Prokofiev - Ballet Piano Transcriptions

Meanwhile I've listened to the Eighth Sonata, the final part of Prokofiev's War trilogy. But first a word on another recording which I have been listening to over the last few days. It's not exactly mainstream Prokofiev fare: piano transcriptions, made by the composer himself, of two of his least known ballets: L'enfant prodigue and Sur le Borysthène (also known as On the Dnieper). I picked this up out of curiosity from CPO for less than two euros if I remember correctly. Well, it's a very interesting disc that has offers considerable listening pleasure. Both pieces date from the late 1920s, when Prokofiev was getting increasingly disenchanted with life in the West and started to contemplate a return to Russia (the Soviet Union, meanwhile). There is rather caustic note in the CD booklet by Eckhardt van den Hoogen about Prokofiev's self-centered motives for his return ("Might it not be that Prokofiev was simply burned out? Had the Roaring Twenties, with their insatiable appetite for new, and newer taste-bud treats, brought him to the limits of his powers of invention? Did he perhaps come to assume that the music that he was still capable of producing perhaps continued to suffice only for a state in which a diminished seventh chord was enough to spark heated party-political debate? and so on ...).

The Prodigal Son we know quite well from Prokofiev's Fourth Symphony. In fact I knew it better than I assumed as the symphony follows the ballet's music quite closely. Clearly, Prokofiev didn't overstretch himself for the commission from the Boston SO on the occasion of their 50th anniversary! Which didn't keep him from haggling about the fee. Anyway, the music is a very attractive mix of lyricism and extravert, accessible brand of expressionism. And it really shines in Ivanova's earthy, no-nonsense piano rendering. As if the percussive energy and the wistful, song-like quality of much of the music shimmer more intensely within the relative constraints of the piano sound (at least in this piece). The quality of the CPO recording is, once more, a pleasant surprise. The engineers have been able to capture a very lifelike, natural but burnished sound from an ideally placed instrument. A genuine pleasure to listen to. The finale ('Le retour') is a touching piece in which Prokofiev almost casually throws in one of his most beautiful melodic inventions (very conspicuous in the second movement of the Fourth Symphony).

On the Dnieper is a strange work, but interesting in its sombre, muted colours and relative lack of great tunes. Also dramatically it was a bizarre experiment with Prokofiev composing the music in utter absence of a plot, which he and Serge Lifar (Diaghilev's ballet master who took over the Ballets Russes after the latter's death) concocted once the score and choreography were quite finished.
I love the Prelude (here in marvelous orchestral garb) which starts in medias res and exudes such a poignant longing. One can hear Romeo and Juliet lurking around the corner. But it also harks back to the weird harmonic adventures of The Fiery Angel/Third Symphony. It seems that the peculiar melos and long, flowing lines are perhaps better captured by an orchestra rather than the piano. Anyway, I have been listening with increasing admiration to what counts as one of Prokofiev's least attractive ballet scores. Interesting what one sometimes picks up in the bargain bin ...