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Prokofiev's Symphony No.2
Recommended recordings:
Scottish National Orchestra / Neeme Järvi
(Chandos CHAN 8368)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Seiji Ozawa (DG 435 027 - 2)
Early in the 1920s Prokofiev came under attack in France (his adopted home for the decade) for having become artistically complacent and for lacking the daring to produce truly novel music. There was perhaps a grain of truth in the charges. So, in 1924, cognizant of the recent smashing success of Honneger's Pacific 231, a work depicting a locomotive that features blaring industrial sonorities--written in the so-called style mecanique, Prokofiev decided to compose a symphony "made of iron and steel" to shock and impress the Parisian sophisticates. He produced a work so far removed from the high-spirited elegance of his previous symphony, the "Classical," one could hardly imagine two more different creations.
Symphony No. 2 was premiered on June 6, 1925 and received overwhelming negative reaction from press and public alike. Prokofiev remarked at the failure of the work: "Neither I nor the audience understood anything in it..." Of course, he was exaggerating his response to the cold welcome, but he must have harbored some serious doubts about the artistic value of his new composition since he later planned to revise it. He died before he got around to it, however. It was just as well that he didn't rework it, for it is a masterpiece as it stands, nearly on the level of the tragic Sixth Symphony, his most profound work in the genre. As a footnote to Prokofiev's French years, it should be noted that many of the Parisian elite did, after all, come to regard him as the composer of the 1920s, thanks in great part to his brilliant ballets Le Pas D'Acier (1927) and The Prodigal Son (1929). To this day, his relatively obscure Symphony No. 4, which in both its versions is based upon the latter ballet, is considerably more popular in France than elsewhere.
Formally, Symphony No. 2 is modeled on Beethoven's last piano sonata: an Allegro, followed by a long theme-and-variations second movement. Further similarity between the two pieces, though, is not to be found. The symphony opens with a strident trumpet seeming to incite all other instruments to take to the sonic fury. It's as if a thoroughbred--an angry thoroughbred--has just broken out of the starting gate hellbent to crack the record books. The main theme, angular and lengthy, aspires toward something glorious one moment, then tumbles downward the next, though never losing its momentum. A chorale soon appears, its harmonies and rhythms reminiscent of some of the machine-like music of the period. The development, with brazen brass, pounding rhythms, and surging strings, raises the sonic ante, then delivers the powerful goods in an explosion of spasmodic sounds. After the recapitulation, but not before some last-minute mayhem by the percussion, the trumpet brings the movement to a relatively peaceful close.
The second movement offers a lovely melody on oboe that has a wistful quality about it. Six highly inventive variations follow, the last of which, goaded by the return of an agitated motif from the first movement, builds to a shattering climax of march-like stomping chords. The oboe theme is recalled and the symphony quietly ends.
In the two recordings under review both conductors give excellent readings of this problematic score. If Järvi's is the more viscerally exciting in the first movement, Ozawa's is the more muscular and clearer there. Both offer strong renderings of the second movement, though Järvi's tempo is a bit pushy in the main theme. He also emphasizes the brass just before the climax of the sixth variation (track 8; 3:30 ff.), trampling the primary musical line. But his interpretation of the fourth variation is superior, and his overall concept of the work is more truly Prokofievian. And he has good but somewhat reverberant sound. Still, Ozawa, despite a slightly timid climax to the sixth variation, offers an interpretation nearly as striking and in the best sonics I've ever heard accorded this work. Plus, he has the better orchestra.
There are other recordings of the Second available (Weller/London; Martinon/Vox; Kosler/Supraphon; Rostropovich/Erato) that don't quite match the efforts of Järvi and Ozawa. And some of these are only available in boxed sets with the other symphonies. The Rostropovich, the best of this bunch, may in fact no longer be available at all.
In the end, your choice of which recording to choose between Järvi's and Ozawa's may come down to the couplings. Järvi offers a strong performance of Romeo & Juliet, Suite No. 1; Ozawa gives us a good but not great Seventh, marred by some sonic opacity at the second movement's climax. Either disc, then, can be strongly recommended. If money is not a consideration, my advice is to purchase both.
Written by Robert Cummings
Recommended recording:
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine / Theodore Kuchar (Naxos 8.553053)
On rare occasions this reviewer hears a recording whose performance and sonic properties are of such an extraordinary quality as to leave him astonished, drained, in a state mere words cannot describe. This Naxos disc brought on such an occasion, owing mainly to the utterly riveting performance of that most intractable but compelling of Prokofiev Symphonies, the "iron and steel" Second, from 1924-25.
Conductor Kuchar’s reading is unrelentingly savage and grim throughout the titanic, frantic first movement. And his interpretation of the theme-and-variations second movement catches the wistfulness, the mischief, and once again the savagery in proper measure. His orchestra plays as if possessed of a drive, a frenzy, a commitment to this brazen work I’ve never encountered before. This is truly a thrilling performance of thrilling music that must be heard to be believed! The sixth variation in the second movement (track 14), for example, is rendered with such deliciously wanton power and virtuosic intensity that you’re apt to wonder if your speakers will survive the excitement and aural assault: violently insistent horns, tubas and brass, underpinned by thundering, angry drums, bellow a boisterous motif from the first movement as if preparing for musical Armageddon; then the acid-drenched strings dig into the otherworldly variation with utterly convincing playing as the passage builds to the inexorable spasmodic explosion of the stomping, all-decimating tutti march. The hallucinatory fourth variation (track 12) is rendered with a hypnotic fervor that captures the full measure of mystery and menace. But then every note in this two-movement, 37-minute symphony is played with the last ounce of commitment.
There have been twelve recordings of this work, and I possess nine of them. The three I don’t have (Bruck, Kitayenko, and Grin) have received some critical plaudits, but consensus has not prompted me to seek them out. This Naxos disc is by far the most compelling rendition of the Second Symphony you’re likely to find for a long time to come. Jarvi/Chandos, Ozawa/DG, Weller/London, and Rostropovich/Erato all have much to offer in this work, but each is a clear second to this Kuchar recording.
If this disc had only the Second Symphony on it I would still turn in an enthusiastic endorsement, but it has more, considerably more. Kuchar serves up a slow, rather aggressively modern account of the ever-popular Classical Symphony that might make you rethink this otherwise seemingly elegant piece. And he gives us two very early, very interesting works by Prokofiev, the obsessive Dreams and the Rachmaninov-inspired Autumnal Sketch (also known simply as "Autumn"). His readings here are at least on the level of previous offerings from Jarvi/Chandos and Ashkenazy/London. Ates Orga’s notes are decent, and Naxos provides demonstration-caliber sonics.
If the dissonant, modernist side of Prokofiev is your cup of tea, by all means acquire this splendid disc. But even if it isn’t, at least half of this issue is worth purchasing anyway, especially at Naxos’s budget price. This is the best album by far in Kuchar’s on-going distinguished Prokofiev survey. Highest possible recommendations!
Written by Robert Cummings
Copyright © 1996 Robert Cummings (rcumming@csrlink.net)
