Prokofiev, Sergei

Prokofiev, Sergei – Overture in B-flat Major for 17 Instruments, Op. 42

(b. Sontsovka, 27 April 1891 – d. Moskow, 5 March 1953)

(1926)

Preface
There are certain features recurringly found in the music of Russian composer, pianist, and conductor Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev that render “a remarkable aesthetic unity”1 across his body of work: a penchant for clear and compact Neo-classical forms, an impressive and playful alternation between moods, strange harmonies, strikingly sharp rhythms, a peculiar sense of humor, and a predilection for the grotesque. American music critic and author Alex Ross has also noted the composer’s “knack for sensuous, Rachmaninov-like lyricism…brooding chromatic fantasies at the outer edges of the tonal…[and] a gift for what the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin called the ‘carnivalesque’—farce, parody, irresponsible merrymaking, mock grandeur.”2 These attributes of Prokofiev’s compositional style represent a unique musical language that can be identified and recognized in the score printed in the pages that follow.

During the Russian Revolution (1917–1923), and for nearly a decade afterward, Prokofiev was living and working abroad, dividing his time largely between Europe and the United States. The early years of this period brought forth such works as the satirical opera The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33 (1919), and the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26 (1917–21), both of which incidentally premiered in Chicago in 1921. Composed in 1926, the Overture for 17 Instruments, Op. 42 – sometimes referred to as the “American” Overture (American Overture), the Overture in B-flat, the Overture in B-flat Major, or the Overture in B-flat Major, for 17 Instruments – was commissioned by the Aeolian Company for the opening of their new building (complete with a new concert hall) in New York City. The Aeolian Company had emerged just before the turn of the 20th century as a manufacturer of mechanical organs and pneumatic player pianos (or “pianolas”), though by the mid-1920s these automated instruments were beginning to go out of fashion with the rapid advance of phonograph records and radios. …

read more / weiterlesen … > HERE