Sergey Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 3
Although Sergey Prokofiev's third piano concerto is dated 1917 - 1921, it
really had its genesis in 1911, when the composer sketched out one of the themes
used in the concerto's first movement. That movement also contains themes
written in 1916, while the second movement is based on a theme and variations
written in 1913, and the final movement on a string quartet Prokofiev began in
1918. By then, of course, the Bolsheviks had taken power in Russia, and
Prokofiev had received permission to travel to the US, where he guessed the
market for music might be a little more robust than in his turbulent homeland.
In the summer of 1921 he spent a holiday in Brittany, and completed the concerto
there.
In December 1921, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered the concerto with
Prokofiev himself playing the solo part. The work was not met with much
enthusiasm, and was criticized at subsequent performances in New York. It was
only after Serge Koussevitzky conducted a well-received performance in Paris in
1922 that the work was truly accepted, after which it became the most popular of
Prokofiev's five piano concertos.
The work's angularity and brilliance, as well as the active role the
orchestra takes in not only declaring but developing the thematic material,
clearly separate it from the Romantic concertos of the past. Prokofiev was of
course also capable of writing works of great lyricism, and one of the notable
features of this concerto is its ability to segue effortlessly from dynamic
arpeggios and vigorous, percussive themes to moments of sweeping grandeur.
The Andante - Allegro opens with a deceptively quiet duet for two clarinets,
taken up by the orchestra. Suddenly the strings begin rising in a rush and the
piano explodes onto scene. The piano and orchestra continue in dialogue until
the oboe introduces a simple but slightly dissonant descending theme, like a
fractured nursery melody, that the piano and orchestra expand upon. During this
theme's development, the soloist must prove his or her mettle by playing octaves
interspersed with additional tones either above or below, in triplets, moving
rapidly up and down the keyboard. The restatement of the first theme leads to
one of the work's lyrical moments when, out of nowhere, the strings segue into a
sweepingly lush melody. The clarinets and piano explore a minor variation of the
first theme, until the piano rushes in with a brilliant, scalar passage and
returns to the opening material. The finale includes a sarcastic statement of
the second theme, then a furious coda.
The second movement is, as its title Tema con variazioni states, a theme with
variations (five). It opens with a stately gavotte, to which the piano responds
with sentimental commentary. This is abruptly halted with a crash as piano and
orchestra break into a vigorous variation. The next variations include a
syncopated version that slides between major and minor, and a haunting
meditation by the piano answered by individual instruments (horn, oboe) over
ethereal sustained chords in the orchestra. The final variation also alternates
between major and minor, as the orchestra returns to the stately gavotte of the
opening while the piano plays a double-time accompaniment. The slow coda seems
to be moving toward an E-major resolution but ends with a soft E-minor chord.
Prokofiev called the finale, Allegro, ma non troppo, an "argument" between
the orchestra and soloist, beginning with a disputation between the piano and
bassoons with pizzicato strings. The orchestra soon breaks through with the
long, lyrical second theme that descends and then rises to great heights,
answered by introspective musings in the piano. The recapitulation of the main
theme begins in E-minor in bassoons, segues to D-major in the piano, and turns
to G-major in the strings as we move toward the coda. This is an all-out musical
battle between soloist and orchestra, the piano playing dazzling ornamentation,
including clustered-note arpeggios, over the orchestra's bluster. Orchestra and
soloist come together at last in the final insistent chords, a fortissimo unison
C.
September 27, 2008
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