Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev)

''Alexander Nevsky'', film score (1938)

Composition history

Publication history

Performance history

Instrumentation

• Strings: violins I & II, violas, cellos, double basses
• Woodwinds: piccolo, 2 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets
• Brass: 4 horns, 5 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass trombone, 2 tubas
• Percussion: timpani, 2 snare drums, bass drum, cymbals, 2 tambourines, wood block, rattle, triangle, xylophone, tubular bells, tamtam, gong
• Other: 2 harps, piano
• Banda: 2 horns, tierhorn, 2 trumpets, tenor flügelhorn

  Cues

Structure

1. 'Ravaged Rus'': 1, 12
2. "It happened on the Neva River": 2, 3, 22, 27
3. 'The Crusaders': 5, 6, 14, 16
4. 'He Who Died a Noble Death for Rus'': 6, 20
5. 'Horn Call of the Crusaders': 6, 14, 16, 19
6. "Peregrinus expectavi": 6, 11, 14, 16
7. "Arise, Russian people!": 7, 10
8. "To the living fighter esteem and honor": 7, 10, 15, 19
9. "In our native Rus'": 7, 8, 9, 10, 22, 25
10. "The enemy shall not occupy Rus'": 7, 10, 15, 19
11. 'Cavalry Attack': 15, 19
12. 'Skomorokhi': 16, 26
13. "I shall go over the white field": 20, 21, 22, 24
14. 'The Prisoners': 22, 23

    ''Alexander Nevsky'', cantata, Op. 78 (1939)

Composition history

"Once the film made it to the screen I had the desire to rework the music for symphonic orchestra and chorus. To create a cantata out of the music wasn't easy; I ended up expending much more labor on it than the original film. I first needed to provide it with an exclusively musical foundation, arranged in accord with the logic of musical form, with purely symphonic development, and then completely reorchestrated—since scoring for orchestra is of an entirely different than scoring for a film. Despite my effort this second time around to approach the music from an exclusively symphonic perspective, the pictorial element from Eisenstein's film obviously remained."
«После того, как фильм появился на экране, у меня возникло желание использовать музыку для симфонического произведения с хором. Это была нелегкая работа, и для того, чтобы сделать из этой музыки кантату, мне пришлось затратить гораздо более трудов, чем при первоначальном сочинении ее для фильма. Прежде всего требовалось подвести под нее чисто музыкальные основания, построить согласно музыкальной формы, развить ее чисто симфонически, затем все наново переоркестровать, ибо оркестровка симфоническая совсем другого порядка, чем оркестровка для фильма. Несмотря на мое старание подходить к музыке во время этой второй моей работы с чисто симфонической точки зрения, в ней остался известный элемент живописности, идущий от фильма и Эйзенштейна.»

Publication history

• 1939, 'Three songs from the film Alexander Nevsky', Op. 78a, Muzgiz, Moscow; the numbers were:

1. "Arise, Russian People"
2. "Answer, Bright Falcons"
3. "It Happened on the Neva River"

• 1941, Alexander Nevsky, cantata for mezzo-soprano, mixed chorus, and orchestra, Op. 78, Muzgiz, Moscow

  Performance history

Instrumentation

• Strings: violins I & II, violas, cellos, double basses
• Woodwinds: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon
• Brass: 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba
• Percussion: timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tambourine, maracas, wood block, triangle, tubular bells, tamtam, glockenspiel, xylophone
• Other: harp

  Movements

1. "Rus' under the Mongol Yoke": The opening movement begins slowly, and in C minor. It is meant to evoke an image of destruction, as brought to Rus' by the invading Mongols.

1. "The Battle on the Ice": The fifth movement is arguably the climax of the cantata. It represents the final clash between Nevsky's forces and the Teutonic Knights on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus in 1242. The quietly ominous beginning is contrasted by the jarring middle section, which is cacophonous in style.
2. "The Field of the Dead": Composed in C minor, the sixth movement is the lament of a girl seeking her lost lover, as well as kissing the eyelids of all the dead. The vocal solo is performed by a mezzo-soprano.

1. "Alexander's Entry into Pskov": The seventh and final movement echoes the second movement in parts, and recalls Alexander's triumphant return to Pskov.

Text analysis

Versions by other hands

Film score reconstruction by William Brohn (1987)

" had orchestrated his score for a small recording studio orchestra, intending to achieve orchestral balances through miking techniques... However, partly because of Prokofiev's intent to experiment with the new soundstage recording techniques, the soundtrack for Alexander Nevsky is a disaster. Ironically, the best film score ever written is probably the worst soundtrack ever recorded. The intonation of the instruments and of the chorus is sad, and the frequency range is limited to 5,000 Herz . This in the period when Hollywood was turning out Gone with the Wind and Disney's Fantasia.
In 1986, realizing that the Cantata contained virtually all the musical ideas of the film, I considered the possibility of overcoming the limitations of the original soundtrack by finding a way to perform this most monumental of all film scores with a full symphony orchestra and chorus accompanying the film in the concert hall. Crucial to the approach was that in the Cantata we had Prokofiev's own orchestration. If we could work out the technical issues, we could achieve a completely authentic re-creation of the film score which would allow audiences to hear what Prokofiev heard when he saw the magnificent images created by Eisenstein.
I engaged the brilliant orchestrator Bill Brohn to use the cantata to re-create the film score, both of us committed to the authenticity of the project from the beginning.
So here, more than 50 years after the conception of Alexander Nevsky, we can witness the extraordinary visual imagination of Prokofiev captured in a soundtrack recording of what is probably the greatest film score ever written, in the authentic and unmistakable musical hand of its author."

• Strings: violins I & II, violas, cellos, double basses
• Woodwinds: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon
• Brass: 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba
• Percussion: timpani, snare drum, tom-tom, bass drum, cymbals, gong, tambourine, maracas, woodblock, anvil, steel plate, triangle, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone
• Other: harp, organ

  Recordings