David Nice.  PROKOFIEV: FROM RUSSIA TO THE WEST 1891-1935.  New Haven &
London: Yale University Press, c.2003.

Comparison:

Harlow Robinson.  SERGEI PROKOFIEV, A BIOGRAPHY.  With a new foreword
and afterword by the author.  Boston: Northeastern University Press,
2002. (Original publication Viking Penguin, 1987.)

Daniel Jaffe'.  SERGEY PROKOFIEV.  (20th Century Composers Series)
London: Phaidon, 1998.

SELECTED LETTERS OF SERGEI PROKOFIEV. Translated, edited and introduced
by Harlow Robinson.  Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998.

Sergei Prokofiev, one of the most gifted of 20th Century composers,
and one with one of the most distinctive voices, began as the bad boy
of Russian music, because even as a young and prolific student composer
he insisted on going his own way harmonically and rhythmically.  When
he first went to America the term Scythian clung to him and his music.
Parisian audiences considered him retrograde, after having heard Stravinsky,
and Prokofiev ended his career trying to write music that was simple and
popularly accessible as if his life depended on it.  It very probably
did.  He still was not able to get much of it past the bureaucratic
censors in the Soviet Union and he, along with Shostakovich, Khatchaturian
and Myaskovski, was condemned, five years before he died, as a "formalist."
His biographer Harlow Robinson has called him a musical elitist, though
not a social snob.  All his life he had a terrible time getting his
operas and ballets produced, even after they had been commissioned and
accepted, and some of them did not premiere until long after his death.

It was a surprise to me to learn that his ballet Romeo and Juliet, a
popular staple of the modern repertoire, was considered undanceable at
first, because it has a degree of syncopation that Tchaikovsky's ballets
do not.  Not until the music became familiar though the suites Prokofiev
then compiled did it become acceptable to the Kirov dancers.  A fascinating
episode involving Prokofiev and Galena Ulanova, the first Juliet occurred
at a celebration: when Prokofiev danced an ordinary foxtrot with her,
she had great difficulty following his lead until she eventually caught
his "unusual and utterly marvelous rhythm." (Robinson, 374.) She had
begun to wonder if she could dance at all!

Prokofiev re-wrote a number of his works repeatedly, either because of
personal dissatisfaction or objections from directors and bureaucrats.
The most galling of the latter sort again involved Romeo and Juliet,
where there was actual meddling and re-writing of some music by others.
This kind of outrage was unusual, but from the time of his early
collaboration with Diaghilev, who commissioned several ballets, he often
rewrote on request.  Diaghilev considered him, if anything, too pliable.
Prokofiev actually liked to write some music to close general specifications,
as in the case of his film scores.  He worked pleasurably with Eisenstein
and Meyerhold, until the latter came to a dreadful end in Stalin's purges.
His first (unperformed) ballet for Diaghilev was rewritten as the Scythian
Suite.  His Third Symphony came from themes of Fiery Angel, and the
Fourth Symphony came from themes of Prodigal Son, and was rewritten
later.  His Sinfonietta was rewritten more than once and has more than
one opus number.  His method of working was a matter of impressively
steady daily work rather than a matter of inspired spurts and rests.
Interestingly, some of his most popular works, such as the Classical
Symphony, the Fifth Symphony, Peter and the Wolf, and the violin concerti,
were written quickly and easily.

Prokofiev's personal life included as much tragedy as his professional
life.  He left Russia during the Revolution, after he had completed his
studies, and returned at the worst possible time, just before the great
purges began in the late 1930's.  He had been considered a foreigner in
the West and when he returned to Russia after many years abroad he was
considered a foreigner there, too, and envied his international success
besides.  Some of that success was based on his powerful pianism; an
observer said he appeared to have fingers of steel.  It did not help
that personally, Prokofiev appeared to be arrogant, condescending,
tactless, and even cruel sometimes.  However, he succeeded in holding
the lifelong friendship of Myaskovski and he promoted the works of that
composer and other Russian composers in the West.  Prokofiev gained the
love of several women, one of whom was foiled in her attempt to elope
with him, and two of whom married him.  He abandoned his first wife,
Lina, his nearly-grown sons, and their luxurious apartment, after many
years, to be with a woman half his age, named Mira.  Lina later disappeared
into Stalin's gulag, right at the time Prokofiev himself was in trouble,
and right at the time Sergey and Mira married (without a prior divorce,
and avoiding bigamy only by the technicality that the first marriage
was not recognized in the Soviet union.) Mira stayed with him until his
death, which followed several years of bad health following a concussion,
and which happened to occur on the same day as Stalin's, in 1953.

The most satisfying of these biographies, all of which include attention
to life, works and times, is the oldest, Robinson's and his edition of
Prokofiev's correspondence adds much to one's understanding of the
biographical use of these sources.  Much of what I said above is based
on Robinson's work.  His biography is long enough to give a full narrative
account, in addition to meaningful musical commentary, and is clearly
written.

I really wish I could say the same about the initial volume of David
Nice's which, although seemingly well researched is not terribly well
written and would have profited from another draft or two, or a really
good editor.  The book could also benefit from a bit of reorganization,
bringing together more of what is said about various works.  Its outstanding
stylistic fault is a frequent and maddening lack of clarity stemming
from sentences and paragraphs crowded with reference to different persons
or things which then are referred back to with pronouns rather than
names.  The reader must then wonder which one he is referring to and
sometimes this requires an inference.  That really slows one down.  I
hope the second volume will read better.  Certainly the second volume,
on Prokofiev's Soviet years, is to be much looked forward to, because
Robinson's biography was written before the end of the Soviet Union, and
many more sources are presumably available now.

Among the things I learned about Prokofiev from Nice is detail about
Prokofiev's initial dislike, or failure to appreciate if you will, of
major works by his contemporaries, Debussy or Ravel, for instance, as
well as Roussel and Stravinsky.  Prokofiev told Stravinsky that the
opening theme of The Firebird was original with Rimsky-Korsakov.  No
surprise that Prokofiev and Stravinsky never became close.  Prokofiev
did not like Stravinsky's neoclassicism, in spite of having written his
Classsical Symphony and Sinfonietta, in a passing phase.  The Classical
Symphony, by the way, about which one will look in vain for an adequate
discussion in any of these books, except for the brief Gavotte, was the
result of its composer's studies with Tcherepnin, who liked Haydn and
Mozart, and whom Prokofief held in the kind of regard he did not extend
to Liadov or Glazounov.  (His first tutor as a child in the countryside
was the young Gliere, incidentally.)

Nice includes a great deal of commentary about particular works, with
extensive musical examples, which the other authors do not include.
He discusses Prokofiev's songs and piano pieces, even the early ones,
in detail.  Much of his focus is on dissonant harmony, to a degree I
find a bit strange.

For anyone looking for a relatively brief book on Prokofiev's life
and work, beautifully printed and lavishly illustrated, I can strongly
recommend Daniel Jaffe's.  It covers Prokofiev's whole life and career,
with enough detail on the works and their composition to make it a useful
reference in addition to a good read.  In fact, I bought it after reading
it, not before.

Jim Tobin
Copyright 2004 by R. James Tobin