Prokofiev, Sergei

Preface

Prokofiev, Sergei – The Meeting of the Volga and the Don Op. 130, Festive Poem for orchestra

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

Preface

Prokofiev had been both successful and controversial as a composer in Imperial Russia. After the revolution of 1917 he decided to make his life in the West. In the following years Prokofiev composed operas, ballets, symphonies and concertos besides his career as a soloist on the piano, but he tended to be overshadowed by Stravinsky as a composer and by Rachmaninoff as a pianist, both of whom had also left Russia. He started to make occasional visits back to what was now Soviet Russia, and in 1936 he finally moved back there permanently. He simplified his musical style, to make his compositions more melodic and accessible. Obviously he seems to have thought, naively, that his fame was such that the authorities would not trouble him. In this he was mistaken. Although he had some great successes, such as the ballet Romeo and Juliet, some of his works were proscribed, and, in 1947, he was condemned along with Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Myaskovsky and others, in the notorious Zhdanov decree, for the crime of ‘formalism,’ defined as ‘muddled nerve-wracking sounds’ which ‘turned music into cacophony.’ Prokofiev began to withdraw from public life, although from 1950 a partial rehabilitation began. He died in 1953, on the same day as Stalin.

The Meeting of the Volga and the Don, described as a festive poem, was Prokofiev’s last orchestral work. A state commission it celebrated the opening of a canal between the rivers Volga and Don, a realisation of a project that had been around for a very long time. The Don drains into the Sea of Azov, which connects to the Black Sea, while Volga flows into the Caspian Sea, further East. Peter the Great already had made several attempts to construct a canal between the two, but these were either not completed or fell into disrepair. The modern canal was built between 1948 and 1952. Formally opened on 1 June 1952, it is 101 km long with numerous locks on the route to equalise water levels. The canal was well used, and from time to time there have been proposals to add a second canal. It is also said to have caused ecological damage. Prokofiev’s work was first performed in late February, actually before the canal opened. …

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