur Rubinstein


Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA/BMG, recorded March 23, 1961

arranged for violin and piano by Jascha Heifetz


Jascha Heifetz, violin; Emanuel Bay, piano. Decca/MCA/Universal, recorded Nov. 30, 1945


Gil Shaham, violin; Orli Shaham, piano. Vanguard/Artemis, recorded c2003

And here is the full-orchestra version from the composer's own orchestral suite from the opera.

PROKOFIEV: The Love for Three Oranges Suite, Op. 33bis:
No. 3, March


Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, cond. Finlandia, recorded September 1996

Finally, here is the whole of the Love for Three Oranges Suite. I had originally planned to leave it for the main post tomorrow, but that would have left tonight's preview with precious little music for a whole lot of work. (Don't be surprised if we wind up hearing it again tomorrow, though in different performances, I promise.) Prokofiev was a compulsive arranger of orchestral suites from his larger works -- to increase his inventory of orchestral repertory, and thus the performing opportunities (and of course potential royalties) for his work, as well as to promote those excerpted larger works.

PROKOFIEV: The Love for Three Oranges: Suite, Op. 33bis

i. Les Ridicules ("The Ridiculous Ones" -- the squad of enforcers who break up the onstage riot in the Prologue; in the Russian version, "Eccentrics")
ii. Infernal Scene: Chelio the Magician and Fata Morgana Play Cards
iii. March
iv. Scherzo
v. The Prince and Princess
vi. Flight


Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, cond. Finlandia, recorded September 1996

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