The Prokofiev Concerto-Guest Blogger, Jeffrey Solow

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Our soloist for our April 11 concert, Jeffrey Solow, sent me these notes about the Prokofiev Concerto. I will do a separate blog of my own, talking about its tortured relationship to the later "Symphony-Concerto" (Sinfonia Concertante) in the context of a blog on Composers' Second Thoughts. But here is the story of this fascinating piece, caught between two worlds-the West and the Soviet Union.

Prokofiev: Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 58
By Jeffrey Solow

"It is very difficult to write a concerto. One has to be inventive. I advise you to jot down all the ideas as they occur to you, without waiting for the whole thing to mature. Write down individual passages, interesting bits, not necessarily in the correct order. Later on you will use these 'bricks' to build the whole." Sergei Prokofiev gave this advice to Aram Khachaturian around 1933, about the same time that he began composing the Concerto in E minor for Cello and Orchestra, op. 58, the last orchestral score he commenced in Paris before his return to the USSR.

Prokofiev began the concerto at the instigation of Gregor Piatigorsky, an early champion of Prokofiev's music, who had performed the composer’s Ballada on several recitals in Moscow. They likely met in Berlin in 1927 when Piatigorsky was solo cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic. Later, in Paris, Piatigorsky played for Prokofiev and persistently urged him to write a concerto in spite of Prokofiev's initial protestations: “I don't know your crazy instrument.” Prokofiev's diary entry for May 22, 1932 states: “Piatigorsky very much wishes me to compose a concerto for him, and begs to play it everywhere. I already have a plan (and themes) for a Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra. If Piatigorsky could stump up the money, I'd do it . . . He brought his cello and played the Ballade with me, very well.” Piatigorsky relates in his memoir Cellist: “I played for him and, demonstrating all possibilities of the cello, saw him from time to time jump from his chair. ‘It is slashing! Play it again!’ He made notes in the little notebook he always carried with him. He asked me to show him some of the typical music for cello, but when I did, he glanced through it and said, ‘You should not keep it in the house. It smells.’ ” (He made a similar comment to Rostropovich after Prokofiev requested that he show him some idiomatic cello music and Slava brought him works by Davidoff and Popper.)

Finally, in the summer of 1933, Prokofiev started to sketch the concerto, visiting with Piatigorsky several times. Piatigorsky says: “Finally he completed the first movement. I received the music and soon we began to discuss the other movements to come. The beginning of the second, which followed shortly, appeared as excitingly promising as the first. ‘Even so, it will lead to nothing. I cannot compose away from Russia. I will go home.’" Soon, with his wife and two little children, Prokofiev departed for Russia.

He returned to the sketches early in 1934 but told his friend composer Nikolai Miaskovsky, “As before, it is still in a somnolent state.” Despite the concerto’s being substantially drafted this state of affairs remained until 1937, at which point Prokofiev, now in Moscow, slowly resumed work on it. "The first sketches did not satisfy me," he wrote. "I clearly felt 'seams' between the various episodes, and not all the music was of equal value. After the long interruption I revised the Concerto, adding some new material.”

Piatigorsky did not have much opportunity to discuss the concerto with Prokofiev in 1938 as the composer toured France, England and the US on his last trip out of the Soviet Union. Terry King (to whom I am appreciatively indebted for many fascinating details and quotes), in his soon to published biography Gregor Piatigorsky: The Life and Career of the Virtuoso Cellist (McFarland & Co., 2010) recounts that as the two crossed together from New York to France on the steamship Normandy, Prokofiev apologetically announced to Piatigorsky that the concerto was nearly finished but that he could not dedicate it to Piatigorsky or offer him the first performance. As a Soviet citizen, Prokofiev could not allow the premiere to be given outside of Russia by a famous expatriate who had been erased from the public record; this could be interpreted as an act of defiance that might endanger Prokofiev’s family. The work needed to be presented in the Soviet Union first. (When they both left post-Revolutionary Russia to pursue careers in the West, the government viewed Piatigorsky as a defector while Prokofiev was considered a cultural emissary. Lunacharsky, the People's Commissar for Education, told Prokofiev: "You are a revolutionary in music, we are revolutionaries in life. We ought to work together. But if you want to go to America I shall not stand in your way.” Piatigorsky eventually received an invitation to perform in the Soviet Union but it never came to pass; Prokofiev returned to become a permanent citizen.) Prokofiev urged him to give its American premiere and promised that the music would reach him as soon as possible. Piatigorsky had to be satisfied with the consolation of knowing that the concerto he had caused to be written would be published and that he would not be prohibited from touring with it outside of Russia.

In 1938, after finishing the music for the film Alexander Nevsky, Prokofiev finally completed the concerto (the manuscript bears the date September 18, 1938) and the young cellist Leonid Berezovsky was entrusted to prepare the concerto for its first performance. Pianist Sviatoslav Richter was asked to work with Berezovsky and he accepted it like any other job, in order to earn his living. "For two solid months I used to walk several miles to Berezovsky's apartment on the sixth floor," Richter recalled. "My attitude was purely businesslike. Although Berezovsky was pleased with the engagement, the music was obviously alien to him. He shrugged, he sighed, and he complained about the difficulties, but he practiced the Concerto diligently, and he was very nervous." Later on, when Berezovsky had finally learned the concerto, Richter went with him to play it for Prokofiev. "Prokofiev himself opened the door, and led us into a small canary-yellow room. To begin with, Prokofiev said sternly to his sons, Sviatoslav and Oleg, 'Children, go away! Don't bother us!' and then he sat down. Berezovsky looked terribly upset. Probably because of this, Prokofiev did not feel like talking to him too much, and went to the piano and began to show him 'this way or that.' Prokofiev never asked me to play a single note, not once, and so... we left."

To be accepted for public performance, the concerto needed to receive official approval from the Union of Soviet Composers. Richter was surprised when the audition met with enthusiasm from the cultural bureaucrats: “'A real event! Every bit as fine as the Second Violin Concerto!' There was a lively and positive discussion, and everyone present wished Berezovsky well. No one doubted that the work would be a tremendous success. 'This is a new page in our history.'” The concerto was assigned a prominent place in the Second Festival of Soviet Music and Berezovsky began to work with Melik-Pachayev, the conductor, in preparation for the public premiere on November 26, 1938. Unfortunately, neither the conductor nor the soloist were not up to the task, musically or technically, and the performance was a complete fiasco. When the composer came backstage Melik-Pashayev tried to break the awkward silence: “Well, Sergei Sergeievich, what did you think?” Prokofiev replied with an ingenuous smile, “Nothing could have been worse.”

The performance was coldly received and the work was soon judged a failure. Even the composer's close friends were disappointed in it. "First-rate music but...somehow it doesn't quite come off," Miaskovsky noted in his diary. For a long time the composer did not agree with these opinions. "The critics remained indifferent out of sheer obtuseness," he said. "The Concerto is very much like the Second Violin Concerto!" Later on, however, heeding the criticisms of Miaskovsky who pointed out substantial flaws in its form, Prokofiev made a number of changes including the addition of a cadenza in the third movement.

After the disastrous premiere it was now Piatigorsky’s turn to play the promised first American performance. In 1939, Piatigorsky received the completed manuscript and wrote to Koussevitzky from Paris: “I finally received the Prokofiev concerto…the concerto is superb, and it gives me great pleasure to work on it. I have not yet seen the score, but I am sure that the concerto has been orchestrated with Prokofiev's usual mastery. The cello part is uncomfortable and difficult, but I hope to successfully overcome these difficulties. Where and when should the premiere of this concerto be? The ideal could be only one thing—and that is the Boston orchestra!. . .”

Koussevitzky scheduled it for early March of 1940 in Boston and New York. As the date neared they both had concerns about the concerto but with Prokofiev in Russia communication was difficult. Leaving it in the hands of the performers Prokofiev wrote to Piatigorsky, "Do whatever you find necessary. You have carte blanche."

The American premiere took place on March 8, 1940 and Piatigorsky recalled, “The performance in Boston went well and the response of the audience was gratifying.” Critical reaction was mixed, though more positive than in the Soviet Union. Clearly the concerto suffered from the last movement's length and diffuseness. Warren Story Smith of the Boston Post wrote: “The first movement is charming; the second, slightly less persuasive and the third, though full of ingenuity, seems to get nowhere.” While in the Boston Herald Alexander William said, “…it would be presumptuous to condemn the concerto on the ground that we were unable to assimilate easily some of the last movement…This is, moreover, much too interesting a work to be shelved, even if cello concertos were as common as daisies…”

After the performances Piatigorsky wrote to Prokofiev about the concerto: “In my letters, sent through the courtesy of the Soviet Embassy, I asked Prokofiev to make changes, pointing out certain weaknesses of the work. He thanked me for the suggestions and said that he would take them into consideration.” However, with the onset of WWII no further exploration of the work on the part of Piatigorsky ensued. The concerto was not performed again until Maurice Gendron played it in London in December of 1945 and it was not published until the early ‘50s. Prokofiev did not hear it again until Mstislav Rostropovich programmed the concerto with piano accompaniment on a recital in January 1948. The composer later asked Rostropovich to help revise it explaining that, “the structure is not compact enough.” (Working together on the revision, destined to become the Sinfonia Concertante, op. 125, Rostropovich was amused by Prokofiev's vivid conception of the sounds of various instruments separately and in groups. Prokofiev told him that the lower notes played pianissimo on the tuba reminded him of fat and greasy beetles that he would carefully take into his hand and place from one note to another. He also said that in his orchestration of his Cello Concerto the string quintet that follows the cello solo part sounded to him like "poor relatives." Regarding the Sinfonia Concertante, Piatigorsky later noted: “I am grateful that there are now two major works for the cello by this great composer and unforgettable man.”)

The three movements of the concerto follow a rather unusual sequence—slow-fast-slow—the same sequence of tempi as in Prokofiev’s first violin concerto. (Walton used a similar form in his 1956 Cello Concerto, also written for Piatigorsky.) The first movement, a brief Andante, is a sort of lyrical introduction to the whole work; the second, a fast Allegro giusto, has several episodes including a march; the third movement, although marked Allegro, is a theme with four mostly-slow variations interspersed by two interludes, followed by a return to the first movement and closing with an extended coda, itself consisting of several episodes including a set of short variations on another theme. (In the concerto’s transformation into the Sinfonia Concertante, most of the slow parts of the finale were eliminated and the sequence of movements became slow-fast-fast.)

The concerto was first recorded by Janos Starker in 1957, followed by French cellist Roger Albin in 1960 and Christine Walevska in 1973. Recognizing the weakness of the last movement, Starker and Walevska introduced large cuts, as did Nathaniel Rosen (heeding his teacher Piatigorsky’s advice) when he performed it with the Pasadena Symphony in 1975 or ‘76. Personally, I have always been more attracted to the Concerto than to the Sinfonia Concertante because of its stylistic affinity to the Second Violin Concerto and many years ago, upon finding a copy of the Albin recording and hearing the parts that had been left out, I came to believe that with different (and smaller) cuts, the concerto could be enormously successful. The parts that caused the last movement to bog down could easily be removed without sacrificing the integrity of the work’s original concept and what remained would be pure Prokofiev—characterized by his perfect fusion of melody and modernism.

According to the League of American Orchestras, Prokofiev’s orchestral music is played more frequently in the United States than that of any other composer of the last hundred years except for Shostakovich and Strauss. Perhaps the Cello Concerto, op. 58 may yet join the ranks of his often-performed works.

Richard Arnell

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On April 11 4 PM at Scottsdale Center for the Arts Scottsdale Center for the Arts we will perform the slow movement of Richard Arnell's 3rd String Quartet to begin our MusicaNova Orchestra concert. I decided to add this piece to the program because it will be almost one year to the day that Arnell died (he died April 10, 2009). "Tony" Arnell has been an important part of the orchestra since we played his 5th Symphony in our second season. We recorded all the Symphonies in the summer of 2005, performed the magnificent 3rd Symphony that fall-the first performance in over 50 years-and have performed other works of his subsequently. Many years ago, it was my discovery of Arnell's music that was a critical part of the development of my theory of the vagaries of fame, and how loosely connected to quality is the fame of the composer. It is certainly true that most obscure music is bad; but there is enough music of first rank that is hidden that we must say that quality alone does not guarantee performances of your music.

I first heard Arnell's music at a concert at the British Music Information Center in London in September of 1991. The work was his Piano Sonata performed by Simon Murphy. I was immediately taken with the boldness, originality and beauty of this music. At the end of the concert I said to someone "the Arnell was the best work on the program", to which the composer-whom I had not met-turned to me and said "I agree with you!" A few weeks later Tony invited me to his place in Saxmundham, where we had lunch, he played me some of his music, and he made a few pithy comments about some music of mine that he graciously agreed to look at. At this point I had just started to conduct, and I made a promise to him that if I was ever in a position to do so, I would perform some of his orchestral music. By that time I had listened to broadcast and private recordings of several of his orchestral works and was in shock that there were no commercial recordings of this beautiful music.

It took many years, but by 1997 I was Music Director of the Southern Arizona Symphony, and I was able to fulfill my promise, playing the first performance of his "Overture 1940" with that group. I remember the music coming to me from the Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music. The music had been copied as part of a "make work" project in 1941 (I had thought it was a WPA project, but I think the WPA was over by then). The string holding the parts together was falling apart, and the music was musty with age. The composer himself could not recall much of the music, composed when he was twenty-two, but I found it fascinating, with a great bassoon tune for the middle section. Later I was able to do first concert performances of the 2nd and 6th Symphonies with Southern Arizona, and American premieres of the 5th and 3rd Symphonies and the Ode to the West Wind with MusicaNova. We also did the Sinfonia Quasi Variazione, and with the Fine Arts String Orchestra I did his early Classical Variations. In Europe, I did the first European performance of the Overture 1940 with the Vidin Philharmonic.

We have so far only issued the recording of Symphonies 4 and 5 . The series that Martin Yates has done for Dutton has made getting the recordings out less of a priority, and in the intervening years both I and the orchestra have changed a lot, making it hard for me to revisit these sessions without wanting to redo certain passages. One thing I have been delighted with is the positive effect having two commercial recordings of 4 and 5 has had on the composer's reputation; people often distrust their own judgment about music, but seem more likely to look favorably on a composer with duplicate entries in the record catalog. So contrary to all the skeptics-having two recordings out was a good thing! Also, I was told that sales of the Dutton recording actually increased after ours was issued, and both versions have sold well for a classical recording.

I did not know Tony well, although we talked on the phone pretty regularly during the last ten years of his life and, until his eyesight got really bad, we used to write. He was extremely witty-his wit was so organic that you could sometimes forget just how consistently funny he was. Malcolm Arnold said Tony was the wittiest musician he knew.(for his part, Sir Malcolm always called Tony "Sir Richard"!) This reminded me of the perfect professionalism of Arnell's music-so effortlessly perfect that you might miss the depth, beauty and profundity behind those notes. (in this way, but no other, he reminds me of Poulenc.)

I visited Tony for the last time in 2005, when he was living at a Musician's Benevolent Home in Kent. He was frail, but his brilliance and wit were in full display. It was at this meeting that he gave me the ultimate quote about his Symphonies. When I asked why each was different from the other he said "Well, that's the point, isn't it?" At that meeting he also encouraged me to get in touch with and discover the music of his one-time amanuensis, Patrick Jonathan, a fine composer in his own right whose work I heartily recommend!

The Quartet Movement we will play is simply one of the most beautiful six minutes of music I have ever heard. When I asked the composer if I could arrange it for String Orchestra (there was actually no arranging involved-simply doubling each part and adding a bass part that doubles cello in some spots) the composer said, typically-"I am delighted to have you do this-just make sure you keep all my bowings-they are really good!"

We miss him, but it is great that in his last years, he saw the beginnings of a revival of interest in his music, and I am certain that fifty years from now he will be recognized for his wonderful contribution to the orchestral repertoire. And I am thrilled that I was there at the beginning of the revival.