Serge Prokofiev, late 1930s.
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I have lived now for a long time abroad, but of late I have been making ever more frequent and longer visits to the USSR. One of the chief reasons for these visits is the great attraction the Soviet Union has for musicians. This attraction is not only based on the fact that its people love and esteem good music. In the USSR music is something that is an absolute necessity and an integral part of social life while in other countries, as for example in France, the question sometimes arises among composers as to whether music is not a dying art. In creating music here in the Soviet Union one feels that one is doing something that really has to be done.
But does this mean that the Soviet audiences understand music better than those of other countries? To give a pertinent answer to that question I must distinguish between the two parts of which a Soviet audience is made up: one part of it is composed of really keen and understanding listeners, lovers of the classics but unafraid of modern idioms; the other is composed of the newcomers who have not yet developed a mature understanding of music. And it is about the second of these groups that I wish to speak.
The Soviet Revolution opened the doors of the concert halls to masses who before had never dreamed of serious music or were even entirely ignorant of its existence. On almost every big concert a quarter or even half of the hall is reserved for the workers of some factory or the employees of some institution. Very often this is their first visit to a concert hall, often they do not know how to react to the music, sometimes whispering or sneezing, or even laughing at the wrong moment. The majority of them will probably never go to a concert again, but one can be sure that every time, some of them will be attracted and become true lovers of music and constant concert-goers for the rest of their lives. The artist, while on the podium, has to take this new audience into consideration; true, sometimes it is a little embarrassing, but we can only rejoice at the speed with which the cohorts of real music lovers are growing and spreading in the USSR.
Contact with this newly developing audience has forced me, as a composer, to attempt to solve the problem of what sort of music should be composed in order to retain contact with these new masses of listeners and on the other hand facilitate their way to a real understanding of music. Music written for them must of necessity be simple, but by no means reduced to a repetition of old, worn-out formulas, or - even more important - cater to bad taste. It is a difficult problem but one full of interest for a composer - and I am now working on its solution. It is from this standpoint that I composed the music to the short film "Lieutenant Kije", and to Tairov's play "Egyptian Nights", which is to be presented next fall at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre. I should like to describe this latter production in more detail as the conception that inspired it can be of interest to the theatrical world.
Tairov has taken an abridged version of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" and preceded it by Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra", also in abridged form. Some surprise may be occasioned by the thought of combining in one play the work of two playwrights divided by centuries, but is it not true that when Shaw wrote his play he had in mind certain Shakespearian forms? Furthermore, will not the translation of both English texts into modern Russian smooth out the difference in the styles of language used by Shaw and Shakespeare?
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. In the Kamerny production, Shaw's play is taken as a kind of prologue to Shakespeare's.
In this production my music serves to characterize the chief personages and also to intensify the main dramatic situations. The greater part of it will be performed by an orchestra placed beneath the stage and will sound as from a distance. I have tried to simplify its style as much as possible.
Nevertheless, this attempt at simplicity of musical language has not made me renounce that task of solving those musical problems that I set myself before. This does not prevent me from working at more serious symphonic compositions, designed for the more refined tastes of experienced musicians. In this latter class of compositions I can place my "Symphonic Song", and the concerto for cello, which I am writing at the same time as the music for the "Egyptian Nights".
If above I spoke of my work as a composer seeking simplicity, in order to aid the masses who wish to develop an understanding of music but are as yet insufficiently experienced, as a teacher I have just the opposite aim: I try to acquaint my pupils with all the rich variety of musical language. Each autumn I receive a visit of the students attending the last course in Theory of Composition at the Moscow State Conservatory. They show me their compositions which I examine less in the role of a professor than of an elder comrade who, thanks to his manifold contacts abroad, is able to see more than they. In the spring the same students visit me again, and in their new compositions I can usually see the results of our autumn meetings. These students of the higher classes are almost qualified composers, consequently there is no necessity for continual work with them: a single meeting in the autumn and another in spring are sufficient to give them new ideas. It is for them that I strive to disclose all the rich variety of musical thought and, as far as lies in my power, to widen their intellectual horizon. (Back)
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THREE ORANGES JOURNAL No.7 May 2004
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