Sergei Prokofiev
1893-1953

Performance Dates
May 17/18/19 - Romeo and Juliet - Suite

Convinced that there was no place for him in post revolutionary Russia, Prokofiev left his homeland in 1918 and traveled to New York. Trying to establish himself as a composer and pianist, he chafed at the much greater fame and success of Rachmaninov in this country. His major American commission was for the opera The Love for Three Oranges, based on Gozzi’s ironic fairy tale, which the Chicago Opera premiered in 1921. Russian immigrants poured into New York during that period, refugees from a land torn by world war and revolution. Many of them were old friends of Prokofiev’s. In the fall of 1919, just about the time his opera was completed, the composer was reunited with some fellow former students from his conservatory days in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). They had formed Zimro, a sextet consisting of piano, string quartet, and clarinet, and they asked him to write a chamber work for them. He resisted at first, because they wanted him to use themes from a collection of Jewish melodies they had brought from the old country, and at that early stage of his career he was reluctant to use existing material of any kind in his music. The Jewish tunes caught his interest, however, and he quickly produced the eightminute Overture on Hebrew Themes. He played in the first performance himself, but Prokofiev didn’t consider the piece one of his major scores, claiming he had thrown it together in a day and a half and didn’t even want to assign an opus number to it, adding, “From the musical point of view, the only worthwhile thing in it is the concluding part, and even that, in my opinion, is a result of my weakness for diatonicism.” Still, he had to admit that the piece was “quite a success,” and he gave it the opus number 34. It continued to be heard from time to time throughout his life. He allowed it to be published, and in 1934 he made an orchestral version, Op. 34b, which was soon performed in Moscow and Prague. Though not Jewish himself, Prokofiev admirably captured the mood of soulful melancholy and sardonic fatalism so evocative of Russian Jewish music. Its two large sections are each repeated, and all is united by a gentle rhythmic pulse.

Last Updated: 08/31/2006