Rethinking Prokofiev by McAllister Rita (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 353 McAllister, Rita and Guillaumier, Christina (eds). Rethinking Prokofiev. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2020. xxxvii + 506 pp. Illustrations. Music examples. Tables. Notes. Glossary. Index. £81.00;£29.99. This survey of Prokof´ev’s life and work is not only excellent per se, but also very timely, in that the pioneering study of the early years by David Nice appeared as long ago as 2003. There is a strong team of contributors who have all produced clear and detailed analyses, shedding new light on many aspects of the composer, including comprehensive annotation and, where necessary, cross-referencing. A particularly welcome addition to the notes is a companion website, www.oup.com/us/rethinkingprokofiev, which provides musical examples and other illustrations, complementing the apparatus in the book. The editors in time plan to expand this website, but what is unusual is that readers too ‘are invited to offer relevant supplementary information and insights by e-mail: rethinkingprokofiev@gmail.com’ (p. xvii). The contributions are divided into six parts: 1. ‘Prokofiev and the Russian Models’, in which Marina Radu deals mainly with the nineteenth century, Patrick Zuk with the composer and the development of Soviet composition in the 1920s and 1930s, and Daniel Tooke with Prokof´ev and the Soviet symphony; 2. ‘Prokofiev and His Contemporaries’ — Marina Frolova-Walker discusses the composer in the French context and particularly his concern to match Stravinskii in status, Ivana Medić writes interestingly of the two-way influence between Prokof´ev and Shostakovich, and Nelly Kravetz discusses the relationship between the composer and his friend Levon Atovmian, who, it is suggested, was the main instigator of his return to Russia; 3. ‘Music and Text: Prokofiev’s Relationship with His Literary Sources’. Here Polina Dimova discusses in particular his interest in Silver Age poetry which she relates to his Christian Science beliefs; she also provides some insights into Diaghilev’s rejection of Ala and Lolli. Nicolas Moron discusses the complex publication history of one of Prokof´ev’s major works, Seven, They Are Seven. Julia Khait writes about his film music, not only the masterpieces but also more conventional works written during World War Two, suggesting that for him there was no conceptual division between music for film and concert music: ‘integration of this type is one of the richer secrets of his talent’ (p. 191). Finally in this part, Terry Dean compares his work on Semion Kotko with the author of the original story, Valentin Kataev, and the twelve years spent on War and Peace, helped by Mira Mendelson; 4. ‘Drama and Gesture’ — Jane Pritchard notes that few of Prokof´ev’s early ballets were performed, although he was able to adapt the music for later works. Christina Guillaumier discusses his fascination and persistence with opera, despite many setbacks. Katya Ermolaeva writes about Ivan the Terrible and how Eizenshtein’s mastery of SEER, 99, 2, APRIL 2021 354 using diegetic music helped the composer in one of his most important film scores. Natalia Savkina provides an introduction to Prokof´ev’s thanatology, from the happy finale of Romeo and Juliet (anticipated in Maddalena) to War and Peace; 5. ‘Identity and Structure’, in which Christina Guillaumier offers a genealogy of Prokof´ev’s musical gestures from his early Pesen´ki to the later works,aconnectionofwhichhewaswellaware.BorisBermandiscussesthefive piano concertos in an excellent analysis based on his earlier (2008) book on the subject, highlighting traditional and innovative features, and the composer’s attitude to classical dance movements. Rita McAllister makes a preliminary study of Prokof´ev’s fascinating notebooks, which date from 1919 to the year of his death, suggesting that, on their evidence, throughout his life he was more interested in creating music than in the final result. Konrad Harley offers an analysis of the composer’s middle period, showing how the multiple changes of pitch and variation in harmonic function have led some, mistakenly, to ascribe atonality to a number of his works; 6. ‘The Reception and Afterlife of the Music’. Joseph Schulz shows how the insularity of English newspapers in the first decades of the century led to his being widely misunderstood. David G. Tompkins, in the most political of the articles...