Subscription Concerts 2023-2024Program C
No. 2002 Subscription (Program C)

The Russian composer Liadov departed in 1914 without witnessing the October Revolution unlike Prokofiev (mentioned below), his pupil at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Coming from a musical family, Liadov was a composer and conductor both fortunate and skilled, as he was trained by his father who was the first conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre, before studying composition under Rimsky-Korsakov, celebrated as a peerless master of orchestration. Despite everything, Liadov’s thin catalog is absent of large-scale works, hence the epithet “miniaturist” is used to describe him. This is thought to be due to his complicated self-critical nature on one hand, while indolent on the other.
Among his expertly colorful miniatures is the tone poem Kikimora composed in 1909. It is, like his popular orchestral piece Baba Yaga (1904), based on a Russian fairy tale. Kikimora starts at a slow tempo with a folky tune on English horn, followed later by the sound of celesta: the female spirit Kikimora was, according to the composer, brought up in rocky mountain by a magician whose cat regaled her with fantastic old tales as she rocked in a crystal cradle. Then comes the abrupt tempo change: Kikimora is now 7 with her head no larger than a thimble and her body no wider than a straw. Liadov’s orchestra depicts here the noisy creature crying out and whistling in the daytime, while spinning flax at night with evil intentions for all the mortals.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet are likely the most famous star-crossed lovers in Western literature. The story by William Shakespeare (1564–1616) of the twosome from feuding families has inspired uncountable artists in all fields. Music world is no exception with Berlioz’s choral symphony (1839), Gounod’s opera (1867) and Bernstein’s modern remake, West Side Story (1957). Tchaikovsky’s overture-fantasy (1869/1870/1880) and his younger compatriot Prokofiev’s ballet are surely the best-known Russian adaptations.
According to Prokofiev’s reminiscences, he had originally composed for an invented happy end considering choreographic convenience. Guided by his innermost artistic intuition and following meetings with the choreographers, the composer ultimately rewrote music for the original tragic ending.
The score was written in the mid-1930s when Prokofiev, after living abroad for eighteen years, returned for good to the Stalinist USSR offering to him some carrots of fame and opportunities. Although less modernistic than before due to this historical background, Prokofiev’s music excellently depicts the Bard’s masterpiece both romantic and violent, both humorous and heart-rending. Prior to the ballet’s first staging in 1938 in Czechoslovakia, Prokofiev compiled extracts into two orchestral suites No. 1 (1936) and No. 2 (1937). Following the 1940 Soviet first staging, the composer made the orchestral suite No. 3 (1946).
The suite performed today consists of selections from these three compilations, chosen and reordered by the conductor Tugan Sokhiev himself around all the seven pieces of Prokofiev’s second suite. I The Montagues and the Capulets includes the most popular number of the ballet, Dance of the Knights: the overbearing dotted melody on violins and clarinet is accompanied by the robust low brass. V Romeo and Juliet before Parting is from the couple’s morning scene after their first night, while grievous IX Romeo at Juliet’s Grave relates the desperate hero’s suicide and then the heroine’s death. After recalling the cheerful nature of Mercutio (Romeo’s best friend) at X Masks, the present suite ends with dramatic XI Death of Tybalt from the crucial scene where Tybalt (Juliet’s cousin) kills Mercutio and then Romeo, furious, avenges him.

[Kumiko Nishi]