Complete works for violin and piano
Cinq Melodies (arranged for violin and piano by
the composer) op. 35a (1925)
Sonata for violin and piano No 1 in F minor op. 80 (1938-46)
Sonata for two violins
Sonata for violin and piano No 2 op. 94a in D
Alexander Rozhdestvensky, violin
Vasko Vassilev, violin
Mikhail Rudy, piano
Painting by Oleg Pro kofiev
Complete works for cello and piano
Ballade op 15 (1912)
Sonata for solo cello, op. 133 (1953)
Adagio from the ballet 'Cinderella', op. 97a (1944)
Suite from ballet 'Chout', op. 21 (1920). Arranged for cello and piano
by Roman Sapozhnikov. UK premiere.
Sonata for cello and piano, op. 119 (1949)
Alexander Ivashkin, cello
Mikhail Rudy, piano
Gabriel Prokofiev String Quartet
Elysian String Quartet
String Quartet No 1 in B minor op 50 (1930)
'Trapeze', music for ballet (1924-25)
Overture on Hebrew Themes op. 32 (1919)
String quartet No 2 in F op 92 (1941)
Mikhail Rudy, piano
Alexander Rozhdestvensky, violin
Natalia Lomeiko, violin
Daniel Raiskin, viola
Alexander Ivashkin, cello
Sergei Gorlenko, double bass
Melinda Maxwell, oboe
Colin Lawson, clarinet
This unique family event provided a rare, concentrated overview of the
chamber music of Serge Prokofiev (1891-1953), which is inclined to be
overlooked in the company of his orchestral music, ballets and operas.
No equivalent event has been given in UK during the Prokofiev 2003 anniversary
year.
South East London has a rare concentration of expertise in Russian music
based at Goldsmiths College, with its Centre for Russian Music (Professor
Alexander Ivashkin), the Serge Prokofiev Archive (curator Noëlle
Mann), and the Prokofiev Association which put this prestigious event
together. There is also a Schnittke Archive at Goldsmiths, and the programme
book included extracts from Alfred Schnittke's essay On Prokoviev from
A Schnittke Reader edited by Alexander Ivashkin.
Frances Prokofiev (resident in Blackheath) introduced an exhibition
of her late husband, painter & sculptor Oleg Prokofiev, the composer's
younger son, and space was found to include the premiere of a new unpublished
String Quartet by the composer's grandson, Gabriel Prokofiev.
The first event featured Mikhail Rudy with Gennadi and Victoria's son
Alexander Rozhdestvensky, a commanding violinist who played the 'Haddock'
Guarneri loaned by the Stradivari Society. His companion in the duo
sonata was Vasko Vassilev of the Covent Garden Orchestra and also, so
we were told in the voluminous CVs provided, holder of numerous positions
including musical director of the Voodoo Girls Orchestra of Anastacia
Island! More than a page was given to Rudy's notable achievements,
from which I was delighted to spot that next year he will be releasing
Journey for two pianos, rewritten and improvised classical repertoire
works with jazz pianist Misha
Alperin, who had entranced us at Lucerne
and in London.
The high spot of the first concert was the rarest work, the Sonata for
two violins, which bowled over the audience, and had similarly made
a brilliant impression played by Elena Denisova and Atle Sponberg at
the Wörthersee Classics Festival in Klagenfurt;
it is a very 'physical' piece, greatly enhanced by being seen live.
Alexander Ivashkin and Mikhail Rudy's Sunday morning cello recital was
a well balanced programme of a suitable length, 1 3/4 hours, marred
only by inadequate and confusing notes and a mistaken, unannounced order
change which left us all guessing what we were listening to after the
first item. That was an early Ballade in which the piano was too dominant
(I found myself thinking that a duo recital with piano really needs
four people, the two performers, a turner-over, and a well placed listener
in the audience who can give the pianist a discreet signal to modify
his level). I am not one of those who always wants the 'soloist' to
dominate his 'accompanist' (q.v Gerald Moore's hilarious account in
Am I too Loud of working with a cellist for whom, despite best efforts,
he always was so)!
Rudy's tone quality is pellucid and beautiful, however fortissimo, and
things improved during the recital, but the unaccompanied piece, the
so-called Sonata completed from sketches of the dying composer, was
a high spot, just as had been the sonata for two violins the previous
evening, when the same problem was evident. The Suite from Chout was
a winner, lots of devilry with glissandi and exaggerated vibrato - when
new in 1920 the score provoked outrage, 'grotesquerie pushed beyond
permissible limits'; delicious.
The afternoon recital was something of a marathon, nearly three hours
with one interval, after which not everyone returned, to their loss.
The backbone was the two string quartets, given with enormous conviction
and dazzling expertise by a quartet of four Russians who do not play
as a regular ensemble. Prokofiev's sting quartets certainly deserve
a higher profile than they have won in the string quartet repertoire.
New to almost everyone in the programmes were two ballet arrangements.
An augmented ensemble gave the rare Trapese, with additional items quarried
from the Prokofiev Archive and given for the first time. There were
too many for its placement at the end of an overlong first half, but
the score would stand up very acceptably in dance with a small modern
dance company; perhaps the nearly Laban Centre and their Transitions
Dance Company should consider it?
A last word for the youngest Prokofiev, grandson Gabriel Prokofiev,
whose very new String Quartet was premiered by the excellent, locally
based, up-coming Elysian String Quartet. Venturing into the hallowed
world of the string quartet, the burden of its masterpieces daunting
to many contemporary composers, Gabriel Prokofiev came fresh and unprejudiced
from working in electro-acoustics, finding a distinctive voice which
(to my ears, but not consciously his) built upon some of the original
brusqueness and spare textures of Stravinsky's regrettably sole foray
with his three, all too brief, pieces. It was arresting music which
held attention easily in this august company, despite some awkward corners
and loss of energy in the faster movements; Gabriel Prokofiev and the
Elysians should continue developing it towards publication and a regular
place in their repertoire.
With hindsight, it might have been better to have given that final concert
with two intervals or, better, to have made the event a four concert
weekend with special Saver tickets to encourage people to take it in
as a whole - some were selective for financial reasons. All in all,
it was a memorable event, achieved largely through the untiring efforts
of Professor Ivashkin who was able to bring to Blackheath players of
the highest calibre.
Peter Graham Woolf
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