Sunday Classics: Not a review, but some thoughts prompted by Anne-Marie McDermott's recent New York piano recital

Even in this brief clip, I think you can hear that a (the?) distinguishing quality of Anne-Marie McDemott's piano-playing is the bracing physicality.

by Ken

Last week I laid the groundwork for some thoughts prompted by a recital that pianist Anne-Marie McDermott gave recently at New York's Rubin Museum of Art. (Of course it was a week more recently last week.) I focused last week on Liszt's solo-piano expansion of Schumann's brief but grandly expressive song "Widmung" ("Dedication"), which stands at the head of the list of songs he wrote for his new bride Clara, not to mention the vast number that were merely inspired by his passion for her, in his historic "Year of Song" (1840).

We never did get around to the recital itself. As I explained last week, that part was already written, but I just thought it would be too much for a single post. After the click-through we'll be picking up more or less where we left off last week, including hearing music by Prokofiev and Chopin which preceded the Schumann-Liszt (which we'll hear again, this time in some sort of context).

One thing we're not going to hear is the opening work, the Busoni rendering of the Bach solo-violin Chaconne, which I dislike a lot, though there'll be links to a couple of performances. To get us going, here's a performance of the violin original -- announced, you'll note, as "take one" -- by Jascha Heifetz. You might compare this with the Stokowski performance of his own orchestral version which we heard in Friday night's preview.



FOR THE THOUGHTS PROMPTED BY THE RECITAL,
AND A FAIR AMOUNT OF MUSIC, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: The fraught world of kiddie classics -- Prokofiev's "Peter," Saint-Saëns' "Carnival," Britten's "Young Person's Guide"

It's audio only, but a treat: Boris Karloff narrates the first half of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, with Mario Rossi conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. (The poster is confused about the recording's provenance. Since it's audibly stereophonic, it's unlikely that it was recorded in the '40s, or "appeared originally as a 78 rpm single from Mercury's 'Childcraft' label." Vanguard made this recording in May 1957.) The second half of the performance is here.

by Ken

"Patronizing" is as as close as I can get to the word I'm groping for here. I'm wishing adults didn't have such a kitschy, retarded idea of music they think will appeal to kids -- and really, I'm thinking of bygone times when large numbers of adults actually knew something about the music and cared enough to attempt to inflict it on their offspring.

I think I mentioned here once that, Leonard Bernstein explained to his audience in his Young People's Concert devoted to Mahler that friends of his were horrified to learn than he planned to include a chunk of the extremely serious, even dour, seemingly ultra-kid-unfriendly Ninth Symphony. Lenny had insisted the kids would be fine with it, and as the video record shows, they loved it.

As I mentioned in last night's preview, I hated Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, and had to claw my way to what now seems to me an extravagantly beautiful opera. Luckily, I didn't often have "kiddie" music thrust at me, and instead was left mostly to find my own way to the music I came to love.

Today, as I suggested, we're focusing on the three great works that set out to introduce listeners to the instruments of the orchestra: Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, and Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. When they're inflicted on young people, it's not the music itself that bothers me, of course, because this is all utterly extraordinary music, but -- how do I say this? -- the unthinkingly closed-minded, talk-down-ish way it's presented. "Patronizing" is as close as I can get in a single word.

* * *

PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67

We're going to take our time with Peter, and actually listen to it both section-by-section with narration and then in one fell swoop, or rather three fell swoops, twice with narration (in English and Spanish; the narration, of course, has been translated into the language of every place where the piece has been performed) and then without narration. I think this illustrates a built-in problem with this music: The narration can quickly become deeply annoying, but the music, while quite lovely, really doesn't have any particular sense without it.

1. Introduction

2. Early One Morning (The Meadow)

3. Look Out!

4. Peter's Theme; Grandfather's Theme

5. The Wolf Appears

6. The Balance of Nature

7. Peter's Plan

8. The Hunters Come Out of the Woods

9. The Triumphant Procession


As promised, here's the whole thing put together, in two versions, musically identical but with the late Jose Ferrer narrating first in English and then in Spanish. Ferrer, of course, had one of the most remarkable speaking voices in the annals of the English language -- and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess in Spanish as well. (I think you'll notice an intriguing personality shift as he moves between languages.)

PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 (in English)
Jose Ferrer, narrator; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens, cond. Kapp/MCA, recorded 1959

PROKOFIEV: Pedro y el Lobo, Op. 67 (en español)
Jose Ferrer, narrator; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens, cond. Kapp/MCA, recorded 1959

Now, again as promised, here's the music without the narration, from Sony's "Royal Edition." The original recording was made to be filled out with Maestro Bernstein's own narration, and in its original form the old LP coupling with Lenny's Carnival of the Animals can still be had on CD.

PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67: Suite
New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 16, 1960

It seems as if most everyone who can talk has narrated a recording of Peter and the Wolf. Among the versions you can download are one from Everest narrated by Captain Kangaroo, with Leopold Stokowski conducting the New York Stadium Symphony, and, yes, the Vanguard one narrated by Boris Karloff we sampled above, with Mario Rossi conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra.

* * *

SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of the Animals

In the LP era Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals were frequent (I'm tempted to say "almost invariable") disc-mates, but in fact they're really not aimed at the same audience. Amazon comments are unusually interesting here -- judging from the adult accounts, their kids go for Peter but are kind of stumped by Carnival.

The latter is, in its childlike way, a pretty sophisticated piece with its often surprising and sardonic musical characterizations and its network of musical quotations. (I expect you recognized the "Dance of the Sylphs" from Berlioz' Damnation of Faust last night when we heard "The Elephant.") In addition, in the English-speaking world, the Ogden Nash verses often used for narration (written for the André Kostelanetz recording narrated by Noël Coward), for all their deft drollerie, don't seem to me especially kid-friendly at all. Here, for example, are Nash's "Introduction" and the poems for the two movements we heard last night, "The Elephant" and "The Swan."

Introduction

Camille Saint-Saëns 

Was wracked with pains,

When people addressed him
As Saint-"Sains."


He held the human race to blame, 

Because it could not pronounce his name. 

So he turned with metronome and fife,

To glorify other kinds of life. 


Be quiet, please -- for here begins

His salute to feathers, fur, and fins.

No. 5, The Elephant

Elephants are useful friends, 

Equipped with handles at both ends.

They have a wrinkled moth-proof hide. 

Their teeth are upside down, outside.


If you think the elephant preposterous, 

You’ve probably never seen a rhinosterous.

Gary Karr, double bass; Marielle Labèque, piano. BMG, recorded December 1996

No. 13, The Swan

The swan can swim while sitting down.

For pure conceit he takes the crown.

He looks in the mirror over and ove-a,

And claims to have never heard of Pavlova.

[Note: Now just how many kids do you suppose are going to get a reference to Pavlova? -- Ed.]

Gary Karr, double bass; Ruth and Naomi Segal, pianos; (New York Philharmonic,) Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Apr. 9, 1962
Misha Maisky, cello; Katia and Marielle Labèque, pianos. Teldec, recorded December 1996
Pablo Casals, cello; Charles A. Baker, piano. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 24, 1915

On CD, Peter and Carnival are often joined by the next-best-known "young person's guide to the orchestra," Brittten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, more formally known as the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell. As far as I can tell, I don't have a single narrated version of either the Saint-Saëns or the Britten on CD. So here they are in purely orchestral form. Actually, in the case of Saint-Saëns'Carnival, we hear it once in orchestral form and then in chamber form, with the string parts played one player to a part. (There is, by the way, a lovely score downloadable free in PDF form.)

SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of the Animals

1. Introduction and Royal March of the Lion
(two pianos, strings [two violins, viola, cello, bass])
Andante maestoso; Allegro non troppo; Piu allegro, 4/4
2. Hens and Roosters
(clarinet, two pianos, two violins, viola)
Allegro moderato, 4/4
3. Wild asses (Swift animals)
(two pianos)
Presto furioso, 4/4
4. Tortoises
(1st piano, strings)
Andante maestoso, 4/4
5. The Elephant
(2nd piano, double bass)
Allegretto pomposo, 3/8
6. Kangaroos
(two pianos)
Moderato, 4/4-3/4
7. Aquarium
(flute, harmonica, two pianos, strings except bass [muted])
Andantino, 4/4
8. Personages with long ears
(two violins)
Tempo ad lib., 3/4
9. The Cuckoo in the depth of the woods
(clarinet, two pianos [with una corda pedal])
Andante, 3/4
10. Aviary
(flute, two pianos, strings)
Moderato grazioso, 3/4
11. Pianists
(two pianos with strings)
Allegro moderato [editors' note: "The players should imitate the playing of a beginner and his awkwardness"], 4/4
12. Fossils
(clarinet, xylophone, two pianos, strings)
Allegro ridicolo, 2/2
13. The Swan
(cello, two pianos)
Andantino grazioso, 6/4
14. Finale
(flute, clarinet, harmonica, xylophone, two pianos, strings)
Molto allegro, 4/4

Ruth and Naomi Segal, pianos; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Apr. 9, 1962
Benoît Fromanger, flute; Richard Stoltzman, clarinet; Lily Maisky and Misha Mullov, pianos (in "Pianists"); Evelyn Glennie, percussion; Katia and Marielle Labèque, pianos; Viktoria Mullova and Alexej Nagovitsyn, violins; Yuri Bashmet, viola; Misha Maisky, cello; Gary Karr, double bass. BMG, recorded December 1996

* * *

BRITTEN: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
(Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell), Op. 34

Not-quqite-yet-sir Malcolm Sargent narrated and conducted the London Symphony in Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra in the film Instruments of the Orchestra. Sargent conducted the Liverpool Philharmonic in the work's concert (and broadcast) premiere on Oct. 14, 1946. We hear the recording they made below.

The Young Person's Guide was written in 1945-46 (right after the opera Peter Grimes) on commission of the British Ministry of Education for a film called Instruments of the Orchestra, with narration written by writer-director Eric Crozier, who had staged the Sadler's Wells premiere of Peter Grimes and would write the libretto for Britten's Albert Herring and cowrite (with with E. M. Forster) that for Billy Budd. As noted above, the premiere was given in Liverpool on Oct. 15, 1946, by Malcolm Sargent (1946 was the year before he was knighted) and the Liverpool Philharmonic, who then made the work's premiere recording, which we hear below.

You can find a breakdown of the music here. The general plan of the variations could hardly be simpler or more straightforward, though the actual music is hardly either. After sequentially spotlighting the choirs of the orchestra in the opening statement of the theme, Britten works his way through them, in each case working from the top down:

* woodwinds (Variations A through D -- piccolo and flute [Presto], oboes [Lento], clarinets [Moderato], and bassoons [Allegro alla marcia]);

* strings (E through H -- violins [Brillante: alla polacca], violas [Meno mosso], cellos [no tempo marking], and basses [Cominciando lento ma poco a poco accel. al Allegro, "Beginning Lento but little by little accelerating to Allegro"]);

* harp (I [Maestoso]);

* brasses (J through L -- horns [L'istesso tempo], trumpets [Vivace], and trombones and tuba [Allegro pomposo]); and finally --

* percussion (M [Moderato] -- timpani, bass drum and cymbals, tambourine and triangle, snare drum and wood block, xylophone, castanets and gong, whip, all percussion) --

at which point he's ready to unleash the fugue.

Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI/Membran, recorded 1946
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis, cond. Teldec, recorded October 1990

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Sunday Classics preview: Music by Humperdinck, Saint-Saëns, and Prokofiev -- it's pretty obvious what they have in common, isn't it?

There's lots of Hansel and Gretel material on YouTube, but mostly it ranges from repellent on down; it's hard to say which is more hateful, the misguided professional or the inept amateur efforts. Let's be grateful for this chunk of the lip-synched Unitel film directed by August Everding to a prerecorded soundtrack conducted by Georg Solti. It's musically alive, vocally strong, and staged without resort to kitsch. In the opening scene, Hansel (Brigitte Fassbaender) and Gretel (Editá Gruberová), who are supposed to be making brooms and knitting, respectively, are crashingly bored and search desperately for a way to amuse themselves.

by Ken

Let's get right to the music, by (the real) Engelbert Humperdinck.

HUMPERDINCK: Hansel and Gretel

Overture; Prayer and Dream Pantomime (orchestra only)
Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded September 1960

Let me say straight out that I hated Hansel and Gretel as a kid, an antipathy that wasn't easily overcome but finally gave way in the face of the opera's staggering beauty -- Wagnerian methods and orchestral textures beautifully scaled to this folklike setting, with a good deal of really beautiful vocal writing. (I'm sorry I don't have the Eurodisc recordeing conducted by Kurt Eichhorn on CD. In addition to being an all-around terrific performance, it features some of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's most wonderful recorded singing as the Father, and one of Christa Ludwig's most memorable recorded performances as the Witch.) But enough talk. Let's hear a little more of Hansel.

Overture
Dresden State Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded January 1992

Act I, "A witch, old as stone, dwells deep in the woods"; Act II opening, The Witches' Ride

[The Father, returning home in high spirits after a spectacular day's sales of the housewares he makes, is horrified to learn that the Mother, at wits' end from the children's antics, has sent Hansel and Gretel off into the woods, to the Ilsenstein. Thereabouts, he explains, dwells the Nibblewitch. NOTE: The Hansel translations are (mostly) by Avril Bardoni for Decca.]

FATHER: As old as the rocks, in the deep wood dwells
a witch by the devil empowered with spells.
At midnight, when no one's awake beside,
she sallies forth on the witches' ride.
From the witches' stack
on her broomstick, alack,
over hill and dale,
o'er chasm and vale,
through rain and hail
on the wings of the gale;
thus they ride, thus they ride,
tally-ho, the witches!
MOTHER: Dreadful! But the nibblewitch!
FATHER: All day she waits
with her magic cakes
by her crispy-crunchy cottage gatesm
the children to lure within her door
and bake them fit for the witches' maw.
With evil glee she grabs while he
stands nibbling sweeties happily.
The hot oven glows
and -- push! -- in he goes,
to emerge when he's done
as a brown sticky bun,
from the oven, the oven
come gingerbread children!
MOTHER: And the gingerbread children?
FATHER: They're eaten!
MOTHER: By the witch?
FATHER: By the witch!
MOTHER [wringing her hands]: Horrible!
Heaven help us! The poor children!
I can't bear it any longer!
[She runs out of the house.]
FATHER [snatching the liquor bottle from the table]:
Hey, Mother, wait, don't leave me here!
We'll both go to the witches' lair!
[He hurries after her. The curtain falls abruptly.]

Siegmund Nimsgern (b), Peter (the Father); Christa Ludwig (ms), Gertrud (the Mother); Gürzenich Orchestra (Cologne), Sir John Pritchard, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded 1978

Act II, Sandman's Song; Prayer and Dream Pantomime

[The little man approaches the children with friendly gestures and they gradually lose their fear. He throws sand in their eyes.]

THE SANDMAN: The little Sandman am I, sh!
No ill intentions have I, sh!
I love you children dearly, sh!
And care for you sincerely, sh!
Two grains of magic sand I shake
upon your eyes, now scarce awake;
so by themselves they gently close
to give you rest and sweet repose.
And if you're good and really sleeping tight,
the stars will then appear
in Heaven's farthest sphere
and angels bring you dreams of sweet delight!
So dream, my children, dream away,
and angels bring you dreams of sweet delight!
[He vanishes.]
HANSEL [very sleepily]: The Sandman was here!
GRETEL [also very sleepily]: Let's recite our evening prayer.

[They kneel down and fold their hands.]

BOTH: When at night I go to sleep,
fourteen angels watch do keep --
two at my head,
two at my feet,
two on my right,
two on my left,
two that cover me,
two that wake me,
two that guide me
to Heaven's paradise.

DREAM PANTOMIME [I'll spare you the official pantomime scenario, and leave you to imagine something less cloying -- and less idiotically insulting than you'll see in the average opera house.]

Rosemary Joshua (s), the Sandman; Jennifer Larmore (ms), Hansel; Ruth Ziesak (s), Grtetel; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Donald Runnicles, cond. Teldec, recorded February 1994

* * *

Now we turn to music of openly didactic intent, showcasing the individual instruments of the orchestra. This is what we're going to be mostly concerned with tomorrow, so let's just sneak some peeks.

SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of the Animals: "The Swan"

Gary Karr, double bass; Ruth and Naomi Segal, pianos; (New York Philharmonic,) Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Apr. 9, 1962

"The Swan" was, famously, written as a cello solo but is played here -- to the horror of one Amazon commenter -- on the double bass by the then-18-year-old Gary Karr. Getting this kind of legato and tonal beauty out of the double bass seems to me pretty astonishing. Still, if you want cello, here's Misha Maisky from an all-star recording of Carnival.

Misha Maisky, cello; Katia and Marielle Labèque, pianos. Teldec, recorded December 1996

And if you really want cello, here -- in 1915 -- is the already-38-year-old Pablo Casals:

Pablo Casals, cello; Charles A. Baker, piano. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 24, 1915

SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of the Animals: "The Elephant"

Meanwhile here, 34 years after recording "The Swan" with Leonard Bernstein, is double bassist Gary Karr playing "The Elephant."

Gary Karr, double bass; Marielle Labèque, piano. BMG, recorded December 1996

* * *

PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf: Introduction

Jose Ferrer, narrator; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens, cond. Kapp/MCA, recorded 1959


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

Lots more of Peter and the Wolf, along with Carnival of the Animals and Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

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Sunday Classics: The younger Prokofiev could be quite a cut-up

Thanks to poster AlecGuinnessFan, it's possible to see the whole of The Horse's Mouth, Ronald Neame's 1958 adaptation of Joyce Cary's 1944 novel, for which Guinness wrote the screenplay as well as starring as the desperately and rather despicably struggling artist Gully Jimson. The film makes spectacular use of Prokofiev's Lt. Kijé music, in particular "Kijé's Wedding" and the "Troika."

by Ken

One thing about creative geniuses is that they tend to be unpredictable. It's possible to be extremely talented and concoct highly satisfying creations that don't really surprise anyone. But at the genius level, not only the audience but the creator often doesn't know what's coming next.

I think of the great Alfred Hitchcock, so well known to us as the supreme film master of psychological mayhem. Who would expect among so many spine-tingling chillers to find a comic masterpiece like The Trouble with Harry, a sweetly autumnal (literally -- it's steeped in the colors of a New England autumn) romance that centers around an inconvenient corpse that keeps turning up in the most distressing places and situations. You see, Harry's "problem" -- and I have to risk spoiling it in case you didn't already know -- is that he's dead. Unmourned, but just so damned inconveniently so.

Lieutenant Kijé, in Yury Tynyanov's satirical novel (1927), set in the reign of Tsar Paul I (1796-1801), and Alesander Faintsimmer's film adaptation (1934) has a possibly even more existentially distressing problem: He doesn't exist. I confess that I've never read the book or seen the film, but Kij&eactue; is a central part of my imaginative reality, thanks to an incontestably brilliant decision Faintsimmer made: having Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) composer the film score.

As usual, Prokofiev was averse to letting music he'd written go to waste, and he soon created the "symphonic suite" that remains one of his most-loved works, which I offered as a prime example of "musical funny business," along with another beautiful and witty orchestral suite with which it was often, and happily, paired on LP, Zoltán Kodály's Háry János (drawn from a theatrical piece that is somewhere between a play with lots of incidental music and an opera). We've already taken a closer look at Háry János; today we return to Kijé.

Naturally I thought of The Horse's Mouth, for which Prokofiev's Kijé score. Am I the only one who's wondered whether the picture would be even watchable without the brilliantly used music?

Wikipedia offers a usable synopsis of the Kijé Suite:

The suite, in five movements broadly follows the plot:

1. "Kijé's Birth." Emperor Paul, listening to a report, mishears a phrase and concludes that the lieutenant exists. He demands that "Kijé" be promoted to his elite guard. It is an offence to contradict the Tsar, so the palace administrators must invent someone of that name.

2. "Romance." The fictional lieutenant falls in love.

3. "Kijé's Wedding." Since the Tsar prefers his heroic soldiers to be married, the administrators concoct a fake wedding. The vodka that the Tsar approves for this event is very real.

4. "Troika." [A troika is both "a sled or carriage drawn by three horses harnessed side-by-side" and a folk dance.]

5. "Kijé's Burial." The administrators finally rid themselves of the non-existent lieutenant by saying he has died. The Tsar expresses his sadness, and the civil servants heave a sigh of relief.

Here then is the whole of the brilliant performance we've sampled by Klaus Tennstedt.

PROKOFIEV: Lt. Kijé: Symphonic Suite, Op. 60


London Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt, cond. EMI, recorded c 1983

A wickedly impudent sense of humor was one of the things Prokofiev took with him when he left the newly created Soviet Union in 1918. He seems never to have had any head for or interest in politics (and he would pay for it); the messy business of the Russian Revolution seems to have been mostly an inconvenience. But he seems to have known that as a not-so-young-anymore young man and a developing creative artist, he felt stifled.

Things started well, and he quickly secured a commission from the Chicago Opera for what eventually became the comic-opera masterpiece The Love for Three Oranges. All sorts of difficulties set in then, including serious health problems and bare-knuckle negotiations with the Chicago management, but in 1921 the opera reached the stage. It didn't set the world on fire, that may be because the musical establishment wasn't looking for salvation in the form of this hilarious satirical fantasy.

Love for Three Oranges, which we looked at briefly in last night's preview, has all sorts of fantastical things going on in it but is first of all a tribute to the stock-character tradition of the old commedia dell'arte, which intersects deliciously and crazily with a network of prime-for-parody Russian folk and intellectual traditions. As with most great comedies, the more seriously the performers take it, the funnier it can be. For example, the Prince's dreaded illness, and his father the King of Clubs's desperate concern, only becomes really funny if everyone involved, both on and off the stage, believes that it's genuinely life-threatening. Of course most opera companies prefer to key their level of comedy to a backward five-year-old.

Last night we sampled the opera's buried-treasure nugget: the little March that Prokofiev seems to have regarded as a virtual throwaway, but that became probably his best-known bit of music. It's an inspiration that the composer seems originally to have regarded as a virtual throwaway -- it lasts barely a minute and a half. Why don't we listen again to the versions we heard last night?

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 then the orchestral arrangement Prokofiev made for his Love for Three Oranges Suite.

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


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

Now, last night we saw a clip from the Glyndebourne production of Love for Three Oranges designed by Maurice Sendak and staged by Frank Corsaro which showed us how the March leads into Act II, Scene 2, in which the poor Prince has been literally carried to the palace courtyard to be cheered up by the series of entertainments his father has commissioned from Truffaldino. Today I thought it might he fun to hear the scene, Act II, Scene 1, out of which the March emerges. We're going to hear it twice, in fact, first in French, the language in which it was originally written, and then in Russian, into which it was of course translated. I'm not sure it's fair to call them different "versions," but in fact they sound to me almost like different operas, with quite different performing traditions.

PROKOFIEV: The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33:
Act II, Scene 1

In the Prince's bedroom, Truffaldino ("a man who makes people laugh") tries to persuade the invalid Prince to get dressed to attend the grand entertainments he has arranged for him, which are already beginning, but the Prince finds the idea of getting dressed completely mad. Truffaldino's promise of laughter produces a coughing fit from the Prince and an intervention by the party of comedy-favoring Comicals from the Prologue, who have been watching the action, and are now silenced by the order-enforcing Eccentrics. The Prince begs for his numerous medicines, which Truffaldino instead one by one chucks out the window. As the Prince wails that he's dying, Truffaldino wraps his cloak around and lifts him bodily as the March begins [about 5:20 of the Russian performance, 5:29 of the French], transporting the audience as well as the two characters to the great courtyard of the palace for Truffaldino's festivities.

1. In French:


Georges Gautier (t), Truffaldino; Jean-Luc Viala (t), the Prince; Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, Kent Nagano, cond. Virgin Classics, recorded March 30-Apr. 7, 1989

2. In Russian:


Konstantin Pluzhnikov (t), Truffaldino; Yevgeny Akimov (t), the Prince; Kirov Chorus and Orchestra of the Maryinsky Theater, St. Petersburg, Valery Gergiev, cond. Philips, recorded live in the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Nov. 1997 and Sept. 1998

And just to get a fuller sense of this sparkling opera, let's listen again to the suite, only in a different performance.

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)
ii. Infernal Scene: Chelio the Magician and Fata Morgana Play Cards
iii. March
iv. Scherzo
v. The Prince and Princess
vi. Flight


Minnesota Orchestra, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, cond. Vox, recorded 1977


PROKOFIEV'S CLASSICAL SYMPHONY

Finally, I don't see how we can leave the subject of the "comic" Prokofiev without taking account of the Classical Symphony of 1916-17, the first of the composer's seven symphonies. It's neither "ha-ha funny" nor an imitation of a classical symphony, but more of a droll mimickry of what a classical symphony might sound like if old-style forms were filled out with then-contemporary musical sensibilities. It's a hard work to perform than one one might imagine -- or than many conductors seem to realize. It has to be performed fully, with condescension or mincing, and yet with appropriate appreciation of its wit and attention to both its polish and its rhythmic propulsion.

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 1 in D, Op. 25 (Classical)

i. Allegro

Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. Vox, recorded c 1971

ii. Larghetto

Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded c 1978

iii. Gavotta: Non troppo allegro

London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev, cond. Philips, recorded May 1-2, 2004

iv. Finale: Molto vivace

Orchestre National de France, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded c 1984

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