Written by
LOUIS BIANCOLLI

(Author of “The Analytical Concert Guide” and co-author, with Robert Bagar, of “The Concert Companion”)

and dedicated to
the
RADIO MEMBERS
of
THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK

Copyright 1953
THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY
of NEW YORK
and
LOUIS BIANCOLLI

THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK
113 West 57th Street
New York 19, N. Y.

A COMPOSER’S CREED

The principal lines which I followed in my creative work are these:

The first is classical, whose origin lies in my early infancy when I heard my mother play Beethoven sonatas. It assumes a neo-classical aspect in the sonatas and the concertos, or imitates the classical style of the eighteenth century, as in the Gavottes, the Classical Symphony, and, in some respects, in the Sinfonietta.

The second is innovation, whose inception I trace to my meeting with Taneieff, when he taunted me for my rather “elementary harmony.” At first, this innovation consisted in the search for an individual harmonic language, but later was transformed into a desire to find a medium for the expression of strong emotions, as in Sarcasms, Scythian Suite, the opera The Gambler, They are Seven, the Second Symphony, etc. This innovating strain has affected not only the harmonic idiom, but also the melodic inflection, orchestration, and stage technique.

The third is the element of the toccata or motor element, probably influenced by Schumann’s Toccata, which impressed me greatly at one time. In this category are the Etudes Op. 2, Toccata, Op. 11, Scherzo, Op. 12, the Scherzo of the Second Piano Concerto, the Toccata in the Fifth Piano Concerto, the persistent figurations in the Scythian Suite, Le Pas d’acier, and some passages in the Third Piano Concerto. This element is probably the least important.

The fourth element is lyrical. It appears at first as lyric meditation, sometimes unconnected with melos, as in Fairy Tale, Op. 3, Réves, Esquisse automnale, Legend, Op. 21, etc., but sometimes is found in long melodic phrases, as in the opening of the First Violin Concerto, the songs, etc. This lyric strain has for long remained in obscurity, or, if it was noticed at all, then only in retrospection. And since my lyricism has for a long time been denied appreciation, it has grown but slowly. But at later stages I paid more and more attention to lyrical expression.

I should like to limit myself to these four expressions, and to regard the fifth element, that of the grotesque, with which some critics are trying to label me, as merely a variation of the other characteristics. In application to my music, I should like to replace the word grotesque by “Scherzo-ness,” or by the three words giving its gradations: “Jest,” “laughter,” “mockery.”

SERGE PROKOFIEFF

SERGE PROKOFIEFF

By
LOUIS BIANCOLLI

It is given to few composers to become classics in their lifetime. Of these few Serge Prokofieff was a notable example. At his death in Moscow on March 4, 1953, he was a recognized international figure of long standing, a favorite of concert-goers the world over, and in almost every musical form, whether opera, symphony, concerto, suite, or sonata, a securely established creator. Only two contemporaries could seriously dispute Prokofieff’s dominant position in world music—his own countryman Dimitri Shostakovich and the Finnish Jean Sibelius. There were those who placed him first. His passing was mourned inside and outside Russia by all who respond to fastidious artistry and the strange wizardry of creative genius. Prokofieff had come to belong to the world. While his musical and cultural roots were firmly planted in the land of his birth, he had achieved a breadth and depth of expression that communicated to all. In the vast quantity of his output there is something for everyone everywhere—for the child, for the grown-up, for the less musically tutored, and for the most sophisticated taste. Serge Prokofieff is distinctly deserving of the word “universal.” His music knows no boundaries....

* * *

Serge Prokofieff was born on April 23, 1891, in an atmosphere of music and culture at Sontsovka in the south of Russia, where his father managed a large estate. He seems to have begun composing almost before he could write his own name, thanks to the influence and coaching of his mother, an accomplished pianist. At the age of five he had already put together a little composition called “Hindu Galop,” and there is a photograph of the nine-year-old boy seated at an upright piano with the score of his first opera, “The Giant.” Prokofieff himself has given us a picture of the boy and his mother in their first musical adventures together:—

“One day when mother was practising exercises by Hanon, I went up to the piano and asked if I might play my own music on the two highest octaves of the keyboard. To my surprise she agreed, in spite of the resulting cacophony. This lured me to the piano, and soon I began to climb up to the keyboard all by myself and try to pick out some little tune. One such tune I repeated several times, so that mother noticed it and decided to write it down.

“My efforts at that time consisted of either sitting at the piano and making up tunes which I could not write down, or sitting at the table and drawing notes which could not be played. I just drew them like designs, as other children draw trains and people, because I was always seeing notes on the piano stand. One day I brought one of my papers covered with notes and said:

“‘Here, I’ve composed a Liszt Rhapsody!’

“I was under the impression that a Liszt Rhapsody was a double name of a composition, like a sonata-fantasia. Mother had to explain to me that I couldn’t have composed a Liszt Rhapsody because a rhapsody was a form of musical composition, and Liszt was the name of the composer who had written it. Furthermore, I learned that it was wrong to write music on a staff of nine lines without any divisions, and that it should be written on a five-line staff with division into measures. I was greatly impressed by the way mother wrote down my ‘Hindu Galop’ and soon, with her help, I learned something about how to write music. I couldn’t always put my thoughts into notes, but I actually began to write down little songs which could be played.”

Prokofieff also recalled how much his mother stressed the importance of a love for music and how she tried to keep it unmarred by excessive practising. There was only a minimum of that hateful chore, but a maximum of listening to the great classics of the keyboard. At first the lessons between mother and son were limited to twenty minutes a day. This was extended to one hour when Prokofieff was nine. “Fearing above all the dullness of sitting and drumming one thing over and over,” Prokofieff wrote, “mother hurried to keep me supplied with new pieces so