Sergei Prokofiev: A Soviet Tragedy by Victor Seroff, Funk & Wagnalls, 1968
By Sheila Orysiek
SAN DIEGO — Anton Rubenstein. a composer and one of the greatest piano virtuosos of the 19th century was born to Jewish parents in the vicinity of Odessa. Though he and Prokofiev never met – indeed Prokofiev was only three years old when Rubinstein died, there was a central theme which ran through the lives of both men.
Rubinstein had once said: “Composers say I am a pianist and pianists say I am a composer. Some say that I am the author of advanced ideas in music, while others prove that I am the apostle of everything old fashioned and dull. The Germans say I am a Russian, and the Russians say I am a German; the Jews say I am a gentile, and the gentiles say I am a Jew – now, who the hell am I?”
Although Sergei Prokofiev was not Jewish (though he was intrigued by Hebrew themes in music), he often faced the same dilemma. He was born in 1891, in Sontsovko, a district of the Ukraine – part of Czarist Russia and later the USSR. As a child, he lived an uncomplicated upper middle class life on a small farming estate which his father, an agriculturist, rented and administered. His mother came from a family of serfs. It was she, who introduced him to music.
He was a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory and quickly made a name for himself both for his dissonant and discordant composition as well as a pianist. The music he composed represented a distinct break from the traditional path. After the Russian Revolution, with government permission, he left the Soviet Union to play and tour in the United States. He then traveled through Western Europe, married a Spanish woman, and took up residence in Paris.
He collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev, founder and director of the famous Ballets Russes. Often the audience and critic response to his music was total disdain and even horror. But, slowly his music gained recognition and began to enter the repertoire of major orchestras, opera and ballet companies. However, he found this slow acceptance difficult – made more so with the onset of the Great Depression – and so, missing his homeland, he returned to the Soviet Union in 1934.
It was not a good time to go home. The horrific repression of the Stalinist regime was ramping up and artists were not exempt from arrest, imprisonment, deportation to the labor camps of Siberia and/or execution. Prokofiev’s wife, because of her Spanish birth, was accused of espionage and spent nine years in Siberia. Their two sons became wards of the state.OK
Prokofiev went from being hailed and given esteemed prizes by the Soviet State for his artistry to being condemned for not “accurately portraying the new Soviet Man and Woman.” He, among many others, was accused of “formalism” in his composition – though no one could define what “formalism” meant. The threat from the government was not an empty one; composer V. Meyerhold had been arrested and shot.
And then – a new horror – the Nazi invasion.
When one looks at the list of Prokofiev’s compositions, it is very clear how much of his music has become part of our culture. The March from Prokofiev’s opera “The Love for Three Oranges” was used as the theme music for the CBS radio-drama series “The FBI” from 1944 to 1958. His music is now mainstream such as: “The Prodigal Son,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Overture on Hebrew Themes,” “Peter and the Wolf,” “Cinderella,” – and much more – a long list more. The legendary artists with whom he collaborated is another long list.
Ironically he died on the same day as Stalin and so very little notice was taken of it. It has also never been completely clear as to the nature of his illness. However, no one doubts that he was emotionally tormented by the ban placed on the acceptance and performance of his compositions by the Soviet government.
During his funeral David Oistrakh played the lst and 3rd movements of Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata and Samuel Feinberg played Bach.
*
Orysiek is a freelance writer who specializes in arts and literature. She may be contacted via sheila.orysiek@sdjewishworld.com Comments intended for publication in the space below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the U.S.)