PROKOFIEV THE WAR YEARS AND POST WAR (1941 1953)

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 came as a complete
surprise to most Russians including Prokofiev who related that, having first
learned about it from the caretakers wife, he sought confirmation from
Eisentstein. The invasion did at least resurrect Alexander Nevsky particularly
in showing the Teuton hordes. The news of the invasion is said also to have
come as a surprise to Stalin who became frozen by inaction. It was on Stalins
orders that the cultural lite were ordered out of Moscow, in Prokofievs case
to Nalchik in the Caucasus where he was established for three months in a
kind of ex-pats artists colony.
At the time he had been at work on writing his ballet Cinderella but he turned
now to something else he had been thinking on for some time, War and
Peace. Lina has stated he had been speaking of it as early as 1935. Some
years later Mira would read to him from Tolstoys novel and he planned an
opera based on the personal circumstances of its leading characters against
the background of Napoleons retreat. In April 1941 he had drafted an outline
libretto. With the outbreak of war, his focus switched from the individual
destinies to the creation of a national epic. The link to Hitler and the Nazi
invaders with that of Napoleon at the head of the French army was obvious.
The villains were not the problem. The more difficult association might have
been between the Tsar Alexander 1 and Josef Stalin, a connection that the
latter might well have deprecated. This work, as monumental as the novel
which inspired it, would become the most challenging task to face Prokofiev.
It took up all his energy in writing it and in his obtaining a production over the
course of nearly ten years.
These war years were to be amongst the most prolific in Prokofievs output.
Yet the compositions which emerged were written against the background of
his deteriorating health. He first suffered a heart attack in the Spring of 1941.
Later in January of 1945, Prokofiev fell and suffered severe concussion. He
nearly died in the following days, his recovery hampered by his earlier heart
attack and general fatigue from overwork. He would suffer recurring
headaches and periods of dangerously high blood pressure until his death
eight years later. Prokofiev never fully recovered from this accident, although
the greatness of works which were to follow gave no indication of it.
The period spent in Nalchik was short but productive and Prokofiev was
happily ensconced with friends, particularly Miaskovsky who was preparing
his twenty third symphony, and other musical acquaintances. He described it
there as a small town nestling in the foothills of the Caucasus with a delightful
park (subsequently destroyed by the Germans) and a mountain range in the
background. It was the chairman of the Arts Committee who told Prokofiev of
the collection and recordings, made by Tanyev, of Kabardinian folk music,
which he suggested was abundant in material that was untapped. Prokofiev
contemplated using it as the basis of a second quartet but began to wonder
whether the primitive nature of the original could adapt itself to his
compositional style and at the same time be understood. The chairman
however, reassured him that he should write as he felt. If we dont

understand your quartet now, we will later on. His first quartet had been
written under the classical inspiration of Beethoven. Now he produced a
string quartet (already illustrated by Matthew) based on Russo-Oriental folk
melodies, but his approach had nothing in common with that of Rimsky
Korsakov or Borodin nor of Ippolitov-Ivanov with his exotic Caucasian
Sketches, in particular the Procession of the Sadar which sounds as if it was
written to bring the tourists out to watch. What to my mind Prokofiev was able
to achieve was a successful assimilation of folk-tune and sonata form. It was
Constant Lambert in his Music Ho! , a study of music in decline, written in
1934, my constant reading companion over sixty years, who wrote of the
conflict between nationalism and form . Incidentally, if I had my way, I would
have every hotel replace its Gideon bibles with Music Ho! National expression
was a prevalent musical movement in many countries during the 19 th and early
20th centuries, perhaps no more so clear cut as in Russia. The basis of
traditional Austro-German sonata form is the exposition of two main themes
and their subsidiary ideas and to develop them by dissecting them, reversing
them and cross pollinating them before recapitulating them . The principal
means of expression of nationalism was usually folk dance or song, music
which, at its most basic is not susceptible to symphonic or quartet
development without at the same time losing its national character. As
Lambert wrote, To put it vulgarly, the whole trouble with a folk song is that
once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play
it again and play it rather louder. This is best exemplified by the first
movement of Borodins second symphony. The equivalent movement in his
first symphony was less national but much better structurally developed.
The themes of the first movement of the Prokofiev quartet evidence their
Caucasian roots and atmosphere but, though seemingly repetitive, Prokofiev
is able to ring the changes in developing them in sonata form without any
sense of loss of their initial national character. By the time the quartet was
finished Prokofiev had moved on from the Northern Caucasus to Tbilisi in
Georgia. He later learned that when the Germans had taken Nalchik, the Arts
chairman had joined the partisans and had been killed in attacking enemy
lines. Life in Tbilisi was hard and the winter exceedingly cold. There he
continued to work constantly, despite his deteriorating health and the
advancing Germans. He finished his original score for War and Peace,
writing to Eisentstein that he would shortly be able to submit himself to his
bondage. This was a reference to the musical score he had undertaken to
write for the film Ivan The Terrible which was now being planned as a trilogy.
Soviet Film production had been moved to Alma Ata close to the Chinese
border to where Prokofiev went on leaving Tbilisi and where he remained until
1943 when it became safer to return to Moscow.
Prokofiev had also set to work on what are known as his Wartime Sonatas. His
sixth was actually completed before the war. He completed his seventh piano
sonata which was to achieve international success but did nothing to improve
the reputation of its predecessor, the first performance of which had been
given by Prokofiev himself in a broadcast back in 1940, the page turner being
Sviatoslav Richter. The first movement in particular was considered by one
critic as exceedingly brutal. What it does tell us is that with the Great Patriotic

War the party had taken its foot off the cultural brake. Certainly Prokofiev
seemed to be writing what he wanted fairly freely with a mixture of his old
fashioned modernism mixed, as and when he felt like it, with his seemingly
newly acquired lyricism. What it amounts to is that Prokofiev was a multifaceted composer who could bring to bear his varied abilities and mix and
match as he saw fit.
The seventh sonata was given by Richter who had learned it by heart in four
days. He has related how, during the first rehearsal, there was a problem with
the piano pedal. Both he and Sergei crawled under the piano to sort it out and,
in doing so, cracked their heads so hard that we saw stars. Prokofiev later
recalled , But we did fix the pedal after all, didnt we! The motoric third
movement is another in Prokofiev's pre-Soviet 'toccata' style, unrelenting in
its rhythm and power. Yet for this sonata he was awarded his first Stalin Prize.
When the Eighth Sonata was completed in 1944, Prokofiev was not well
enough to play the premiere. This time he selected another brilliant young
Soviet pianist, Emil Gilels, in his stead. Gilels gave the first performance on 29
December 1944. Although not as popular as the sixth and seventh, the eighth
was described by Richter as "the richest of all of Prokofiev's sonatas.
Despite the harsh conditions imposed by war, Prokofievs output remained
prolific. Apart from the second quartet and his 'War' sonatas he continued
work on War and Peace. Also during this time, Prokofiev wrote incidental
music for four films, completed the epic Cinderella ballet, a number of
symphonic suites, a flute sonata with a transcription of it for violin and piano
(made at the request of David Oistrakh) , two military marches, several folk
songs, and the towering Fifth Symphony. By any standards this is an amazing
number of works and represents the fruits of his workaholicism. Cinderella,
second only to Romeo and Juliet in popularity among Prokofiev's ballets,
followed a circuitous route to its premiere on the Bolshoi stage in 1945. The
work was originally commissioned by the Kirov Theatre during the period of
the Soviet/German pact . Prokofiev was in fact working on the piano score to
the second act of the ballet when the invasion actually began. This in itself
immediately placed the project on hold and Prokofiev had to focus his
energies elsewhere for two years. When he did resume work on the ballet at
the end of 1943, he also completed a set of piano transcriptions (Opus 95 and
97) before starting on the orchestration. The ballet received its premiere in
November1945 in Moscow with Galina Ulanova in the title role. She had earlier
danced the lead in Romeo and Juliet as well. As the greatest prima ballerina of
her day she was used to obtaining her way. She leaned heavily on Prokofiev to
get him to switch the best tunes, which he had written for the fairy godmother,
to Cinderella. Ulanova had met her match. No way was Prokofiev prepared to
play ball on this, Ulanova or no Ulanova.
Of all the works in the wartime period his most successful was undoubtedly
his Fifth Symphony which he began in 1944 immediately after he had
completed the orchestral score for Cinderella. It received its first performance
in January 1945 in Moscow against the background of the end of the war being
in sight and Soviet troops pressing towards victory. It was to be also the last

time Prokofiev was to conduct as soon afterwards he fell dangerously ill,

nearly dying, following a fall and concussion and from which he never fully
recovered. The work was highly praised. It quickly emerged as his most
popular symphony and remains to this day one of his greatest orchestral
works. He was awarded his second Stalin Prize for it.
Here I dare to enter Matthews territory, just a little, if he will forgive me. Every
great composer has his own sonar fingerprints, something which tells you this
can only be Bach, or Vivaldi or Beethoven. Often they may be identified by
their use of their preferred instrument and Prokofiev certainly has his almost
to himself. It is his use of the tuba. One hears it in Lieutenant Kij and in the
Montagues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet and I noticed this particularly
about a year ago at a performance of the fifth symphony. It starts with a quiet
flute over quiet violins but then comes our tuba. Now usually the tuba is there
to give extra beef to the trumpets and trombones or, as with early Sibelius, to
back up the double basses of the string section. With the tuba, the little guy,
usually hidden by his instrument and almost certain to end up with a hernia, is
generally just an added support. What Prokofiev does is to use the tuba as a
soloist to roam freely as anybody else would a solo violin. Few composers do
so, Ravel being the notable exception in his orchestration of Bydlo from
Mussorgskys Pictures from An Exhibition.
When you hear the tuba in
Prokofiev you know it is Prokofiev. The shattering climax to the first
movement of this symphony is followed by a scherzo originally intended for
Romeo and Juliet. It has something of an almost American razzmataz about it.
The third movement has a sad wistfulness and am I mistaken in thinking that
there is something of Beethovens moonlight sonata in its rocking
accompaniment in the strings? In this symphony, and the second movement
in particular, I sense some distant family likeness to Aaron Copland. He, like
Prokofiev, had been a modernist in the 1930s, before finding his popular voice
at very much the same time, in works like Rodeo, El Salon Mexico and Billy
The Kid. The two share the same sense of homespun composition and of
Copland it can be said that in the Fanfare for The Common Man, in all its
simplicity, he was able to achieve with ease and without political dogma or
diktat what socialist realism in Russia set out so heavy handedly to try to do
and couldnt.
The triumphalism of the fifth symphony sent out the right messages as the war
came to an end. They danced the hokey cokey in the streets of Moscow, or its
Russian equivalent. As a commemoration, Prokofiev wrote the Ode to the End
of the War for a mixed ensemble including 8 harps, 4 pianos, wind, percussion
and double basses. But Prokofievs thoughts were far bleaker and at variance
with the need for optimism set out in the party line. He dwelt more upon the
loss and waste that the country had had to endure. Coupled with this was his
deteriorating physical condition which could only add to the pessimism he
was expressing. His doctors ordered him to restrict his hours of work but
Prokofiev needed work like a drug. In any case he could manage without a
piano to go on composing wherever he was. He had begun his sixth
symphony before the fifth. It is set in three long movements and he completed
it in November 1945. It is written for a standard sized orchestra to which are
added piano and celeste. Its brief moments of apparent happiness slip away

leaving a sense of unease, of troubled times ahead, reminiscent in some ways

of Mahlers sixth symphony. The slow movement has a striking middle section
which recalls perhaps the clock scene in Boris Godunov. The last movement
contains what could be called a peasants clog dance, but not with the joy of
Beethovens merrymaking peasants. It ends with the rhythm of the peasants
becoming a stumping march. Commentators jump to interpret this as being
Prokofievs comment on the trampling of Stalins totalitarian regime. The sixth
symphony disappointed after its first performance. It is generally considered
now to be his greatest.
Sergei and Mira had returned to Moscow in 1943 where he was happy enough
living at a special composers village. He did not feel particularly at ease
alongside composers whom he did not regard highly but who, because of their
senior official positions in the Composers Union, saw themselves as superior.
It was a price he could afford to put up with and ignore. His fortunes began to
change for the worse after Stalin saw Ivan The Terrible, released in 1945, and
which he did not like. Prokofievs other great rival, Stravinsky, wrote in his
diary, Luncheon here in New York. Went to see the most stupid and provincial
Russian film, Ivan The Terrible, first part, with very embarrassing music of the
poor Prokofiev.
During the war the brake on artists freedom which had appeared to have been
somewhat relaxed was re-applied, not just with a gentle application but by a
fierce emergency stop with the iron heel of Andrej Zdhanov. It was he who had
probably piloted the earlier pogrom against writers and composers in 1934. He
was then party boss in Leningrad. By 1948 he was in the politburo, Stalins
chosen successor, his son marrying Stalins daughter and at the ready to
implement the every wish of his beloved leader. As previously with Lady
Macbeth, the problem started with Stalin going to the opera. One wonders why
Stalin did go to the opera. He never seemed to enjoy it and it always ended up
with his need for a purge. On this occasion the opera concerned was The
Great Friendship by one Vano Muradeli, an otherwise unknown mediocrity.
The libretto contained all the ingredients required for a really good socialist
realist work of art. The only problem was that he would not have known that
the hero and martyr of the story, the old leader of the Georgian Bolsheviks,
had actually been executed on Stalins order. Immediately his award was
withdrawn, as was his opera. Now Zdhanov stepped in, heading a series of
terrifying courts martial with all the composers lined up and dressed down
about their duties to the party and how to compose their music. Each in turn
confessed their failings. Each ignobly was made to level criticisms against the
others. This period became known as Zhdanovshchina, Zdhanovs Terror.
Prokofiev was particularly singled out and vilified for his sixth symphony.
Other leading composers were savaged including Shostakovitch and
Katchaturian. Moise Weinberg, who had escaped the Nazis in Poland and
whose family had all been wiped out by them, was condemned because his
music was said to be too Jewish. Added to his other problems, all Prokofiev
could do was bear it without grinning. Gone were the days when he had been
Stalins blue eyed boy. In November 1948, Zdhanov, who was a heavy drinker,
suddenly died but the repression continued until the death of Comrade Joe.

Yet another black cloud added to Prokofievs troubles. He and Lina had parted
in 1941, she staying in Moscow during the war. Sergei and Mira were happy
together but Lina would not agree to a divorce. She had found work during the
war dealing with visiting Western delegations. By the end of the war she had
been ill with diphtheria and in the post war paranoia she became suspected as
a spy. In January 1948 Prokofiev was able to procure an annulment of the
marriage which had taken place in Bavaria in 1923. My researches give two
different reasons. The first is that the Soviet Union passed a law in 1947 which
made marriages to foreign citizens null and void with retrospective effect.
Another source states that marriages which had taken place abroad should
have been registered in the Soviet Union and that the Prokofievs had failed to
do so. My own legal instincts tell me that the second is the more likely. It
seems that Sergei may have advanced his own omissions as reason for the
annulment. In March he and Mira married and four weeks later Lina was to
disappear. Some blame Mira believing she was a government agent, unlikely
as she lived with and nursed Sergei till his death. Lina had gone out after
receiving a phone call and was bundled into a car. She was sentenced to
twenty years in a labour camp in the Gulag and must have been thankful she
had taken her fur coat with her. It is not known if Prokofiev did try to help but
it I imagine that his reaction was one of self preservation. Such
disappearances were not an common occurrence and even the wife of Molotov
received similar treatment whilst Stalins loyal foreign secretary remained
silent. In an interview years later, Sergeis older son, Sviatoslav said that he
believed that Shostakovitch had written a letter on behalf of Lina. He also put
his neck out to have Weinberg brought back to Moscow and these acts show
him to be a caring and very brave man. Lina was released after eight years,
during the Khrushchev years. By then Prokofiev was dead but she was able to
get the annulment itself annulled and the validity of her marriage and the
legitimacy of her children restored. She tried for many years to leave and was
eventually granted permission to do so in 1974, nearly twenty years after she
had followed her husband to the Soviet Union. She returned to Paris and
recorded the narration of Peter and the Wolf when she was 88 years old.
The last years saw the deaths of close friends, Eisentein and particularly
Miaskovsky who, with 27 symphonies under his belt, had lost all heart after the
repression. Prokofiev, still subject to virulent attacks and venues closed to
him, made some genuine attempts to produce what the state required but he
also continued to compose works of stature. Particularly notable are the works
for cello written for Rostropovitch, a sweet mellow cello sonata, a bed mate on
the record shelves with that of Rachmaninov, and the powerful cello
symphony.
His final symphony was the seventh composed in 1951 and 1952. Intended
originally as a symphony for young listeners, it achieves a comparative
simplicity but there are dark emotions beneath the surface. In some parts it
returns to the innocence of the Classical Symphony. The first public
performance of the seventh symphony was to be Prokofiev's last public
appearance. Five years later he was posthumously awarded a Lenin Prize for
the work, not that he nor Lenin for that matter, would have known about it, a
guilt offering perhaps from what had been an ungrateful nation.

Socialist realism as a system could never have produced a genius, only its
galloping comedians and circus music. Like Halleys comet, genius appears
rarely. Unlike Halleys comet we never know where it is going next to appear,
but when it does it will not be a result of but despite the system. Sergei
Prokofiev was such a genius.
Sergei Prokofiev died of a massive brain haemorrhage on the 5 th March 1953 at
9 pm. With great irony Josef Stalin died just under an hour later. Prokofievs
death went unreported for some days, not so that of Stalin. Prokofievs flat
was close to Red Square where the crowds came out to pay their last
respects...to Stalin. The streets of Moscow were blocked off and traffic had
come to a standstill. It cost a tremendous effort to move Prokofievs coffin
from his apartment for a civil funeral. There was no room in the newspapers
for an obituary. As Galina Vishnevskaya, wife of Mstislav Rostropovitch, wrote
And while hundreds of thousands of people trampled one another in the
frenzy to bow one last time to the superman-murderer, the dark dank basement
on Myauskaya Street was almost empty the only people present being
Prokofievs family and friends who happened to live nearby and could break
through the police barriers