Exploring Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5
Strap in and hold on tight for a concise piece of entertainment drawing on all of your favourite twentieth century composers you didn't know you already knew
Creative CommonsLast updated 3rd Sep 2020
Small but perfectly formed (if you’re to compare Prokofiev’s symphonies to say that of Mahler or Shostakovich), Prokofiev demonstrates his mastery at penning a concise arresting melody in a variety of highly entertaining settings. If you like things fast and furious, luscious or warm, or even just epic, Prokofiev’s fifth symphony has it all. In spades. Strap in and hold on tight.
Written in 1944 at a retreat for Soviet artists, Prokofiev wasn’t altogether confident about the work when he played the piano version through to composers Kabalevsky and Shostakovich (amongst others). The often epic orchestral sound that emerges from the fully-scored version you’ll hear on Sunday 26 July makes that initial nervousness about the score seem surprising. This is a highly entertaining and compelling work.
Part of its compelling nature – is down to the way Prokofiev evokes musical sound worlds reminiscent of Mussorgsky and Night on a Bare Mountain, a bit of Mahler during the first movement and maybe even a sniff of Aaron Copland’s Variations on a Shaker Melody too (the melody used in the ‘Lord of the Dance’ hymn which is sure to recall many a long and drawn out school assembly).
Music writers often spend a great deal of time analysing where musical ideas come from and, it would be fair to say that this is what often distances newcomers to classical music.
Where Prokofiev is concerned however, it’s because there are so many musical ideas and treatments that makes Prokofiev so immediately appealing. Whether you judge that as imitation and look down on it is something of a personal decision.
As a piece of craft, that Prokofiev is able to combine so many different elements so effortlessly and so concisely perhaps in a way that a TV or film composer is often called upon to do, helps explain why the finished product such a compelling listen.
The second movement has a whirling dervish feel to – constant movement with a hint of either menace or mystery. A sort of musical dream with all manner crazed odd-looking characters out to get you on the midnight ghost train. Nothing overtly threatening in your face, only some thrills and spills.
If you’re looking for powerful talking statements focus your attention on the slow passionate third movement, undoubtedly hints of Shostakovich. But what makes this undoubtedly Prokofiev in its sound is its efficiency. Particularly in the self-contained third movement there’s a strong story being told with its evocative spine-tingling opening, through to it’s a high-stringed conclusion. As a whole it’s a chest-beating musical evocation of yearning, but it doesn’t get too carried away.
There’s a similar thing going on in the fourth movement. After a slow introduction, a driving rhythm signals a change of pace and direction. An insistent urgent theme from the clarinet leads a call to arms; scurrying strings tumble their way across the score with measured, taut cacophony that seems terrifying and yet strangely pleasing – like imagining the kind of thing you’d like to say in an argument if you knew that what you said would bring the argument to a resolute end – followed by a resolute sting from the brass.
When that musical idea returns for the last time recalling the opening slow introduction idea, there’s a whiff of Paul Dukas’ Sorcerers Apprentice about the whole thing. Everything careers towards an unequivocal conclusion. The kind of musical event anyone who so much as blowed or scraped a musical instrument can’t help but imagine themselves in the heart of orchestra playing along.