Yumiko NUNOKAWA and Shin-ichi NUMABE

It was the evening of 2 July 1918 when Serge Prokofiev met the Japanese music critic Motoo Ohtaguro (1) at a reception in a smart, traditional restaurant of Tokyo, the Kagetsu. The manager of the Imperial Theatre was holding a reception to promote Prokofiev's forthcoming piano recitals. Upon meeting Prokofiev, Ohtaguro exclaimed: "I never dreamed of seeing someone like you in Japan". (2) In a book published two months earlier, Zoku Bahha yori Shenberuhi (From Bach to Schoenberg), Ohtaguro had introduced Prokofiev (the only Russian composer in a book that covered some twenty contemporary composers) as "the new star" of Russian music. And now, to his great delight and surprise, Ohtaguro had the opportunity of meeting Prokofiev in person. Prokofiev himself was impressed by Ohtaguro, as noted in his diary on the same day:

I dined in a Japanese restaurant with a Japanese journalist, a meeting that had been set up by the director of the Imperial Theatre with the object of generating some publicity. Ohtaguro's book about music contains several references to me. When the book first appeared it created a great impression in the press; Ohtaguro himself, who is also the director of a publishing house, is extremely well-informed about Russian music and we spent the whole dinner, served Japanese-style with us squatting on our haunches, talking (in English). It was a place where geishas danced, so opposite each diner sat two young, attractively dressed Japanese girls. Very nice. (3)

This encounter was to lead to an unexpected friendship which we are now able to sketch out, thanks to the evidence provided by their respective diaries and Ohtaguro's numerous writings.

Prokofiev and Ohtaguro's acquaintance developed around the recitals which the young Russian pianist gave at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo on 6 and 7 July 1918 [See programme p. 8]. The Imperial Theatre was the first Western-style theatre built in Tokyo in 1911. It offered popular spectacles such as Japanese kabuki, Western-style dramas and occasionally recitals by visiting artists. (4)4 In the wake of the Russian revolution many artists escaped from Russia to the Far East, some to Shanghai, others to Japan. In Tokyo, the Imperial Theatre soon became the favourite platform for performances by Russian artists, mostly through the work of a Latvian-born impresario, Awsay Strok, (5) who was active in Asian countries, and who organised Prokofiev's recitals in Japan. Both Ohtaguro and Prokofiev reported on the two recitals in Tokyo in their diaries, and it is most interesting to compare their respective views and impressions.

First, Prokofiev on 6 July:

I wasn't feeling too bad in the morning and set off for the concert, although a little warily. I played in a rather detached way, looking on it as if it were business. The audience was small (it was a Saturday, at 1:15 p.m., and it was hot), so it was a good thing that we had sold the concert. The audience, almost entirely Japanese, listened attentively. They did not applaud much, and practically only for pieces that were technically demanding. They were not disconcerted by dissonances, because the Japanese are accustomed to a totally different type of music, and they therefore feel hardly any differences between consonances and dissonances.

and on 7 July:

Second concert. The audience was larger because the director had distributed a hundred complimentary tickets, and so the hall looked respectable. Again, the audience listened politely. At the request of some local Japanese musicians, I included Suggestion diabolique in the programme, as it appeared to be their favourite piece. Once more the most technically demanding pieces were best received. Having sold the concert, we were gainers: if Strok had promoted it, we would only have made 300 yen between us.

Concerts of modern music or even Western classical music were still rare at the time in Japan. Prokofiev's music was most likely incomprehensible to his Japanese audience and it might well be that only Ohtaguro was able to understand Prokofiev's innovations. After the recitals, he wrote:

Prokofiev was once described as "a composer who is skittish as Puck [from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream]". However his recent works reveal more substantial qualities. He is without a doubt the most promising composer that Russia has produced since Skriabin, and he seems to possess enough talent to gain a place among the leading composers in the world.

Among the works he performed on 6 and 7 July at the Imperial Theatre, those that impressed me the most were Despair, Suggestion diabolique and his second Piano Sonata. I was particularly thrilled with the piano sonata which includes four contrasting movements - the first movement, an Allegro with a lyrical Andante section; the second, brilliant with bravura leaps, and yet tender; the third, a sort of dirge, full of melancholic funeral bell-like sounds; and the fourth, an exhilarating whirlwind of liveliness and boldness. It seems to me that this sonata alone provides enough evidence that Prokofiev is an extraordinarily gifted composer.

Both Visions fugitives and Fantaisie are recent works, and it is almost impossible to grasp their full artistic value at first hearing. But I must say that each of the six pieces of Visions fugitives, although brief, is full of character. I could trace in them some influence from Skriabin's later works.

Fantaisie is the final movement of his Fourth Piano Sonata. Amongst all his compositions, it was probably the most difficult piece up to that point, both in terms of its understanding and performance. Its whirlwind-like furore might in fact be representative of the composer's nature - full of unstable ardour. (6)

But here, let us pause a little and introduce Ohtaguro himself, this pioneer of Western music criticism in Japan. Motoo Ohtaguro (1893-1979) was the only child of a wealthy family. His father Jugoro (1866-1944), an entrepreneur, was instrumental in raising Shibaura Seisakujo, now Toshiba, to the top of the electrical industry in Japan.

Motoo first learned music from his mother Raku, and then through private piano lessons with Hanka Schjelderup Petzold, a Norwegian vocal teacher. Perhaps to his advantage, he did not attend the Music School in Tokyo, which at the time was strongly influenced by the Germanic approach to music and musical education. After graduating from Odawara High School, the young man was sent to London where he studied at the London School of Economics (1913-14). While in London he assiduously visited concert halls and theatres. Everything he experienced was new to him. He attended the performances of distinguished artists such as Rakhmaninov, Skriabin, Paderewski and Chaliapin and listened to a wide range of contemporary music from France, Germany, Austria and England - in a word, Ohtaguro discovered the essence of the new century's music. Some of the most significant events in London in 1914 were the Ballets Russes performances at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. As noted in his diary, between 1 and 26 June he attended 15 ballets and operas, such as Boris Godunov, Le Coq d'Or, Daphnis et Chloé, and Petrushka.

At this point in time, Ohtaguro and Prokofiev might have met in London, as both followed the Ballets Russes, but not on the same day. Prokofiev arrived in London on 22 June and first met Serge Diaghilev on 29 June; Ohtaguro left on 28 June, on his way back to Japan for the summer break. Fascinated by the new music and musical criticism, he had bought in London the latest music books and scores available and was now taking them to Japan with him. This was fortunate as that very summer the war broke out. Unable to return to London, Ohtaguro immediately settled down to writing about Western music and composers, based on his own experiences in London.

His first two books were published in 1915, Gendai Eikoku Gekisakka (Contemporary British Dramatists) and Bahha yori Shenberuhi (From Bach to Schoenberg, Vol. 1), in which he outlines the life and works of sixty major European composers from the Baroque era to contemporary times. This was indeed the first Japanese book to introduce modern composers such as Debussy, Richard Strauss, Sibelius, Schoenberg and Stravinsky (Prokofiev would be introduced in the second volume of 1918). Encouraged by the success of these two books, Ohtaguro went on to establish his own publishing house, Ongaku-to-Bungaku-Sha (Music and Literature Company) in 1916, using his house in Ohmori, a southern district of Tokyo, as an office. He then expanded his activities and, with the financial backing of his father, set up a music journal, Ongaku-to-Bungaku (Music and Literature), with some of his associates. (8) While in London, Ohtaguro had been struck by the powerful interaction between music and other forms of art. Debussy was working with Symbolist poets and dramatists; Richard Strauss was writing music on texts by Wilde and Hofmannsthal, and Skriabin was trying to fuse sounds and colours. The music of Stravinsky was strongly connected with other arts through the Gesamtkunstwerk approach of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Ohtaguro's preoccupation with this particular aspect of early twentieth century creativity is reflected in the name he chose for his journal, Music and Literature.

Western music was practically unknown in Japan at the time and Ohtaguro's main concern was to find a way to introduce his discoveries to Japanese people. The Tokyo Music School did not offer courses in composition and there were no established professional orchestras or musicians. Moreover, there were hardly any public concert halls. And so Ohtaguro contributed to the promotion of Western music in two ways. First, through the intimacy of what he called Piano-no-yube (piano evenings), held at his home in Ohmori as from 1915. There he introduced the works of modern composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Schmitt and Skriabin to name but a few, by discussing and performing them on the piano. Even though his piano skills were limited, these evenings provided a unique opportunity for audiences to hear contemporary music.

Ohtaguro then started writing enlightening books, such as Kageki Taikan (A Comprehensive Guide to Opera); Yogaku Yawa (Night Tales of the Western Music) with anecdotes about Western music; an introduction to the Ballets Russes, Roshia Buyo (The Russian Ballet), all in 1917, as well as the second volume of the book previously mentioned, From Bach to Schoenberg, in 1918. Ohtaguro's essays usually first appeared in his journal Music and Literature, after which he would revise and compile them into books. And this is indeed how Prokofiev was introduced for the first time to the Japanese. In the June 1917 issue of Music and Literature, Ohtaguro wrote on Prokofiev's life and major works from information he had gathered in a book by M. Montagu-Nathan, Contemporary Russian Composers, which had just been published in London. In the following issue of July 1917, Kohei Futami, an associate of Ohtaguro, introduced the available scores of Prokofiev's works, listing Opp.1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11 and 12, noting that Prokofiev's works were available from Jurgenson in Moscow, and furthermore, "Since the ban on exporting music scores from Russia to Japan was lifted in May, now anybody is able to purchase the music". (9) A year later in April 1918, From Bach to Schoenberg Vol. 2, included a chapter dedicated to Prokofiev. Then in the July 1918 issue of Music and Literature, Ohtaguro announced Prokofiev's recitals at the Imperial Theatre in an article entitled "Prokofiev has come": "Now the most waited-for artist has suddenly arrived. That is, Prokofiev. The young Russian composer who is also an incredible virtuoso pianist is going to hold a piano recital in Tokyo on 6 and 7 July, and will perform his works and some by Chopin". After releasing Prokofiev's interview and reviewing his recitals in the August 1918 issue of Music and Literature, it looked as if his involvement with the young composer had come to an end. However, they would meet again very soon.

Soon after his recitals Prokofiev went to the American Embassy to apply for a visa. He then went to Karuizawa, a summer resort, and stayed at the Yokohama Grand Hotel. He soon ran out of money, and on 22 July moved to the Bosuiro Hotel in Ohmori, altogether a cheaper place where some of his friends had been staying. Ohmori was a quiet residential area situated between Tokyo and Yokohama; moreover, this was where Ohtaguro lived. So the two met a few more times and once more Ohtaguro reported in his diary. (10)

23 July 1918

Prokofiev unexpectedly called on me around ten o'clock this morning. He came by jinrikisha [rickshaw] and only managed to say "O-ta-gu-ro! O-ta-gu-ro!" to my housekeeper who had answered the door. He said that he had been in Karuizawa for a few days, and had moved last night from the Yokohama Grand Hotel to the Bosuiro Hotel in the Ohmori district.

Impervious to the heavy sweat on his face, he sat at once at the piano and started playing various works. In Oliver Ditson's Modern Russian Piano Album, he found one of Glazunov's waltzes in D. Trying out a passage that modulates into G, he sneered at it and declared that it was just stupid.

We spent time together until lunchtime, playing the piano and chatting. He played more than once Ravel's "Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête" from Ma mère I'oye, and said that the music was more effective when the whole orchestra played it; he then proceeded to imitate the contrabassoon and the cello by singing their parts. He wanted to play more pieces, but was due to have lunch with a friend, and so he had to leave. He promised me he would return tomorrow.

 

24 July 1918

Prokofiev turned up cheerfully around three o'clock in the afternoon. As soon as he arrived he started playing the piano: Skriabin's Poèmes, Stravinsky's Petrushka, Tcherepnin's Narcisse, etc. Petrushka is indeed lively music. Prokofiev played extracts from it, exclaiming "wonderful" many times. While drinking cold tea, we discussed for a while Russian music and Prokofiev's favourite works. Then he sat once more at the piano and played short pieces by Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein. Upon my request, he played Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte, a unique piece and full of elegant beauty. He then picked from my shelves around ten scores by Skriabin, Medtner, Reger, Ravel and so on, saying that he wanted to play them in his hotel.

 

25 July 1918

After supper while I had a walk, I dropped in on Prokofiev at the Bosuiro Hotel. As I was about to enter the hotel, I saw him walking towards me in the corridor. He had just finished dinner and was still holding a coffee cup in his hand. He was wearing a Japanese yukata [an informal cotton kimono for the summer season] somewhat western in style. He proudly declared "this makes me feel cool and comfortable". However, he was wearing the yukata in a rather peculiar way - he must have put his arms through it the wrong way, and this left his arms completely bare. Well, that explains why he felt cool.

We sat down on rattan chairs by the entrance where a cool breeze was blowing. He told a bellboy to fetch a bottle of Maraschino from his room and told me he had played tennis in Tokyo early that evening.

I had taken with me a copy of the book Roshia-Buyo (The Russian Ballet), to show Prokofiev; he was delighted with it. He said that he was on friendly terms with [Alexandre] Benois. Then, we talked about music critics, [Viacheslav] Karatygin and Igor Glebov [a.k.a. Boris Asafiev]. When I asked about his opera, The Gambler, he answered that it was a bit like a Musorgsky opera but with more action, and more Italianate in style.

After a long talk I realised that the moon was already in the middle of the sky and I knew I had to leave. He then recommended I send a copy of The Russian Ballet to Diaghilev in Madrid and gave me his address there. When I asked Prokofiev to write something brief for our journal Ongaku-to-Bungaku, he agreed to talk about Miaskovsky. He warned me, though, about the level of his French, as he intended to write his article in that language.

 

30 July 1918

I popped down to the Bosuiro Hotel in the afternoon to see Prokofiev. Wearing the yukata as usual, he was playing a card game in the foyer with other guests. We went to his room where he showed me the scores of The Gambler and Scythian Suite, sitting on the bed and sipping tea. Both these scores are very complex. Opening a certain page of the Allegro from the fourth movement of the Scythian Suite, Prokofiev proudly exclaimed "this section is indeed wonderful!".

Then, I asked Prokofiev about his career as a musician:

"When did you start composing?"

"When I was about 5 years old. My mother taught me music first - she loved to play Beethoven, Chopin and so on."

"Well, then, you must have started playing the piano when you were really small."

"Perhaps when I was four. I wrote an opera at the age of seven."

"Seven!!"

This surprised me enormously but Prokofiev seemed totally nonchalant, smiling as if that were a perfectly natural thing. At the same time, he showed no sign of being proudly boastful. Prokofiev then played for me the entire twenty pieces of Visions fugitives on the piano, in Svirsky's room at the hotel. I found Nos. 6, 9, and 14 particularly good. According to Prokofiev, No. 9 had met with great success in Russia too.

He also played Medtner's Fairy Tales and Skriabin's sonata No. 1. Finally, he attempted Prélude, choral et fugue by César Franck; the piece was known to be a speciality of Svirsky's.

It was around six o'clock when I left the hotel.

 

1 August 1918

In the afternoon, I received a phone call from the Bosuiro Hotel announcing Prokofiev's visit around 5 p.m. I quickly organised a photographer to take a photographic memento of me with him. Prokofiev kept up the appointment but all of a sudden announced: "as I'm going to the U.S. tomorrow, I've come to say good-bye". When the photographer arrived, he took some photos of us together. Those were to record our farewell, although I hadn't planned it that way.

After the photo session, Prokofiev took off his jacket and sat in front of the piano, to play the entire Fourth Sonata as a farewell present.

This sonata is very abstract and difficult to comprehend. He claimed that this music was a piece only for real connoisseurs. The tremendous melody of the third movement is poignant. Just watching his fingers was a marvel to me. Prokofiev left around 6:30 in order to prepare for his departure tomorrow. I went together with him to a nearby railway station because I myself had to go to Tokyo anyway. We politely said our farewells there. Seeing him walk away from me and thinking about our unexpected parting made me feel rather lonely.

 

2 August 1918

Prokofiev was due to leave on the Dutch vessel, Grotius. As the ship was due to leave at 3 p.m., I arrived in Yokohama some time after 2:00. However, as I arrived, I heard that the departure time had been postponed to 5 p.m.; and so I went to Yamashita-cho to kill the time. The weather was sizzling hot. I came back to the pier around 4 p.m. and Prokofiev arrived with a porter carrying his luggage. He said to me that he had spent two hours [at a quarantine station] being examined for the trachoma eye disease he was suffering from; had the ship sailed at the scheduled time, he would have missed it. As usual, his face was covered in sweat.

We still had some time, albeit little, and we went to a beer house by the pier. Cold beer was placed in front of us. We toasted the hope of our next reunion. Then, two Russians appeared on the deck of the ship. Calling one of them in a loud voice, Prokofiev told me that the person was [Alexander] Skliarevsky. He commented: "He is not that special as a pianist but I respect him simply because he can play a wide repertoire by memory". Skliarevsky eventually joined us, explaining that he too would be going to the U.S. on 8 August.

It was departure time. We left the beer house and exchanged a farewell handshake. Prokofiev sincerely thanked me for seeing him off. Walking up the gangway to the ship, Prokofiev asked me repeatedly to send him poste restante in New York copies of our photos and the journal with his article, once they were both ready.

Thus my delightful and unexpected friendship with Prokofiev had come to an end.

Prokofiev did write an article for Ohtaguro's journal on the activities of his composer-friend Miaskovsky, and in French, as he had indicated. (11) The article came out in Ohtaguro's translation in Music and Literature, September 1918, and was illustrated with one of the photos taken on 1 August. Following Prokofiev's request on his departure, Ohtaguro sent him this issue in New York. The same photo would be used in Musical America of 28 September 1918 to illustrate an in-depth article on Prokofiev by the critic Frederick Martens. In the November 1918 issue of Music and Literature, Ohtaguro reports: "Prokofiev is now in New York. In the journal Musical America, which I received the other day, there was an article based on an interview with him, taking more than a page. They used a photo we had taken together in Ohmori, along with another beautiful portrait taken in New York." (12)

Over the next few years, Ohtaguro and Prokofiev kept in touch by correspondence. In Music and Literature of May 1919, Ohtaguro once more reports: "I have received a letter from Prokofiev who is now composing an opera based on an old Italian story; it was commissioned by the director of the Chicago Opera. This opera is going to be staged in Chicago and New York around December." (13) Ohtaguro's Music and Literature was then discontinued, but in the final issue of July 1919 he paid his last public homage to Prokofiev with a major article entitled "Serge Prokofiev".

As the journal was discontinued, Ohtaguro went on talking about Prokofiev in his diary:

A letter from Prokofiev has arrived after a long silence. He gave me news of his new opera, Love for Three Oranges. Planned to be staged this season in Chicago, the opera has been postponed to the next season following the death of Campanini, Director of the Chicago Opera; even though the scenery and costumes were ready. And now Prokofiev is going to travel to London for several months, hopefully to have his works performed. Albert Coates, conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, is going to perform his Scythian Suite for the first time in London.

During his next visit to London, on 24 April 1922, Ohtaguro attended a concert at the Queen's Hall, with Prokofiev performing his Piano Concerto No. 3 with the London Symphony Orchestra under Albert Coates. Perhaps Ohtaguro's natural reserve prevented him from going backstage to see Prokofiev after the performance and the next morning, when he turned up at the hotel where Prokofiev was staying, he found out that he had already left. Prokofiev was most upset when he heard of the missed opportunity and wrote from Ettal on 3 May 1922:

My dear Mr Ohtaguro,

Why did you not come to see me at the artist's room? I was expecting you and hoped to spend with you the rest of the evening. Instead of you your letter was forwarded.

I left London next morning and via Paris and Munich came over here - to Ettal - where I expect to spend all summer.

I am awfully sorry that I had not the pleasure of seeing you and hope you will write to me of all your impressions of my concerto. Don't be courteous and tell me everything you did not like. I will appreciate it.

Prokofiev remembered his Japanese friend once more at the news of the Great Kanto Earthquake that hit Japan in 1923. On 8 September, Prokofiev wrote from Ettal:

I hope that you as well as Mrs Ohtaguro succeeded in safely escaping it. Has your home and most interesting musical library been spared? Let me know as soon as you can whether you are well.

Ohtaguro wrote back from Ohmori on 25 October - they were all safe and their house had "received only a slight damage by the earthquake. [...] Yokohama seems rather hopeless but Tokio [sic] is very quick in recovering and I am sure that there will appear a better city within a few years."

This is the last communication between the two men, that we are aware of.

Prokofiev's encounter with Ohtaguro in the summer of 1918 may have been merely one small episode in Prokofiev's life, but he would not forget it. In 1941, twenty-three years after their first encounter in Japan, as Prokofiev looked back to his life and wrote his Autobiography in Moscow, Ohtaguro is the only Japanese mentioned in the book, a testimony of an enduring friendship started when the two young men were embarking on an exciting life and career centred around their common passion for music.

We would like to thank Noëlle Mann for giving us this special opportunity to write for Three Oranges.

1 Ohtaguro's first name "Motoo" should be pronounced "Moto-o".

2 Ohtaguro, Motoo, "Talking with Prokofiev", Ongaku-to-Bungaku (Music and Literature), Vol. 3, No. 8 (1918), 2.

3 Prokof'ev, Sergei, Dnevnik 1907-1933 (Paris: sprkfv, 2002), Vol. I, 713. Further quotations from the diary are from the same source.

4 Opened on 1 March 1911 by the Imperial Theatre Company, The Imperial Theatre was built as part of the Westernisation of Japan. The first theatre in the French Renaissance Style, it was built on five levels and housed 1700 seats. In 1923, the theatre was destroyed during the Great Kanto Earthquake. For more information, see Teigeki-no-Gojunen (Fifty years of the Imperial Theatre) (Tokyo: Toho Co. Ltd., 1966), 154-155.

5 Awsay Strok (1877-1956) was an impresario who introduced many noted artists such as Mischa Elman, Anna Pavlova and Feodor Chaliapin to Far Eastern audiences. A native of Riga, Latvia, he began his career in the Far East as a cellist with the Old Shanghai Symphony Orchestra during the 1910s. He soon gave up his own music to act as an agent for others. He died in Tokyo, where he is buried, in 1956.

6 Ohtaguro, Motoo, "The impressions on Prokofiev's performance of his works", Ongaku-to-Bungaku , Vol. 3, No. 8 (1918), 26. Translation of Ohtaguro's texts throughout this article is by the authors, and edited by Dr Naomi Matsumoto of Goldsmiths, University of London.

7 Ohtaguro, Motoo, Ongaku Nikki Sho (Selected Music Diary) (Tokyo: Ongaku-to-Bungaku-Sha, 1919), 63-90.

8 Among the major contributors, Hiroshi Nakane concentrated on the Russian operas; Koichi Nomura specialised in the piano music of Chopin and later became an influential music critic; Kohei Futami translated Egon Wellesz's article Arnold Schoenberg; Keizo Horiuchi translated the libretto of Carmen, and later established the famous music publishing house, Ongaku-no-Tomo-Sha.

9 Futami, Kohei, "About published music scores of Prokofiev", Ongaku-to-Bungaku , Vol. 2, No.5 (1917), 30-31.

10 Ohtaguro's recollections of Prokofiev from his diary first appeared in Ohtaguro, Motoo, "Impressions of Prokofiev", Ongaku-to-Bungaku, Vol. 3, No. 9 (1918), 4-22. Later he published a condensed version of his diary, from which we now quote: Ohtaguro, Motoo, Dai-ni Ongaku Nikki Sho (Selected Music Diary, Vol. 2) (Tokyo: Ongaku-to-Bungaku-Sha, 1920), 95-104.

11 The opening words of Prokofiev's article were used as a title page: "Parmi les compositeurs russes contemporains Miaskovsky occupe une place des plus remarquables. Sa musique frappante, forte, parfois sombre et dramatique, produit une impression irresistible." [Among Russian contemporary composers Miaskovsky holds a most important place. His striking music, powerful, strong and at times sombre and dramatic, has a powerful impact." Ed.]

12 Ohtaguro, Motoo, "News from Ohmori", Ongaku-to-Bungaku, Vol. 3, No. 11 (1918), 23.

13 Ibid., Vol. 4, No. 4 (1919), 27.

14 Ohtaguro, Motoo, Dai-san Ongaku Nikki Sho (Selected Music Diary Volume Three), (Tokyo: Ongaku-to-Bungaku-Sha, 1921), 3-4. A draft of this letter, dated 22 March 1920, and all further letters quoted in this article, is kept at the Serge Prokofiev Archive, London.

15 On this programme booklet from the Imperial Theatre, now kept at the Documentation Centre for Modern Japanese Music, Prokofiev crossed out Schumann's name, and replaced it with his own. In his Diary, Prokofiev noted that he had played Suggestion diabolique on 7 July on the suggestion of some local music lovers, most likely instead of the originally programmed Schumann pieces.

Appendix:
Transcription of the Imperial Theatre programme booklet, written in a strange mixture of French and English.