Misplaced Pages

#37962

90-703: Construction began in May 2009 and the concert hall was inaugurated September 7, 2011. Initial plans were to name the 2,100-seat venue "Adresse symphonique", however the Quebec government announced on opening day that the hall would be the "Maison symphonique". The hall is home to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra , the Metropolitan Orchestra , I Musici de Montreal , Les Violons du Roy and other classical music ensembles. On May 24, 2014,

180-609: A ballet scenario. Prokofiev's inexperience with ballet led him to revise the work extensively in the 1920s, following Diaghilev's detailed critique, prior to its first production. The ballet's premiere in Paris on 17 May 1921 was a huge success and was greeted with great admiration by an audience that included Jean Cocteau , Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel . Stravinsky called the ballet "the single piece of modern music he could listen to with pleasure", while Ravel called it "a work of genius". During World War I, Prokofiev returned to

270-765: A cheerful evocation of the nirvana Stalin wanted everyone to believe he had created" (i.e. in Zdravitsa ) then subsequently, in the three sonatas, "expressed his true feelings". As evidence, Jaffé has pointed out that the central movement of Sonata No. 7 opens with a theme based on the Robert Schumann lied "Wehmut" ("Sadness", from the Liederkreis , Op. 39 ): its words translate, "I can sometimes sing as if I were glad, yet secretly tears well and so free my heart. Nightingales … sing their song of longing from their dungeon's depth … everyone delights, yet no one feels

360-570: A composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, and increasingly turned to the Soviet Union for commissions of new music; in 1936, he finally returned to his homeland with his family. His greatest Soviet successes included Lieutenant Kijé , Peter and the Wolf , Romeo and Juliet , Cinderella , Alexander Nevsky , the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies , On Guard for Peace , and

450-471: A concussion after fainting in his apartment due to untreated chronic hypertension . The composer Dmitry Kabalevsky visited him in hospital and found him semi-conscious, and "with a heavy heart, I left him, I thought it was the end." He never fully recovered from the injury, and, following medical advice, restricted his composing activity. Prokofiev had time to write his postwar Sixth Symphony and his Ninth Piano Sonata (for Sviatoslav Richter ) before

540-577: A contract was offered to the composer. Prokofiev made his first foreign trip in 1913, travelling to Paris and London where he first encountered Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes . In 1914, Prokofiev finished his career at the Conservatory by entering the 'battle of the pianos', a competition open to the five best piano students for which the prize was a Schroeder grand piano; Prokofiev won by performing his own Piano Concerto No. 1 . Soon afterwards, he journeyed to London where he made contact with

630-430: A day. In spring 1949, Prokofiev wrote his Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 119 , for the 22-year-old Mstislav Rostropovich , who gave the first performance in 1950, with Sviatoslav Richter. For Rostropovich, Prokofiev also extensively recomposed his Cello Concerto, transforming it into a Symphony-Concerto , a landmark in the cello and orchestra repertory today. The last public performance he attended, on 11 October 1952,

720-539: A fashion"—he was just one of many students in a heavily attended class—and regretted that he otherwise "never had the opportunity to study with him"). He also shared classes with the composers Boris Asafyev and Nikolai Myaskovsky , the latter becoming a close and lifelong friend. As a member of the Saint Petersburg music scene, Prokofiev developed a reputation as a musical rebel, while getting praise for his original compositions, which he performed himself on

810-570: A fortnight after the triumphant premieres on 30 December 1944 of his Eighth Piano Sonata and, on the same day, the first part of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible . With the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, which was programmed alongside Peter and the Wolf and the Classical Symphony (conducted by Nikolai Anosov ), Prokofiev appeared to reach the peak of his celebrity as a leading Soviet composer. On 20 January 1945, Prokofiev suffered

900-400: A general artistic direction, since he is himself not immune to error". According to Prokofiev, Stravinsky "became incandescent with rage" and "we almost came to blows and were separated only with difficulty". As a result, "our relations became strained and for several years Stravinsky's attitude toward me was critical." In March 1922, Prokofiev moved with his mother to the town of Ettal in

990-539: A guest conductor in 2002, he apologised for his earlier behaviour.) Conducting dates opened up after Frühbeck de Burgos' departure, and one of the slots went to Charles Dutoit . Dutoit subsequently became music director of the OSM in 1977. Dutoit had struck a friendship with the London/Decca records producer Ray Minshull, which led to a twenty-year recording partnership with Decca/London. During this period, Dutoit and

SECTION 10

#1732783608038

1080-470: A large-scale cantata for mezzo-soprano , orchestra and chorus, which was extensively performed and recorded. In the wake of Alexander Nevsky' s success, Prokofiev composed his first Soviet opera, Semyon Kotko , which was intended to be produced by the director Vsevolod Meyerhold . The opera's première was postponed because Meyerhold was arrested on 20 June 1939 by the NKVD , and shot on 2 February 1940. At

1170-546: A music performance venue is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Montreal Symphony Orchestra The Montreal Symphony Orchestra ( French : Orchestre symphonique de Montréal , or OSM ) is a Canadian symphony orchestra based in Montreal , Quebec , Canada . The orchestra’s home is the Montreal Symphony House at Place des Arts . Several orchestras were precursor ensembles to

1260-654: A musical career at such an early age, and considered the possibility of his attending a good high school in Moscow. By 1904, his mother had decided instead on Saint Petersburg , and she and Prokofiev visited the then capital to explore the possibility of moving there for his education. They were introduced to composer Alexander Glazunov , a professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory , who asked to see Prokofiev and his music; Prokofiev had composed two more operas, Desert Islands and The Feast during

1350-486: A new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich : he wrote his Ninth Piano Sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter. Prokofiev was born in 1891 in a rural estate in Sontsovka, Bakhmut uezd , Yekaterinoslav Governorate , Russian Empire (now known as Sontsivka , Pokrovsk Raion , Donetsk Oblast , Ukraine). His father, Sergei Alekseyevich Prokofiev,

1440-459: A petition in court to begin divorce proceedings against his estranged wife. Five days later the court ruled that the marriage had no legal basis since it had taken place in Germany , and had not been registered with Soviet officials, thus making it null and void. After a second judge upheld the verdict, he and his partner Mira wed on 13 January 1948. On 20 February 1948, Prokofiev's first wife Lina

1530-540: A series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915, Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral Scythian Suite , compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes . Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev— Chout , Le pas d'acier and The Prodigal Son —which, at

1620-551: A very successful staging of The Love for Three Oranges in the Mariinsky Theatre . In 1928, Prokofiev completed his Third Symphony , which was broadly based on his unperformed opera The Fiery Angel . The conductor Serge Koussevitzky characterized the Third as "the greatest symphony since Tchaikovsky 's Sixth ". In the meantime, under the influence of the teachings of Christian Science , Prokofiev had turned against

1710-432: A year in Moscow or St Petersburg taking piano lessons. Sergei Prokofiev was inspired by hearing his mother practicing the piano in the evenings, mostly works by Chopin and Beethoven , and wrote his first piano composition at the age of five, an "Indian Gallop", which was written down by his mother: it was in the F Lydian mode (a major scale with a raised 4th scale degree), as the young Prokofiev felt "reluctance to tackle

1800-573: Is buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery . The leading Soviet musical periodical reported Prokofiev's death as a brief item on page 116 (the first 115 pages were devoted to Stalin's death). Prokofiev's death is usually attributed to cerebral hemorrhage . He had been chronically ill for eight years. Prokofiev's wife Mira Mendelson spent her final years living in the Moscow apartment they had shared. She occupied her time organizing her husband's papers, promoting his music, and writing her memoirs, having been strongly encouraged by Prokofiev to embark on

1890-427: Is no official record, but according to a variety of witnesses, Prokofiev did not attend on the first day, and had to be fetched, arriving on day two wearing a brown suit and baggy-kneed trousers tucked into his felt boots. Ilya Ehrenburg , who was not in the hall, claimed in his memoirs that Prokofiev fell asleep, woke up suddenly and loudly asked who Zhdanov was. The cellist Mstislav Rostropovich heard that Prokofiev

SECTION 20

#1732783608038

1980-669: The Bavarian Alps, where for over a year he concentrated on an opera project, The Fiery Angel , based on the novel by Valery Bryusov . His later music had acquired a following in Russia, and he received invitations to return there, but decided to stay in Europe. In 1923, Prokofiev married the Spanish singer Carolina Codina (1897–1989, stage name Lina Llubera) before moving back to Paris. In Paris, several of his works, including

2070-827: The Classical . The name was Prokofiev's own; the music is in a style that, according to Prokofiev, Joseph Haydn would have used if he were alive at the time. The music is more or less Classical in style but incorporates more modern musical elements (see Neoclassicism ). The symphony was also an exact contemporary of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major , Op. 19, which was scheduled to premiere in November 1917. The first performances of both works had to wait until 21 April 1918 and 18 October 1923, respectively. Prokofiev stayed briefly with his mother in Kislovodsk in

2160-733: The Georgian SSR , where he lived in Tbilisi from 11 November 1941 until 29 June 1942. While there he began to compose the original version of War and Peace . While in the Georgian SSR he also composed his Second String Quartet and Piano Sonata No. 7 . His relationship with the 25-year-old writer and librettist Mira Mendelson had finally led to his separation from his wife Lina. Despite their acrimonious separation, Prokofiev tried to persuade Lina and their sons to accompany him as evacuees out of Moscow, but Lina opted to stay. During

2250-483: The Great Depression , which inhibited both new opera and ballet productions, though audiences for Prokofiev's appearances as a pianist were, in Europe at least, undiminished. But Prokofiev saw himself as a composer first and foremost, and increasingly resented the time lost to composition through his appearances as a pianist. Having been homesick for some time, Prokofiev began to build substantial bridges with

2340-618: The Octet and the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments . For his part, Stravinsky described Prokofiev as the greatest Russian composer of his day, after himself. Prokofiev met Boris Krasin in the violinist Joseph Szigeti 's Paris apartment in 1924. In 1927, Prokofiev made his first concert tour in the Soviet Union . Over more than two months, he spent time in Moscow and Leningrad (as St Petersburg had been renamed), where he enjoyed

2430-522: The Piano Sonatas Nos. 6–8. The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred Prokofiev to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace ; he co-wrote the libretto with Mira Mendelson , his longtime companion and later second wife. In 1948, Prokofiev was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism ". Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from

2520-771: The Revolution of 1917 , Prokofiev left Russia with the approval of Soviet People's Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky , and resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist and conductor. In 1923 he married a Spanish singer, Carolina (Lina) Codina , with whom he had two sons; they divorced in 1947. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev's ballets and operas to be staged in America and Western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as

2610-546: The Second Symphony , were performed, but their reception was lukewarm and Prokofiev sensed that he "was evidently no longer a sensation". Still, the Symphony appeared to prompt Diaghilev to commission Le pas d'acier ( The Steel Step ), a "modernist" ballet score intended to portray the industrialisation of the Soviet Union. It was enthusiastically received by Parisian audiences and critics. Around 1924, Prokofiev

2700-418: The expressionist style and the subject matter of The Fiery Angel . He now preferred what he called a "new simplicity", which he found more sincere than the "contrivances and complexities" of so much modern music of the 1920s. In 1928–29, Prokofiev composed his last ballet for Diaghilev, The Prodigal Son . When first staged in Paris on 21 May 1929, choreographed by George Balanchine with Serge Lifar in

2790-509: The latter of which caused a scandal at its premiere (23 August 1913, Pavlovsk). According to one account, the audience left the hall with exclamations of "'To hell with this futuristic music! The cats on the roof make better music!'", but the modernists were in rapture. In 1911, help arrived from renowned Russian musicologist and critic Alexander Ossovsky , who wrote a supportive letter to music publisher Boris P. Jurgenson (son of publishing-firm founder Peter Jurgenson [1836–1904]); thus

Montreal Symphony House - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-485: The 11-year-old Prokofiev's insistence, with the budding composer making his first attempt to write a symphony. The following summer, Glière revisited Sontsovka to give further tuition. When, decades later, Prokofiev wrote about his lessons with Glière, he gave due credit to his teacher's sympathetic method but complained that Glière had introduced him to "square" phrase structure and conventional modulations , which he subsequently had to unlearn. Nonetheless, equipped with

2970-576: The 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution , originally intended for performance during the anniversary year but effectively blocked by Kerzhentsev, who demanded at the work's audition before the Committee on Arts Affairs, "Just what do you think you're doing, Sergey Sergeyevich, taking texts that belong to the people and setting them to such incomprehensible music?" The Cantata was not performed until 5 April 1966, just over 13 years after

3060-489: The Buffoon who Outwits Seven Other Buffoons".) Under Diaghilev's guidance, Prokofiev chose his subject from a collection of folk tales by the ethnographer Alexander Afanasyev ; the story, concerning a buffoon and a series of confidence tricks, had been previously suggested to Diaghilev by Igor Stravinsky as a possible subject for a ballet, and Diaghilev and his choreographer Léonide Massine helped Prokofiev to shape it into

3150-623: The COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, the orchestra toured several Cree and Inuit communities in Nord-du-Québec to perform Chaakapesh: The Trickster's Quest , an indigenous opera by Tomson Highway and Matthew Ricketts . The tour was documented by Roger Frappier and Justin Kingsley in the 2019 documentary film Chaakapesh . In 2018, Rafael Payare first guest-conducted the OSM. He returned as guest conductor in 2019. In January 2021,

3240-600: The Caucasus. After completing the score of Seven, They Are Seven , a "Chaldean invocation" for chorus and orchestra, Prokofiev was "left with nothing to do and time hung heavily on my hands". Believing that Russia "had no use for music at the moment", Prokofiev decided to try his fortunes in America until the turmoil in his homeland had passed. He set out for Moscow and Petersburg in March 1918 to sort out financial matters and to arrange for his passport. In May, he headed for

3330-473: The Conservatory and studied organ to avoid conscription . In 1916, he debuted his Toccata . Shortly after this he composed The Gambler based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky 's novel of the same name , but rehearsals were plagued by problems, and the scheduled 1917 première had to be cancelled because of the February Revolution . In the summer of that year, Prokofiev composed his first symphony ,

3420-465: The Divertimento, Op. 43 (which he had started in 1925) and revised his Sinfonietta , Op. 5/48, a work started in his days at the Conservatory. In October of that year, he had a car crash while driving his family back to Paris from their holiday: as the car turned over, Prokofiev pulled some muscles on his left hand. Prokofiev was therefore unable to perform in Moscow during his tour shortly after

3510-630: The End of the War , Festive Poem , Cantata for the Thirtieth Anniversary of October , Ballad of an Unknown Boy , the 1934 piano cycle Thoughts , and Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 and 8. Such was the perceived threat behind the banning of the works that even works that had avoided censure were no longer programmed. By August 1948, Prokofiev was in severe financial straits, his personal debt amounting to 180,000 rubles. On 22 November 1947, Prokofiev filed

3600-554: The Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf . Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia —seven completed operas, seven symphonies , eight ballets , five piano concertos , two violin concertos , a cello concerto , a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra , and nine completed piano sonatas . A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory , Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with

3690-401: The OSM acquired an octobass , the only orchestra in the world with a functioning octobass. In June 2017, the OSM announced that Nagano is to stand down from as its music director at the close of his current contract, at the end of the 2019–2020 season. Nagano concluded his OSM music directorship at the close of the 2019-2020 season, with the scheduled final concerts of his tenure curtailed by

Montreal Symphony House - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-456: The OSM announced the appointment of Payare as its next music director, effective with the 2022-2023 season, with an initial contract of 5 seasons. He held the title of music director-designate in the 2021-2022 season. Madeleine Careau has served as chief executive officer of the OSM since February 2000. Careau is scheduled to stand down from the post in June 2024. In May 2024, the OSM announced

3870-512: The OSM released many recordings and embarked on tours of North America, Europe, Asia, and South America. Most notable among this discography are the recordings of the French repertoire, especially the music of Maurice Ravel , as well as works of Stravinsky and Debussy. The OSM and Dutoit won various awards for their recordings, including the Grand Prix du Président de la République (France) and

3960-565: The OSM, from 2002 to 2006. In March 2003, the orchestra announced the appointment Kent Nagano as its new music director, starting in 2006. He gave his first concert in Montreal as music director-designate on 30 March 2005. Later in 2005, the OSM's musicians took industrial action, where this work stoppage lasted five months, ending shortly before Nagano's first scheduled concerts. With the OSM, Nagano conducted commercial recordings for such labels as ECM New Series and Analekta. During his tenure,

4050-776: The Plague , and was working on his fourth, Undina . Glazunov was so impressed that he urged Prokofiev's mother to have her son apply for admission to the Conservatory. He passed the introductory tests and enrolled that year. Several years younger than most of his class, Prokofiev was viewed as eccentric and arrogant and annoyed a number of his classmates by keeping statistics on their errors. During that period, he studied under, among others, Alexander Winkler for piano, Anatoly Lyadov for harmony and counterpoint, Nikolai Tcherepnin for conducting , and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for orchestration (though when Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908, Prokofiev noted that he had only studied with him "after

4140-530: The Prix mondial du Disque de Montreux. The OSM won Grammy awards in 1996 for its recording of Hector Berlioz ' Les Troyens and in 2000 for Sergei Prokofiev and Béla Bartók piano concerti with Martha Argerich on EMI . It has additionally won a number of Juno Awards and Felix Awards . The London/Decca recordings ceased in the late 1990s due to market changes in the classical recording industry. In 1998, OSM musicians took strike action for three weeks that

4230-665: The Soviet Union. Following the dissolution of the RAPM in 1932, he acted increasingly as a musical ambassador between his homeland and western Europe, and his premieres and commissions were increasingly under the auspices of the Soviet Union. One such was Lieutenant Kijé , which was commissioned as the score to a Soviet film . Another commission, from the Kirov Theatre (as the Mariinsky had now been renamed) in Leningrad,

4320-750: The St Petersburg Evenings of Contemporary Music. There he performed several of his more adventurous piano works, such as his highly chromatic and dissonant Etudes, Op. 2 (1909). His performance of it impressed the organisers of the Evenings sufficiently for them to invite Prokofiev to give the Russian premiere of Arnold Schoenberg 's Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 . Prokofiev's harmonic experimentation continued with Sarcasms for piano, Op. 17 (1912) , which makes extensive use of polytonality . He composed his first two piano concertos around then,

4410-585: The Terrible ), and the ballet Cinderella (Op. 87), one of his most melodious and celebrated compositions. Early that year, he also played excerpts from War and Peace to members of the Bolshoi Theatre collective, but the Soviet government had opinions about the opera that resulted in many revisions. In 1944, Prokofiev composed his Fifth Symphony (Op. 100) at a composer's colony outside Moscow. He conducted its first performance on 13 January 1945, just

4500-602: The US, having obtained official permission to do so from Anatoly Lunacharsky , the People's Commissar for Education, who told him: "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." Arriving in San Francisco after having been released from questioning by immigration officials on Angel Island on 11 August 1918, Prokofiev

4590-549: The accident, but he was able to enjoy watching performances of his music from the audience. Prokofiev also attended the Bolshoi Theatre 's "audition" of his ballet Le pas d'acier , and was interrogated by members of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) about the work: he was asked whether the factory portrayed "a capitalist factory, where the worker is a slave, or a Soviet factory, where

SECTION 50

#1732783608038

4680-659: The appointment of Mélanie La Couture as its next CEO. Additional work by the OSM has included a collaboration with Les Cowboys Fringants on the 2023 live album En concert avec l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (sous la direction du chef Simon Leclerc) , which won the Juno Award for Francophone Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2024 . Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (27 April [ O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953)

4770-556: The ballet. With his left hand healed, Prokofiev toured the United States successfully at the start of 1930, propped up by his recent European success. That year, Prokofiev began his first non-Diaghilev ballet On the Dnieper , Op. 51, a work commissioned by Serge Lifar , who had been appointed maitre de ballet at the Paris Opéra . In 1931 and 1932, he completed his fourth and fifth piano concertos. The following year saw

4860-450: The black notes". By seven, he had also learned to play chess . Chess remained a passion of his, and he became acquainted with world chess champions José Raúl Capablanca , whom he beat in a simultaneous exhibition match in 1914, and Mikhail Botvinnik , with whom he played several matches in the 1930s. At age nine, he was composing his first opera, The Giant , as well as an overture and various other pieces. Opera remained thereafter as

4950-524: The completion of the Symphonic Song , Op. 57, which Prokofiev's friend Myaskovsky —thinking of its potential audience in the Soviet Union—told him "isn't quite for us… it lacks that which we mean by monumentalism—a familiar simplicity and broad contours, of which you are extremely capable, but temporarily are carefully avoiding." By the early 1930s, both Europe and America were suffering from

5040-496: The composer's baton, on 30 December 1921. Diaghilev became sufficiently interested in the opera to request Prokofiev play the vocal score to him in June 1922, while they were both in Paris for a revival of Chout , so he could consider it for a possible production. Stravinsky, who was present at the audition, refused to listen to more than the first act. When he then accused Prokofiev of "wasting time composing operas", Prokofiev retorted that Stravinsky "was in no position to lay down

5130-465: The composer's death. Forced to adapt to the new circumstances (whatever private misgivings he had about them), Prokofiev wrote a series of " mass songs " (Opp. 66, 79, 89), using the lyrics of officially approved Soviet poets. In 1938, he collaborated with Eisenstein on the historical epic Alexander Nevsky , composing some of his most inventive and dramatic music. Although the film had very poor sound recording, Prokofiev adapted much of his score into

5220-611: The composers' union, Tikhon Khrennikov , who said that the person Prokofiev snubbed was the Stalinist official Matvei Shkiryatov . The decree, published on 11 February, denounced six artists—Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Shebalin , Popov , and Myaskovsky , in that order—for the crime of "formalism", described as a "renunciation of the basic principles of classical music" in favor of "muddled, nerve-racking" sounds that "turned music into cacophony". Eight of Prokofiev's works were banned from performance: The Year 1941 , Ode to

5310-466: The cultural authorities, The Story of a Real Man , were quickly cancelled by the Kirov Theatre . The snub, in combination with his declining health, caused Prokofiev to progressively withdraw from public life and from various activities, even chess, and increasingly devote himself to his own work. After he had a stroke on 7 July 1949, his doctors ordered him to limit his composing to an hour

5400-425: The current OSM. One such orchestra was formed in 1897, which lasted ten years, and another was established in 1930, which lasted eleven. The current orchestra directly traces its roots back to 1934, when Wilfrid Pelletier formed an ensemble called Les Concerts Symphoniques . This ensemble gave its first concert January 14, 1935, under conductor Rosario Bourdon . The orchestra acquired its current name in 1954. In

5490-583: The early 1960s, as the Orchestra was preparing to move to new facilities at Place des Arts, patron and prominent Montreal philanthropist, John Wilson McConnell , purchased the 1727 Laub-Petschnikoff Stradivarius violin for Calvin Sieb, the Symphony's concertmaster. The orchestra has begun touring and some recording in the 1960s and early 1970s, during the tenures of Zubin Mehta and Franz-Paul Decker . During

SECTION 60

#1732783608038

5580-703: The end of the same year, Prokofiev was commissioned to compose Zdravitsa (literally "Cheers!", but sometimes subtitled Hail to Stalin in English) (Op. 85) to celebrate Joseph Stalin 's 60th birthday. Later in 1939, Prokofiev composed his Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 , 7 , and 8 , Opp. 82–84, widely known today as the "War Sonatas". Premiered respectively by Prokofiev (No. 6: 8 April 1940), Sviatoslav Richter (No. 7: Moscow, 18 January 1943) and Emil Gilels (No. 8: Moscow, 30 December 1944), they were subsequently championed in particular by Richter. Biographer Daniel Jaffé argued that Prokofiev, "having forced himself to compose

5670-523: The genre Prokofiev was most fond of working in. In 1902, Prokofiev's mother met Sergei Taneyev , director of the Moscow Conservatory , who initially suggested that Prokofiev should start lessons in piano and composition with Alexander Goldenweiser . Unable to arrange that, Taneyev instead arranged for composer and pianist Reinhold Glière to spend the summer of 1902 in Sontsovka teaching Prokofiev. The first series of lessons culminated, at

5760-441: The hall inaugurated a $ 4,000,000 organ (op.3900) by Casavant Frères . The four manual, 83 rank work contains 6,489 pipes. The instrument was a gift of Jacqueline Desmarais in memory of her husband, financier Paul Desmarais . In 2014, SNC-Lavalin sold its concession rights in a deal worth some $ 77.6 million. SNC will continue to operate and maintain services for the owner, IA Financial Group , until 2038. This article on

5850-584: The hearse was not allowed near Prokofiev's house, his coffin had to be moved by hand through back streets in the opposite direction of the masses of people going to visit Stalin's body. About 30 people attended the funeral, Shostakovich among them. Although they had not seemed to get along when they met, in the later years their interactions had become far more amicable, with Shostakovich writing to Prokofiev, "I wish you at least another hundred years to live and create. Listening to such works as your Seventh Symphony makes it much easier and more joyful to live." Prokofiev

5940-502: The impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev commissioned Prokofiev's first ballet, Ala and Lolli ; but when Prokofiev brought the work in progress to him in Italy in 1915 he rejected it as "non-Russian". Urging Prokofiev to write "music that was national in character", Diaghilev then commissioned the ballet Chout ("The Buffoon"). (The original Russian-language full title was Сказка про шута, семерых шутов перешутившего, meaning "The Tale of

6030-558: The latter. Work on the memoirs was difficult for her; she left them incomplete at her death. Mendelson died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1968, 15 years after Prokofiev. Inside her purse a message dated February 1950 and signed by Prokofiev and Mendelson instructed: "We wish to be buried next to each other." Their remains are buried together at Novodevichy Cemetery. Lina Prokofiev outlived her ex-husband by many years, dying in London in early 1989. Royalties from his music provided her with

6120-515: The music directorship of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (1975-1976) the OSM received its first invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall . However, Frühbeck de Burgos had rejected the composition Fleuves by Gilles Tremblay , which Tremblay had composed for tour performances by the OSM. In addition, Frühbeck de Burgos was quoted in print in La Presse as expressing public criticism of selected OSM musicians. The ensuing controversy led to Frühbeck de Burgos' resignation. (When Frühbeck de Burgos returned as

6210-402: The necessary theoretical tools, Prokofiev started experimenting with dissonant harmonies and unusual time signatures in a series of short piano pieces he called "ditties" (after the so-called "song form", more accurately ternary form , on which they were based), laying the basis for his own musical style. Despite his growing talent, Prokofiev's parents hesitated over starting their son on

6300-406: The pain, the deep sorrow in the song." Sonata No. 7 received a Stalin Prize (Second Class) and No. 8 a Stalin Prize (First Class). Meanwhile, Romeo and Juliet was staged by the Kirov Ballet , choreographed by Leonid Lavrovsky , on 11 January 1940. To the surprise of all of its participants, the dancers having struggled to cope with the music's syncopated rhythms and almost having boycotted

6390-420: The piano. In 1909, he graduated from his class in composition with unimpressive marks. He continued at the Conservatory, studying piano under Anna Yesipova and continuing his conducting lessons under Tcherepnin. In 1910, Prokofiev's father died and Sergei's financial support ceased. Fortunately, he had started making a name for himself as a composer and pianist outside the Conservatory, making appearances at

6480-405: The previous four years. That year, Prokofiev composed one of his most famous works, Peter and the Wolf , for Natalya Sats ' Central Children's Theatre . Sats also persuaded him to write two songs for children, "Sweet Song", and "Chatterbox"; they were eventually joined by "The Little Pigs" and published as Three Children's Songs , Op. 68. Prokofiev also composed the gigantic Cantata for

6570-493: The production, the ballet was an instant success and became recognised as the crowning achievement of Soviet dramatic ballet. Prokofiev had been considering making an opera out of Leo Tolstoy 's epic novel War and Peace , when news of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 made the subject seem all the more timely. Because of the war, he was evacuated together with a large number of other artists, initially to

6660-794: The so-called " Zhdanov Doctrine ". On the day before the decree was published, 10 February 1948, Prokofiev was at a ceremony in the Kremlin to mark his elevation to the status of People's Artist of the RSFSR . The decree followed a three-day conference of more than 70 composers, musicians and music lecturers convened on 10 January, presided over by Zhdanov. Prokofiev was berated by a minor composer, Viktor Bely , who accused him of "innovation for innovation's sake" and "artistic snobbishness", but unlike Dmitri Shostakovich , Aram Khachaturian and others, Prokofiev gave no speech. His silence set off rumors that he had been deliberately defiant and uncooperative. There

6750-620: The summer of 1877, the Prokofievs moved to a small estate in the Smolensk governorate. Eventually, Sergei Alekseyevich found employment as a soil engineer, employed by one of his former fellow-students, Dmitri Sontsov, to whose estate in the Ukrainian steppes the Prokofievs moved. By the time of Prokofiev's birth, Maria—having previously lost two daughters—had devoted her life to music; during her son's early childhood, she spent two months

6840-489: The time of their original production, all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. But Prokofiev's greatest interest was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel . Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime was The Love for Three Oranges , composed for the Chicago Opera and performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia. After

6930-400: The title role, the audience and critics were particularly struck by the final scene, in which the prodigal son drags himself across the stage on his knees to be welcomed by his father. Diaghilev had recognised that in the music to the scene, Prokofiev had "never been more clear, more simple, more melodious, and more tender". Only months later, Diaghilev died. That summer, Prokofiev completed

7020-547: The understanding that Piotrovsky would remain involved. But the ballet's original happy ending (contrary to Shakespeare ) provoked controversy among Soviet cultural officials, and the ballet's production was postponed indefinitely when the staff of the Bolshoi was overhauled at the behest of the chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, Platon Kerzhentsev . In 1936, Prokofiev and his family settled permanently in Moscow, after shifting back and forth between Moscow and Paris for

7110-747: The war years, restrictions on style and the demand that composers write in a 'socialist realist' style were slackened, and Prokofiev was generally able to compose in his own way. The Violin Sonata No. 1 , Op. 80, The Year 1941 , Op. 90, and the Ballade for the Boy Who Remained Unknown , Op. 93 all came from this period. In 1943, Prokofiev joined Eisenstein in Alma-Ata , the largest city in Kazakhstan , to compose more film music ( Ivan

7200-472: The worker is the master? If it is a Soviet factory, when and where did Prokofiev examine it, since from 1918 to the present he has been living abroad and came here for the first time in 1927 for two weeks [sic]?" Prokofiev replied, "That concerns politics, not music, and therefore I won't answer." The RAPM condemned the ballet as a "flat and vulgar anti-Soviet anecdote, a counter-revolutionary composition bordering on Fascism". The Bolshoi had no option but to reject

7290-409: Was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union . As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres , he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges , the suite Lieutenant Kijé , the ballet Romeo and Juliet —from which "Dance of

7380-571: Was an agronomist from a mercantile family in Moscow. Prokofiev's mother, Maria (née Zhitkova), came from a Saint Petersburg family of former serfs who had been owned by the Sheremetev family, under whose patronage serf-children were taught theatre and arts from an early age. She was described by Reinhold Glière , Prokofiev's first composition teacher, as "a tall woman with beautiful, clever eyes … who knew how to create an atmosphere of warmth and simplicity about her." After their wedding in

7470-644: Was another example of Prokofiev's bad luck in operatic matters. The failure also cost him his American solo career since the opera took too much time and effort. He soon found himself in financial difficulties, and in April 1920, he left for Paris , not wanting to return to Russia as a failure. In Paris, Prokofiev reaffirmed his contacts with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes . He also completed some of his older, unfinished works, such as his Third Piano Concerto . The Love for Three Oranges finally premièred in Chicago, under

7560-525: Was arrested and charged with espionage for trying to send money to her mother in Spain. After nine months of interrogation, she was sentenced by a three-member Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to 20 years of hard labor. She was released eight years later on 30 June 1956 and in 1974 left the Soviet Union. Prokofiev's latest opera projects, among them his desperate attempt to appease

7650-405: Was chatting to the person next to him when a senior figure sitting nearby warned him to be quiet. Prokofiev asked: "Who are you?" The official said that his name did not matter, but that Prokofiev had better pay attention to him, to which Prokofiev retorted: "I never pay attention to comments from people who haven't been introduced to me." This possibly apocryphal story was corroborated by the head of

7740-411: Was introduced to Christian Science . He began to practice its teachings, which he believed to be beneficial to his health and to his fiery temperament and to which he remained faithful for the rest of his life, according to biographer Simon Morrison . Prokofiev and Stravinsky restored their friendship, though Prokofiev particularly disliked Stravinsky's "stylization of Bach " in such recent works as

7830-410: Was resolved largely due to the personal relationship between Dutoit and Lucien Bouchard , then the premier of Quebec . In 2002, Dutoit abruptly resigned as music director, following a long-simmering dispute between Dutoit and the OSM musicians. Dutoit did not return to the OSM as a guest conductor until 2016. Following the departure of Dutoit, Jacques Lacombe served as principal guest conductor of

7920-544: Was soon compared to other famous Russian exiles, such as Sergei Rachmaninoff . His debut solo concert in New York led to several further engagements. He also received a contract from the music director of the Chicago Opera Association , Cleofonte Campanini , for the production of his new opera The Love for Three Oranges , but due to Campanini's illness and death, the premiere was postponed. The delay

8010-464: Was the ballet Romeo and Juliet , composed to a scenario created by Adrian Piotrovsky and Sergei Radlov following the precepts of "drambalet" (dramatised ballet, officially promoted at the Kirov to replace works based primarily on choreographic display and innovation). Following Radlov's acrimonious resignation from the Kirov in June 1934, a new agreement was signed with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on

8100-598: Was the première of the Seventh Symphony , his last completed work. The symphony was written for the Children's Radio Division. Prokofiev died at age 61 on 5 March 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin . He had lived near Red Square , and for three days throngs gathered to mourn Stalin, making it impossible to hold Prokofiev's funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composers' Union. Because

#37962