The Lighter Classics in Music by David Ewen

highly individual style and creative idiosyncrasies in works like the ballet _Chout_, the first violin concerto, and the _Classical Symphony_, all written during the era of World War I. In 1918 he toured the United States, making his American debut with a New York piano recital on November 20. While in the United States he was commissioned to write the opera _The Love for Three Oranges_ for the Chicago Opera. From 1919 to 1933 Prokofiev made his home in Paris, but in 1933 he returned to his native land to stay there for the rest of his life. Though he was honored in the Soviet Union as one of its great creative figures—and was the recipient of the Stalin Prize for his monumental Seventh Piano Sonata inspired by World War II—he did not escape censure in 1948 when the Central Committee of the Communist Party denounced Soviet composers for their partiality towards experimentation, modernism and cerebralism, in their musical works. Nevertheless, Prokofiev soon recovered his high estate in Soviet music; in 1951 he received the Stalin Prize again, this time for his oratorio _On Guard for Peace_ and the symphonic suite, _Winter Bonfire_. His sixtieth birthday, that year, was celebrated throughout the country with concerts and broadcasts. Prokofiev died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Moscow on March 5, 1953. Prokofiev was one of the giants of 20th-century music. His seven symphonies, five piano concertos, nine piano sonatas, the opera _War and Peace_, ballets, chamber music, piano compositions and various shorter orchestral works are among the most significant contributions made in our time to music. The highly personal way of writing melodies, his unusual progressions, his harmonic vocabulary are all present in the few lighter and simpler works with which he made a significant contribution to the contemporary repertory of semi-classics. The _March_ so familiar to radio listeners throughout the United States as the theme music for the program “The F.B.I. in Peace and War” comes from the opera _The Love for Three Oranges_ (1921). The libretto by the composer based on a tale of Carlo Gozzi is a charming fantasy in which a prince saves himself from death through gloom by means of laughter, and who then goes at once to rescue a princess from her prison in an orange. The march occurs in the second act where an effort is being made to get the Prince to laugh, for which purpose a festival is being arranged. The march music is played as the court jester drags the reluctant Prince to these festivities. The quixotic skips in the melody, the grotesquerie of the musical style, and the pert discords are all typical of Prokofiev’s creative manner. _Peter and the Wolf_, a “symphonic fairy tale” for narrator and orchestra op. 67 (1936) was intended by the composer to teach children the instruments of the orchestra. But the music is so consistently delightful for its sprightly lyricism and wit that it has proved a favorite at symphony and semi-classical concerts. The story here being told is about a lad named Peter who turns a deaf ear to his grandfather’s warning and goes out into the meadow. There a wolf has frightened, in turn, a cat, bird, and duck. But Peter is not afraid of him. He captures the wolf, ties him up with a rope and takes him to the zoo. The composition opens with the following explanation by the narrator: “Each character in the tale is represented by a different instrument in the orchestra: the bird by a flute; the duck by an oboe; the cat by a clarinet in the low register; grandpapa by the bassoon; the wolf by three French horns; Peter by the string quartet; and the hunter’s rifle shots by the kettledrums and bass drums.” Then, as the story of Peter and the wolf unfolds, little melodies appear and reappear, each identifying some character in the story. Peter’s theme is a lyrical folk song with a puckish personality for strings. Vivid and realistic little tunes represent the cat, bird, and duck, each tune providing an amusing insight into the personality of each of these animals. _Summer Day_, opp. 65a and 65b (1935) is another of the composer’s compositions for children which makes for delightful listening. It started out as a suite of twelve easy piano pieces for children called _Music for Children_. Later on the composer orchestrated seven of these sections and called the new work _Summer Day_. In the first movement, “Morning,” a whimsical little tune is heard in first flute against a contrapuntal background by other woodwinds, strings, and bass drum. Midway a secondary melody is given by bassoons, horns and cellos. “Tag,” the familiar child’s game, is represented in a tripping melody for violins and flutes; the music grows increasingly rhythmic in the intermediary section. In the “Waltz,” a saucy waltz tune with an unusual syncopated construction is presented by the violins, interrupted by exclamations from the woodwind with typical Prokofiev octave leaps. “Regrets” opens with a tender melody for cellos, but is soon taken over by oboes, and then the violins. This melody is then varied by violins and clarinets. “March” offers the main march melody in clarinets and oboes. “Evening” highlights a gentle song by solo flute, soon joined by the clarinet. As the violins take over the melody the pensive mood is maintained. The concluding movement, “Moonlit Meadows” is dominated by a melody for solo flute. Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy, on December 22, 1858, to a family which for several generations had produced professional musicians. As a boy, Giacomo attended the Istituto Musicale in his native city, played the organ in the local church, and wrote two choral compositions. A subsidy from Queen Margherita enabled him to continue his music study at the Milan Conservatory with Bazzini and Ponchielli. The latter encouraged Puccini to write for the stage. Puccini’s first dramatic work was a one-act opera, _Le Villi_, given successfully in Milan in 1884, and soon thereafter performed at La Scala. On a commission from the publisher, Ricordi, Puccini wrote a second opera that was a failure. But the third, _Manon Lescaut_—introduced in Turin in 1893—was a triumph and permanently established Puccini’s fame. He now moved rapidly to a position of first importance in Italian opera with three successive master-works: _La Bohème_ (1896), _Tosca_ (1900) and _Madama Butterfly_ (1904). Puccini paid his first visit to the United States in 1907 to supervise the American première of the last-named opera; he returned in 1910 to attend the world première of _The Girl from the Golden West_ which had been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Puccini’s subsequent operas were: _La Rondine_ (1917), _Il Trittico_, a trilogy of three one-act operas (1918), and _Turandot_ (1924), the last of which was left unfinished but was completed by Franco Alfano. Operated on for cancer of the throat, in Brussels, Puccini died of a heart attack in that city on November 29, 1924. Though Puccini was an exponent of “Verismo,” a movement in Italian opera which emphasized everyday subjects treated realistically, he poured into his operas such a wealth of sentiment, tenderness, sweetness of lyricism, and elegance of style that their emotional appeal is universal, and he has become the best loved opera composer of the 20th century. Selections from his three most popular operas are basic to the repertory of any semi-classical or “pop” orchestra. _La Bohème_ was based on Murger’s famous novel, _Scènes de la vie de Bohème_ adapted into an opera libretto by Giacosa and Illica. When first introduced (Turin, February 1, 1896) the opera encountered an apathetic audience and hostile critics. It had no big scenes, no telling climaxes, and most of its effects were too subtle emotionally to have an instantaneous appeal. But the third performance—in Palermo in 1896—received an ovation. From that time on it never failed to move opera audiences with its deeply moving pathos and its vivid depiction of the daily problems and conflicts of a group of Bohemians in mid 19th-century Paris. The central theme is the love affair of the poet, Rodolfo, and a seamstress, Mimi. This love was filled with storm and stress, and ended tragically with Mimi’s death of consumption in Rodolfo’s attic. The following are some of the episodes heard most often in potpourris or fantasies of this opera: Rodolfo’s celebrated narrative in the first act, “_Che gelida manina_,” in which he tells Mimi about his life as a poet; Mimi’s aria that follows this narrative immediately, “_Mi chiamano Mimi_,” where she tells Rodolfo of her poignant need for flowers and the warmth of springtime; the first act love duet of Mimi and Rodolfo, “_O soave fanciulla_”; Musetta’s coquettish second-act waltz, “_Quando m’en vo’ soletta_,” sung outside Café Momus in the Latin Quarter on Christmas Eve, informing her admirers (specifically Marcello the painter), how men are always attracted to her; Rodolfo’s poignant recollection of his one time happiness with Mimi, “_O, Mimi, tu più_” in the fourth act; and Mimi’s death music that ends the opera. _Madama Butterfly_—libretto by Illica and Giacosa based on David Belasco’s play of the same name, which in turn came from John Luther’s short story—was first performed in Milan on February 17, 1904 when it was a fiasco. There was such pandemonium during that performance that Puccini had to rush on the stage and entreat the audience to be quiet so that the opera might continue. Undoubtedly, some of Puccini’s enemies had a hand in instigating this scandal, but the opera itself was not one able to win immediate favor. The exotic setting of Japan, the unorthodox love affair involving an American sailor and a geisha girl ending in tragedy for the girl, and the provocatively different kind of music (sometimes Oriental, sometimes modern) written to conform to the setting and the characters—all this was not calculated to appeal to Italian opera lovers. But three months after the première the opera was repeated (with some vital revisions by the composer). This time neither the play nor the music proved shocking, and the audience fell under the spell of enchantment which that sensitive opera cast all about it. From then on, the opera has been a favorite around the world. The most celebrated single excerpt from the opera is unquestionably Madame Butterfly’s poignant aria, her expression of belief that her American lover, so long absent from Japan with his fleet, would some day return to her: “_Un bel di_.” Other popular episodes include the passionate love music of Madame Butterfly and the American lieutenant with which the first act ends, “_Viene la sera_”; the flower duet of the second act between Madame Butterfly and her servant in which the heroine excitedly decorates her home with cherry blossoms upon learning that her lover is back with his fleet (“_Scuoti quella fronda di ciliegio_”); the American lieutenant’s tender farewell to Madame Butterfly and the scene of their love idyl from the third act (“_Addio fiorito_ _asil_”); and Madame Butterfly’s tender farewell to her daughter before committing suicide (“_Tu, tu piccolo iddio_”). _Tosca_—based on the famous French drama of the same name by Sardou, the libretto by Giacosa and Illica—was introduced in Rome on January 14,