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Prokofiev's October Cantata, Op. 74; The Stone Flower, Op. 118 (Excerpts)
Recommended recording:
Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Speaker / Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus / Neeme Järvi (Chandos CHAN 9095)
Prokofiev's October Cantata (1936-37), or as it is properly called The Cantata for The Twentieth Anniversary of The October Revolution, has generated heated controversy since the day of its belated, truncated first performance in 1966. Based on writings of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, and scored for massive symphony orchestra, large chorus, military band, accordion band, alarm-bells, siren and speaker (the voice of Lenin), the work ostensibly would not seem the kind that would endear Prokofiev to the anti-Communist zealot of the past. But is the piece really a paean to the Marxist-Soviet state?
In his informative notes to this recording, the late Christopher Palmer argues that it is precisely that, but asserts that the meaning behind the texts is somehow inconsequential now. In his Prokofiev, Prisoner of The State, musicologist Ian MacDonald views the work as a satire on the Bolshevik revolution. Two quite opposite views. Let's look at Palmer's first.
Palmer sees Prokofiev as sincere, an idealist, not an opportunistic artist trying to score points with the Soviet regime by composing a work extolling beliefs and events at odds with his personal convictions. But Palmer fails to offer a sufficient explanation as to why Prokofiev made virtually no effort to get the work performed in his lifetime. He suggests that since the political climate in the Soviet Union had become so oppressive after 1936 that composers feared any new work could provoke the wrath of the musically simple-minded party autocrats, and that Prokofiev had thus become fearful his new piece could land him in a labor camp, if not in a cemetery. But Palmer never wonders why Prokofiev would, in the first place, praise a political system so clearly hostile to those serving it. And he never wonders why Prokofiev made no effort to obtain a performance at a later time when other of his new compositions were premiering. And if Prokofiev had composed the work as a sycophantic gesture to the party elite to curry favor (a possibility Palmer wouldn't consider), or if he had been a true believer in the party ideals (which Palmer believed was the case), why had he never attempted to become a party member as even the non-Communist Shostakovich did? And if he feared that the dissonant passages in the work were at artistic odds with the sensibilities of the Stalinist bosses, why hadn't he simply toned them down, as he had earlier done with The Gambler and would later do with the Fifth Sonata to make these works more accessible? (He revised many compositions for various reasons, including the Cello Concerto and Fourth Symphony.) Palmer's view of Prokofiev's intentions regarding October is clearly implausible. (Note: Palmer does not mention Prokofiev's involvement in the Christian Science religion from his then-recent French years.)
If, on the other hand, we take MacDonald's view of things, everything seems to make perfect sense, especially, of course, when we excavate beneath the veneer of October and see the biting satire. But there is still one nagging question: since it was dangerous to write new or daring music at the time of the work's creation because of the possibility of offending the ubiquitous Communist thugs, why would Prokofiev ever dream of satirizing them in a major musical composition, even if the satire were cleverly veiled? Wouldn't he have realized that such a deed would surely risk an early demise? So it would seem. But there is a missing piece to the puzzle here. In January of 1936 Pravda, at the behest of Stalin, attacked Shostakovich for writing "Chaos Instead of Music" after the red leader had stormed out of a performance of Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk. The politically naive Prokofiev, who had recently returned from seventeen years of living abroad, had observed the event with some dismay, the first major event in a series that he couldn't know then would eventually escalate into unbounded terror for artists, politicians, even common people. Next, the attacks started on Prokofiev. He publicly defended Shostakovich, and in articles written in Pravda and Sovietskaya Musica he tacitly refused to lower his compositional standards to comply with the backward tastes of the party. He had pondered writing a choral work on a Revolutionary theme several years before, probably less as a satire, though, and more as a colorful non-ideological piece in the manner of Le Pas d'Acier. Now he had sufficient impetus to carry through on the notion, but with pointed satire in mind: he would write a massive cantata that would cleverly mock the Bolshevik bullies. He most probably calculated that he would always have the option of claiming he intended nothing satiric in the work, if things began to look really bad for him. By the time he finished October in the summer of 1937, however, Stalin's terror campaign was in full swing, and Prokofiev, shorn of all political naiveté by then, knew his work couldn't be performed. Privately he must have hoped that the political climate would one day change sufficiently to allow dissension and artistic freedom, for he kept the score intact and reused only one theme of the dozen or so in it (from the section called Symphony) in another composition (Ode To The End of The War).
The best satiric moments in the work's ten sections come in Nos. 8 (The Oath), 6 (Revolution), and 7 (Victory). The solemn music in The Oath invokes an unmistakably religious mood, even calling to mind the Mass. Here, Prokofiev satirizes the surrogate-religion of the party and its high priest, Stalin, as the red leader disingenuously pronounces his ridiculous "commandments," as if he, like Moses, is delivering the word of God to his people. The first half of Revolution exposes pretension, while the second is wantonly grotesque and flamboyantly savage in its fulsome orchestration and rhythmic singing, the whole baring the Bolshevik takeover as hooliganism and anything but heroic. The music in Victory focuses more on lamentation over loss rather than on victorious celebration, while the text offers via the chorus a Lenin who speaks of cold, hunger, typhus and celebrating victory in practically the same breath! Elsewhere in the work, the brutal opening Prelude appears to depict the specter of mayhem lurking in Europe, rather than that of the alleged liberating movement called Communism.
Once again Neeme Järvi captures Prokofiev's kaleidoscopic musical persona in grand manner here. The Philosophers is beautifully phrased, its touching theme and vivacious rhythm forging an irresistible combination, while Revolution is rendered with such brio that when the pandemonium finally subsides, you're apt to feel both exhausted and exhilarated. Järvi clarifies the dense textures throughout the score with a sure hand and obtains polished performances from the military and accordion bands, not to mention from the excellent Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as its chorus. The 1966 Kondrashin/Melodiya recording was also quite effective, but excised The Oath and The Constitution (as in the concert premier) because of the then-current de-Stalinization policy of the USSR (whose slow-witted party arts administrators, in allowing the work's performance at all, apparently overlooked its satirical nature as they had in several Shostakovich works). But even if that recording were complete and available, Järvi's would still be the one to get. In the excerpts from The Stone Flower (Prokofiev's last and most congenial ballet), he is again right on target, revealing the work to be much better than its reputation as watered-down music of an enfeebled composer. Here he points up the work's exoticism and vivacity, while showing Prokofiev as the creator of a new simplicity. Powerful, clear sonics from Chandos, too, in both works.
Though October may be a flawed masterpiece, and The Stone Flower a rung or two below Romeo and Cinderella, this recording is utterly indispensable. Strongly recommended.
Written by Robert Cummings
Copyright © 1996 Robert Cumming (rcumming@csrlink.net)
