Sergei Prokofiev

   Russian composer

   born: 23 April 1891, Sontsovka, Ukraine; died: 5 March 1953, Moscow

              Classical Symphony, Opus 25 (Symphony No. 1)

                          Allegro

                          Larghetto

                          Gavotte

                          Molto vivace

By any measure, 1917 was a tumultuous year around the globe. In Russia the downbeat of the Bolshevik revolution provided a counterpoint to World War I, as the U.S. Congress barely resolved a filibuster at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson to enter the conflict in Europe.

On the brighter side, in New York the first curtain rose on the Ziegfeld Follies, and The Darktown Strutters' Ball debuted as the first-ever jazz recording.  Renascence and Other Poems appeared courtesy of U.S. poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, while the French writer Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term "surrealism."  Amedeo Modigliani's evocative nudes were a scandal in Paris, while on this side of the Atlantic John Singer Sargent unveiled his portrait of John D. Rockefeller.  Back in Mother Russia, the young Sergei Prokofiev was stealing center stage at the premiere of his Classical Symphony in April of 1918.

With regard to the music of Opus 25, it was actually the first symphony to emerge from Prokofiev's desk, and it remains among his most frequently performed scores.  The composer intended the piece as an homage to a style that had blossomed 135 years earlier wtih Haydn and Mozart.  But here the music conveys a spirit of newness: translucent, airy and fluent.  Moreover, beyond the "classical" motif, Prokofiev's devilish deflections of pitch and tonality give the piece away as a masterwork of 20th century legerdemain.

Instrumentally, the Classical Symphony resembles the orchestra of the earlier period, with woodwinds and brass in pairs, light percussion and strings.  Along the way we are treated to virtuoso highlights, especially in the violins, with a lot of feisty filigree in the woodwinds as well.  Keep an ear out for the clever and impromptu changes in key, a Prokofiev trademark:  those wonderful wrong-note turns that never seem quite right until we find ourselves in a new key, tunefully and harmonically transposed.  Marvelous!

As an aside, for all the bright-hearted energy of this work, it is hard to believe it was completed in 1917 while Russia was steaming toward revolution, as noted above, and how curious it is to recall the symphonies of Haydn as one of Prokofiev's classical models.  The venerable old master had often composed under similar circumstances.  For example, Haydn's Symphony No. 88 was intended for the audiences of Paris and was actually premiered there on the very eve of the French Revolution in 1789.  How odd it is that both composers scored symphonies which are models of blithe tranquility, as if mocking the peril of their respective times.

program notes by Edward Yadzinsky