Prokofiev’s Ballade, Op. 15, for Cello and Piano

edfurse — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 08:10:01 +0000

Prokofiev wrote two works for cello and piano during his career: a Ballade – Op.15 (1912), and the large Cello Sonata in C – Op.119 (1948) written for Rostropovich. Both were produced in Russia, but one was written by an energetic young man about to graduate from the St Petersburg Conservatory and embark upon a glittering international career, and the other by a fifty-seven-year-old struggling to cope with chronic health problems and the oppressive atmosphere of Stalin’s communism. In his early twenties Prokofiev travelled across war-engulfed Europe, wrote music for Diaghilev and enjoyed considerable success in Russia, all of which was set up by the work undertaken during eight years of study in St Petersburg. While not the most radical of Prokofiev’s compositions, the Ballade provides a fascinating insight into his early work, while his diaries offer an accompanying portrait of this brilliant and temperamental young man.

Sergey Prokofiev was an only child with devoted parents and considerable talents, which were detected and developed from an early age. Having already amassed a large portfolio of compositions by the age of fourteen, he became the youngest ever student of the St Petersburg Conservatory after being introduced to Alexander Glazunov in August 1904. He moved to the city with his mother, and his distinctive perspective on life is vividly portrayed through his comprehensive diaries. In 1907 we find the composer already excelling in his exams, enjoying life at the conservatory despite being younger than most of his peers, and exclaiming that ‘in general everything seems to be going my way!’ A complex personality emerges over the following years, combining considerable confidence with a prickly resistance to criticism and dismissive attitude to others that was often perceived as arrogance. In 1911, Prokofiev boldly claims that ‘After all I was the only real composer in the Conservatoire, the others no more resembling composers than Siberian deer,’ and his diaries entries are full of spats with the various conservatory professors who could not accept the young composer’s dissonant music. As early as 1907, the young composer admits that ‘A legend about me is already in circulation: that Prokofiev cannot bear to hear two consonant notes in succession!’ and his early piano compositions were affectionately known as ‘doggies’ on account of their sharp bite. In November 1908 Glazunov is quoted as pleading with his young protege:

Of course it may be that your ears are different to mine, after all you are at least twenty-five year younger than I, but even taking that into consideration I think dissonances like this would be more effective if they were used more sparingly, just occasionally.

These diaries certainly offer fascinating insights into the music that Prokofiev was encountering at the time, contrasting favorable impressions of Wagner and Scriabin with music by Strauss that Prokofiev admits he ‘can’t accept’. He is very dismissive of Debussy and Ravel, and whilst he was one of the first to present Schoenberg’s music to the Russian public, he states that initially:

We were all appalled, perplexed and repelled at the hideous absence of music and senseless dissonances.

It is perhaps unfair to select quotes from the diaries of a young man, especially as his opinions often shifted quickly from day to day. In fact much of his diary is concerned with his relations with other students, and particularly the female colleagues who constituted the majority of the student population. On the 20th of November 1909 he worries that ‘My diary seem to have taken on an airy, romantic cast, as though I were a completely irresponsible fellow and never think of anything else.’ It would seem that many of the conservatory girls were drawn to Prokofiev’s talents and reputation, but were often inconsistent in their approach to a teenager who admitted that ‘I am frighteningly quick to take offence, and then my love turns into intense hatred.’ One friendship that endured relatively constantly was that of Nicolai Myaskovsky, who was ten years Prokofiev’s senior when they first met in 1906. The two would exchange numerous letters over the following years, discussed music regularly and earnestly, and Myaskovsky was particularly active in supporting his younger colleague and promoting his music (although in typical fashion, Prokofiev confides in his diary that he remains convinced that Myaskovsky ‘will not become a great composer: he is a superbly literate musician and his music is often beautiful, he composes a great deal, but he lacks that necessary element of brilliance or compelling originality’).

The diaries brilliantly illustrate the combination of patronage and opportunity that is essential to the promotion of any young artist, beginning with his composition lessons with Reinhold Glière as a child and continuing through the support of Glazunov and other conservatory professors such as Nikolay Tcherepnin. Prokofiev appeared at the influential ‘Evenings of Contemporary Music’ in St Petersburg from an early age and was regularly introduced to important musical figures, including potential publishers, promoters and conductors. Influential patrons such as Ozarovsky, Ossovsky and Ruzsky held ‘at homes’ where music would be played and introductions made: in January 1911 Prokofiev reports that ‘On the 2nd I was at the Ruzsky’s, where I now feel completely at home’ and that ‘Nicolay Pavlovich (Ruzsky) is the nicest person in the World and adores me.’ Prokofiev’s star was certainly rising rapidly as he reached his late teenage years, with successful piano studies under Anna Yesipova and conducting lessons with Tcherepnin (although Tcherepnin told Prokofiev that ‘you have no facility for conducting, but since I believe in you as a composer and know you will more than once have to conduct your own works, I’m going to teach you to conduct.’) in addition to his composing work. The result was a remarkable conservatoire concert in 1910 at which Prokofiev performed his own Piano Sonata No. 1 (Op.1) and also conducted his orchestral piece Dreams (Op.6). Further successes, both in St Petersburg and Moscow, caused him to write in July 1912 that ‘There is no doubt that these performances have established me as a ‘real’ composer with an enviable position relative to the musical hoi polloi.’

In his diary entry for the 7th of November 1912, Prokofiev describes his activities over the preceding summer, offering a fascinating insight into the early genesis of his Ballade (Op. 15) for cello and piano.

The Sonata finished, I turned to a Ballade for cello for Ruszky. I had been promising to write him a cello piece for two years now, but not feeling particularly drawn to chamber music I found it hard to get down to delivering my promise.

When I was twelve years old I wrote a Violin Sonata, and it had a very attractive main theme that I decided to exploit for the cello Ballade, extracting five bars from it. Just at the time when the composition of the Piano Sonata was coming to an end in Kislovodsk, Mama was leaving to go to Sukhum and I moved to stay with the Ruzsky’s, where there were naturally questions about when I was going to get down to writing the Ballade, stimulating me to improvise on my old theme. In short, once the Piano Sonata was finished, the material for the Ballade was already composed in my head and I was able to realize it quite easily. Actually putting it together involved a fair amount of work, but I managed to do it before leaving Kislovodsk, so that before I left for St Petersburg a complete sketch of the Ballade was ready.

All the same, however equipped I was to write for the piano, and although I had good instincts and a sound grasp of orchestration, I was not well prepared technically to write chamber music. Bringing the cello and piano parts of the Ballade into good order and balance cost me much labour, but the more the work continued the easier it became. Aside from this there was a mass of things to do in Petersburg, and so it was the end of October before I finished the piece. The Sonata Op. 14 and the Ballade, Op. 15 were thus the fruits of my summer work.

Following the dramatic curtain-raising introductory chords in the piano part, it is presumably the theme in bars 4 to 8 of the Ballade that represents the five bars borrowed from his early attempt at a violin sonata, and this theme certainly dominates the rest of the work.

For those with an interest in the work, and access to a score: Prokofiev’s Ballade is essentially in three main sections, of which the latter two may also be divided into two parts. These divisions are clearly indicated by double-bar markings in the score, and Prokofiev heightens the effect of this structure by reusing the music of the opening section at the end of each of the other main sections; keeping the same notes in the cello part, but presenting the music in very different guises. The structure of the work may be represented as follows:

1. Main theme and primary material.

2a. Second theme and build towards following section.

2b. Return of the music from section 1, in a new setting and louder/ more animated.

3a. Third theme with new material.

3b. Return of the music from section 1, considerably quieter and more understated.

Section 1 begins with the introduction and main theme referred to above, before immediately embarking on a five bar excursion that illustrates the more chromatic musical language that Prokofiev had cultivated in the intervening years. While not the most radical music that Prokofiev was writing at this time, the cello part is well-conceived and soars above the piano’s quaver movement that begins at figure 1. The main theme returns at a stronger dynamic and more prominent register, before reaching a climax in the eleventh bar of figure 2, complete with four bars of threatening chords in the piano part.

On the 16th of November 1913, over a year since the initial composition of the Ballade, Prokofiev writes in his diary of a meeting with the acclaimed cellist Beloúsov. He notes that:

Among other things he suggested that the second subject should be played pizzicato, an idea of which I approved.

The combination of this pizzicato and the low, extremely dense piano chords gives a distinctive colour to the start of this section, with the lack of harmony or melody replaced by strong percussive rhythm and drive, complete with forte outburst and accents that punctuate the generally quiet dynamic. Onto this base Prokofiev then starts to add other fragments, first employing a melody in the piano (the first time that the piano has had melodic material of its own) at figure 4 that is marked molto espressivo despite its pianissimo dynamic. The motor rhythm is maintained in the left hand however, and the composer conspicuously increases the tension with the proceeding piu animato. The cello sound is now made more indistinct by employing the mute in addition to playing pizzicato, and while the piano is marked ppp to keep it well balanced with the quieter cello voice, there is also a staccatissimo marking and increase in activity to maintain the music’s momentum. At figure 5 Prokofiev cleverly weaves the piece’s main theme into this texture, whilst the cello continues with its pizzicato. The section continues in this manner, with various other techniques employed to heighten the tension and momentum, including semiquavers in cello part from the thirteenth bar of figure 5, a further piu mosso marking twelve before figure 6, a steady increase of activity in the piano part, and the arrival of octaves in the cello part four before figure 6. These octaves are marked tenebruso, meaning ‘murky’, and despite the fortissimo outbursts from figure 6, Prokofiev ensures that the music relentlessly moves forward into the double-bar twelve after figure 6.

The start of section 2b wouldn’t necessarily be immediately audible to the audience, for whilst the cello part returns to material from earlier in the piece, there is no disruption to the momentum which has been building up during the preceding bars. The piano continues to drive forward with a new 6/4 time signature in the right hand against accented 4/4 crotchets in the left. The various increases in tempo, including yet another piu mosso at this moment, suggest that Prokofiev intends for the work’s primary material to reappear here at a similar speed to its original setting, even though the note lengths are twice as long. The result is a satisfying reemergence of this music, complete with accents, fortissimo and even fff markings to encourage the cellist to try and maintain a good balance above the torrid piano writing. Allargando and molto tenuto markings emphasize the return of the main theme eight bars before 8, before the climax is reached in the seventh bar of 8, now with the addition of chromatic 6/4 crotchets in the piano’s left hand. This could be the end of the work, but Prokofiev instead dissipates the music’s energy through tremolando cello writing and a decrease in both speed and dynamic, to prepare the Andante with which the third section of the piece begins.

This Andante immediately conjures an entirely new atmosphere: the cellist asked to play without expression, whilst the pianist plays hypnotic chords that are pedaled over two bars at a time so as to blur the edges. With the scene aptly set, the pianist is allowed a rare moment of solitude with which to introduce the melancholy dolce theme that lies at the heart of this third section. When the cello returns at figure 9, it does not immediately embrace this material, but presents a new muted theme that is dominated by eerie chromatic oscillations and jerky semi-quaver movement, and here begins another intoxicating build-up of tension into which Prokofiev starts to weave increasingly melodic strains. First a single melodic bar appears in the cello’s theme six after figure 9, marked espressivo here and tristamente when it occurs later in the build-up, followed by molto espressivo exchanges between cello and piano and another steady increase of activity in the piano part. The culmination comes in a climax at the end of the sixth bar of figure 10, when the cello soars to its upper register to finally exclaim in fortissimo the section’s main theme. On the 5th of March 1913, Prokofiev writes that:

I got up, dressed and made some corrections to the Ballade. In the score of The Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky) I came across the marking piagendo, which appeared most apposite to a particular episode in the Ballade.

This marking of piagendo, meaning ‘crying’, is applied here to what must represent the emotional climax of the work, with the cello weeping above an espressivo piano part that cleverly incorporates the cello’s theme from figure 9. As the music’s energy wanes after this point, Prokofiev continues to weave fragments of the section’s themes around one another, before the piano’s Eb to Db oscillations that end the section.

The Allegro tranquillo that ends the work is set in a pianissimo dream-like state that reminisces over the work’s primary material. High chords in the piano’s right hand initially continue playing the theme from the previous section, but the left hand reproduces the introduction from the start of the piece, and the cellist reintroduces the main theme in the fifth bar. Pp and ppp sempre indications maintain the section’s distinctive atmosphere, while fragments of important material are brought out with dolce or dolcissimo marks. It’s certainly an effective way to set the work’s main material after the angst and emotion that preceded it, and the music is allowed to drift away into low murky chords and the bare pp minor-third that ends the work.

Written at the request of Nikolay Pavlovich Ruzsky, it was this friend and patron with whom Prokofiev initially played the Ballade, although the composer is less than complimentary regarding these informal performances. Having tried the work with a conservatoire cellist on the 5th of December 1912, Prokofiev notes that he ‘played like Ruzsky, that is to say he managed all the notes, but not very well,’ while on the 21st the composer reports that:

I dined at the Ruszky’s and played my Ballade with him, he likes it more and more and promises to learn it properly so that he will be able to play it really well. Meanwhile his intonation is cruelly out in the Andante. I pay no attention to the girls, and they do their best to return the compliment, but they are at a disadvantage; their Papa keeps praising the Ballade to the skies so they can’t very well ignore me.

More play-throughs are reported over the following months, including this entry on the 22nd of February 1913 that finds the composer in rather impetuous mood:

We played the Ballade. Perhaps I was tired, but his performance gave me no pleasure. Stuffing the music back into my case, I went home.

It was therefore with great interest that Prokofiev approached a forthcoming performance in Moscow with cellist Yevsey Beloúsov (which also included the premiere of Myaskovsky’s first cello sonata). While seemingly initially rather unconvinced as to Beloúsov’s talents, on the 16th of November Prokofiev writes that:

At four o’clock went to see Mayaskusha, who had Beloúsov with him at the time. Myaskovsky has succeeded in persuading him of the merits of my Ballade, and today we played it through twice. This was the most tremendous pleasure for me: the first time I had heard the piece played as it should be. Beloúsov played all the notes accurately; the upper register of the cello sang and keened; the intonation was impeccable, as firm as if it were on the keyboard; all the climaxes and thunderous crescendos were in place – in a word, I was in ecstasy.

The performance occurred on the 23rd of January 1914, and while Prokofiev does not seem to have enjoyed it so much on this occasion, he certainly reveled in the process of working with Beloúsov and had much praise for his approach to the work. Experiences with other cellists include a performance with Yakov Rosenstein in 1914, about which Prokofiev writes that,

I was not expecting it to be anything like as good as with Beloúsov, but in fact Rosenstein showed a lot of temperament, tone and liveliness: it was very decent performance and his pizzicato was even faster than Beloúsov’s.

while on the 29th of March he writes that the cellist Bezrodny played the the Ballade ‘very well and, the most important thing, with enjoyment.’

Prokofiev initially offered the Ballade to his publisher Jurgensen (Moscow) as early as February 1913 and considered sending it to the Russian Music Edition in March of that year (although he was sure that Rachmaninov would vote against him), but he is still found to be making considerable changes to the score by the middle of 1914. The pizzicato and piagendo additions have already been mentioned above, but various other diary entries make vague comments such as ‘worked on the ballade and corrected a few things.’ Even as he prepares to send the Ballade to Jurgensen in April 1914, Prokofiev writes that:

Yesterday Myaskovsky argued strongly that I should remove one of the changes I had made – a new sequence of descending chords – and even sent me a letter on the subject. I bowed to his wishes.

This gives us a fascinating insight into the composer’s working practices, and shows how much the work evolved over almost two years. Having subsequently had the Ballade rejected by his publisher due to a backlog of other works, Prokofiev rejected a fifty ruble offer from Bessel in May 1914, before finally accepting 150 rubles from the St Petersburg branch of Jurgensen a week later; finally completing work on the proof in September of that year.

Reception to the work seems to have been quite mixed, although it was clearly held in high esteem by the composer himself. Ruzsky was inevitably keen on the work, but when Prokofiev played it to Yurasovsky, Glière and Bryskin in February 1913 (on an ‘atrocious piano’) he reports that they ‘listened but had nothing to say, not understanding much about it.’ On the 22nd of January 1914 Prokofiev reports that ‘Myaskovsky, Saradzhev and Derzhanovsky are all ecstatic over my Ballade, especially Myaskovsky,’ and the composer chose this work as his chamber music work for the conservatoire graduation exams in spring of 1914. Initial reaction from his chamber music tutor was not altogether positive (not necessarily an unusual reaction from conservatoire professors to Prokofiev’s work), and on the 28th of March 1914 the composer writes:

Worked in the morning and in the afternoon went into the Conservatoire to play the Ballade with Bezrodny for Blumenfeld, who said he could not understand anything about the piece, and even if he could he did not care for it. Nevertheless, he made us play it again, and made a whole series of pertinent comments, touching not only the way we performed the piece but drawing attention to places where bass notes were double, etc. He wants to continue working on it and bring it back to him.

During the performance for the exam itself in April, Prokofiev reports that,

I heard Lyapunov spread out his arms in a gesture of disbelief and Blumenfeld occasionally laughed out loud. The audience greeted and listened to us in complete silence – but then there are never more than twenty or thirty people at a chamber music exam. Still I was a little chagrined, however prepared I may have been for a muted response since, strange as it seems to me, the Ballade seems fated not to be understood at first hearing.

while he also struggled to persuade Glazunov to give him any constructive feedback:

I asked him what he had though of the Ballade. He avoided saying anything directly, but talked about the pizzicato passage, perhaps it ought to be transposed an octave higher so that it would be better heard? Everyone seems fixated on the pizzicato.

The work doesn’t seem as controversial to modern ears, but it is certainly interesting to imagine which sections were so unpalatable to his professors’ ears. Prokofiev was perhaps disappointed that listeners weren’t able to immediately appreciate the intelligent ways in which he had reused and intertwined the various themes that make up his Ballade, or the wealth of compositional tricks alluded to above. Whether or not it is immediately appreciable upon first hearing, this is certainly an excellent piece of chamber music that benefits from closer inspection.

Edward Furse ~ Blog

Dvorak Songs for Cello and Piano – Available to buy

Prokofiev’s Ballade, Op. 15, for Cello and Piano