Rubinstein. Musorgsky. Honegger. Prokofiev

The Anthony and Cleopatra overture (1890) was one of Anton Rubinstein’s last opuses. Never before had he turned to a plot by Shakespeare, either in his operas or his symphonic tableaux. Possibly Rubinstein was following in the footsteps of his brilliant pupil Tchaikovsky, who had composed his Hamlet overture in 1888.
There are three themes that form the basis of Rubinstein’s score: a Roman march theme that embodies the power of empire and the unbending will of Caesar Octavian; Cleopatra’s sensual and somewhat exotic theme; and Anthony’s passionate theme. The themes are all laid out in sequence and then developed before only the themes of Cleopatra and Anthony remain performed together, blending into one until Anthony’s theme fades away (in accordance with the plot of the play he dies first).
The composer chose classical pairings for the orchestra, though he also allocated unusually important roles to the harp and the percussion instruments. The latter relates to the battle and heroic scenes. the work was written in a temperamental style, vividly and dramatically, albeit in major strokes, without meticulous attention to the details. And nothing in Rubinstein’s overture even hints at the extremely gloomy dénouement of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
As soon as the score for Anthony and Cleopatra had been written it was published in Leipzig by Bartolf Senff, the regular publisher of the composer who preferred his works to be printed in Germany.
Anna Bulycheva

Modest Musorgsky’s vocal cycle Songs and Dances of Death (1875–1877) is one of the most unusual incarnations of a subject familiar to world culture since the Middle Ages. Franz Liszt’s acclaimed Danse macabre, too, exerted an influence on the idea for the work, which had come initially from Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov, the composer’s friend and an art critic. Together with the poet Arseny Arkadyevich Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Musorgsky created an original composition from four independent sections unified by a common image. in the Lullaby there is Death the Comforter; but already by the end of the next number, Serenade, the mask of suffering has been torn away and Death’s victorious cry (“You are mine!”) reveals its true face. In the finale, the image of death is placed on a truly universal scale. The composer changed the title the Triumph of Death given by Golenishchev-Kutuzov to The Field-Marshal, creating a musical image of Death on a triumphant, terrifying march. Under the impression of the first performance of the Field-Marshal, Musorgsky wrote to the poet: “Some kind of riveting love, some kind of elusive, deathly love can be heard! It is… death, coldly and passionately in love with death, enjoying death.”
Vladimir Goryachikh

Arthur Honegger composed his Cello Concerto in C Major in 1929 in a surprisingly light style. Nothing in the music is reminiscent of either the young devotee of sport, automobiles and locomotives or the composer of the tragic symphonies of the 1940s. Almost ten years passed before Honegger, like almost every composer of his generation, began to flirt with jazz. in the first section of the Cello Concerto the main theme is executed in the triumphant neo-baroque manner while the secondary theme is jazzy. It is surprising just how much elegance and nobleness there is in this music! There is also room for humour, for example when the tuba mimics the cello.
The start of the second section brings to mind the loftiest pages of Porgy and Bess, though at the time Gershwin’s opera had yet to be written. Shortly after the soloist’s furious cadenza, there comes the energetic finale. Honegger indicates that it should be performed martellato, and so the free jazz rhythms are left behind.
The three sections of the concerto are performed in one breath, without interruption. The virtuoso nature of the cello grows and grows, beginning with the refined, almost weightless ornamental passages in the reprise of the first section. the concerto is dedicated to its first performer – the cellist Maurice Maréchal.

His music for a production of Egyptian Nights was Sergei Prokofiev’s first work in dramatic theatre. for Alisa Koonen, Alexander Tairov conceived an unusual production about the legendary Egyptian queen. Its name came from the unfinished tale by Pushkin, while it also used scenes from Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. In line with Tairov’s idea, music was needed to unite this poetic material from different eras, and so he turned to Prokofiev.
The composer and the stage director met in Moscow in the autumn of 1933. After that, Prokofiev returned to Paris and in December he rapidly composed all forty-four musical episodes. The premiere of Egyptian Nights took place in April 1935 at the Chamber Theatre and featured wonderful sets by Vadim Ryndin. Without waiting for the premiere, Prokofiev – an absolute champion in transforming his own stage scores into concert works – combined seven pieces in his Orchestral Suite, Op. 61 (Night in Egypt, Caesar, the Sphinx and Cleopatra, the Alarm, Dances, Anthony, the Fall of Cleopatra and Roma militaris).
The composer once stated that the first piece was inspired by Mikhail Kuzmin’s words about the sounds of the flute from his Alexandrian Songs (1906). Kuzmin was also a master of the melodeclamation to which Prokofiev turned in Egyptian Nights.
For a long time, only the orchestral suite was performed, and during the “Thaw” Alisa Koonen also recorded the monologue The Hall Dazzled. Most of the music, however, lay forgotten for a long time, particularly that which was most closely linked with poetry and Tairov’s production.
Anna Bulycheva