The Classical Music Book

272

See also: Le Sacre du printemps 246–251 ■ Spartacus 309

F

ollowing Russia’s October

Revolution of 1917, when the

cold reality of Bolshevik rule

replaced the euphoria at the end of

tsarism, Russian composers faced

a choice: whether or not to stay in

their homeland. Much depended on

social status. Sergei Rachmaninov

chose exile, as did the privileged

Stravinsky, who was already living

in Switzerland. The more lowly born

Prokofiev, who was sympathetic to

Bolshevism, stayed, but in 1918,

frustrated by the post-revolutionary

turmoil, Prokofiev accepted an offer

to conduct in the United States and

remained there for the next 18 years.

Reluctant exile

Prokofiev kept ties with the Soviet

Union and, in 1934, wrote Romeo

and Juliet. The music follows the

drama of the story—soft, humorous,

and intense in turn—but Prokofiev’s

ballet was notable in that he gave

Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers a

happy ending. After two companies

pulled out of staging the production

(amid concern over the authorities’

denunciation of Shostakovich’s

opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk)

Prokofiev turned his ballet into

orchestral suites.

Despite the Stalinist purges,

Prokofiev returned to the Soviet

Union in 1936, probably believing

that his fame would protect him.

The same year, he wrote his most

popular work, Peter and the Wolf. In

1940, the first full-scale production

of the ballet Romeo and Juliet took

place in Leningrad, but only after

Prokofiev was forced to change the

orchestration, remove parts, and

reinstate the story’s sad ending. ■

I DETEST IMITATION.

I DETEST HACKNEYED

DEVICES

ROMEO AND JULIET ( 1936 ), SERGEI PROKOFIEV

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Russian emigrés

BEFORE

1920 Strav insk y’s Symphonies

of Wind Instruments, based on

Russian folk music, signals the

end of his “Russian phase.”

1926 Living in New York,

Rachmaninoff writes Three

Russian Songs, a rare tribute

to the music of his homeland.

AFTER

1948 The Central Committee

of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union passes a

resolution accusing Prokofiev,

Shostakovich, Aram

Khachaturian, and other

composers of “anti-democratic

tendencies,” and rejecting “the

principles of classical music.”

1959 In Moscow, the full

version of Prokofiev’s epic

opera War and Peace is staged

for the first time, six years after

the composer’s death.

The time is past when

music was written for

a handful of aesthetes.

Prokofiev

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