| Scythian Suite | |
|---|---|
| Orchestral suite by Sergei Prokofiev | |
 Sergei Prokofiev in 1918 | |
| Opus | 20 |
| Composed | 1915 |
| Movements | Four |
| Scoring | Orchestra |
| Premiere | |
| Date | 16 January 1916 |
| Location | St. Petersburg |
| Conductor | Sergei Prokofiev |
The Scythian Suite, Op. 20 is an orchestral suite by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1915.
Prokofiev originally wrote the music for the ballet Ala i Lolli, the story of which takes place among the Scythians. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet was written to a scenario by Russian poet Sergey Gorodetsky. [1] [2] But when Diaghilev rejected the score even before its completion, [3] the composer reworked the music into a suite for concert performance. [4]
The suite was premiered on 16/29 January 1916 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, conducted by the composer. [5]
A scheduled Moscow performance of the suite that December was cancelled at the last minute due to the difficulty of finding musicians to play the piece; [6] it called for an enlarged orchestra and, as many performers had been mobilized due to World War I, enough players could not be found. Nevertheless, the Moscow music critic Leonid Sabaneyev gave the music a scathing review. [7] Prokofiev responded that the supposed performance must have been a product of Sabaneyev's imagination, as the only copy of the score was in the composer's hands and thus he had not even been able to see it.
The suite is in four movements and lasts around 20 minutes.
The music is scored for a large orchestra:
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The Bermuda Triangle (1978) is an electronic adaptation by Isao Tomita that includes the first movement (The Adoration of Veles and Ala) of the Scythian Suite. [9]
The track "The Enemy God Dances with the Black Spirits" on Works Volume 1 by progressive rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer is an arrangement of the second movement.
The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, performed the piece during Metallica's S&M2 concerts at Chase Center, San Francisco on September 6 and 8, 2019.
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Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev, also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.
Roger Désormière was a French conductor. He was an enthusiastic champion of contemporary composers, but also conducted performances of early eighteenth century French music.
Isao Tomita, often known simply as Tomita, was a Japanese composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements. In addition to creating note-by-note realizations, Tomita made extensive use of the sound-design capabilities of his instrument, using synthesizers to create new sounds to accompany and enhance his electronic realizations of acoustic instruments. He also made effective use of analog music sequencers and the Mellotron, and featured futuristic science-fiction themes, while laying the foundations for synth-pop music and trance-like rhythms. Many of his albums are electronic versions and adaptations of familiar classical music pieces. He received four Grammy Award nominations for his 1974 album based on music by Claude Debussy, Snowflakes Are Dancing.
Serge Koussevitzky was a Russian and American conductor, composer, and double-bassist, known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949.
Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4 is actually two works, both using material created for The Prodigal Son ballet. The first, Op. 47, was completed in 1930 and premiered that November; it lasts about 22 minutes. The second, Op. 112, is too different to be termed a "revision"; made in 1947, it is about 37 minutes long, differs stylistically from the earlier work, reflecting a new context, and differs formally as well in its grander instrumentation.
The Firebird is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who collaborated with Alexandre Benois and others on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. It was first performed at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame and leading to future Diaghilev–Stravinsky collaborations including Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913).
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64, is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. First composed in 1935, it was substantially revised for its Soviet premiere in early 1940. Prokofiev made from the ballet three orchestral suites and a suite for solo piano.
Sergei Prokofiev began his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19, as a concertino in 1915 but soon abandoned it to work on his opera The Gambler. He returned to the concerto in the summer of 1917. It was premiered on October 18, 1923 at the Paris Opera with Marcel Darrieux playing the violin part and the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Igor Stravinsky made his debut as conductor at the same concert, conducting the first performance of his own Octet for Wind Instruments.
On the Dnieper, Op. 51, is a ballet in two scenes with prelude and epilogue by Sergei Prokofiev. Composed in 1931 as his fourth work in the genre, it resulted from a commission by the Ballet de l'Opéra National de Paris after the unexpected death in 1929 of Ballets Russes founder Sergei Diaghilev and after the success of The Prodigal Son. The premiere took place in 1932; a year later Prokofiev extracted an orchestral suite from the work, Op. 51 bis, using six of its twelve movements.
Prodigal Son, or Le Fils prodigue, Op. 46 is a ballet created for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes by George Balanchine to music by Sergei Prokofiev (1928–29). The libretto, based on the parable in the Gospel of Luke, was by Boris Kochno, who added a good deal of drama and emphasized the theme of sin and redemption ending with the Prodigal Son's return.
Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé music was originally written to accompany the film of the same name, produced by the Belgoskino film studios in Leningrad in 1933–34 and released in March 1934. It was Prokofiev's first attempt at film music, and his first commission.
Chout, Op. 21, is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev. It was originally composed in 1915, then extensively revised at the request of Serge Diaghilev in 1921. The composer extracted an orchestral suite from it, Op. 21 bis. The ballet's full title is Tale of the Jester Who Outwits Seven Other Jesters. The most commonly used title for the work is based on the French transliteration of the Russian word for "jester", shut.
Le pas d'acier, Op. 41, is a 1926 ballet in two scenes containing eleven dances composed by Sergei Prokofiev. Prokofiev also created a four-movement orchestral suite from the ballet.
Leonid Leonidovich Sabaneyev or Sabaneyeff or Sabaneev was a Russian musicologist, music critic, composer and scientist. He was the son of Leonid Pavlovich Sabaneyev, a famous hunting expert, and his brother Boris was also a musician.
Yuri Fyodorovich Fayer, was a Soviet conductor specializing in ballet. He was the chief ballet conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre from 1923 to 1963.
Christopher Francis Palmer was an English author, arranger, orchestrator and composer. He was also a biographer of composers, champion of lesser-known composers and commentator on film music and other musical subjects; record producer; and lecturer. Involved in a very wide range of projects, his output was prodigious and he came to be regarded as one of the finest symphonic orchestrators of his generation. He was dedicated to the conservation, recording and promotion of classic film scores by composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Miklós Rózsa, Elmer Bernstein and others. He wrote full biographies as well as sleeve notes, radio scripts, reviews and articles on composers such as Benjamin Britten, Frederick Delius, Karol Szymanowski, Arthur Bliss, George Dyson, Herbert Howells, Maurice Ravel, Nikolai Tcherepnin and others.
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Russian Overture, Op. 72, is an overture composed in 1936 by Sergei Prokofiev.
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