Riccardo Chailly conducts Prokofiev

Film music, ballets, symphonies – Prokofiev could write absolutely anything and was rarely at a loss for catchy melodies. Riccardo Chailly has given the orchestral wizard pride of place on this programme featuring the captivating cantata Alexander Nevsky, in which the Concertgebouw Orchestra joins forces with two large choirs and celebrated mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk. Prokofiev’s adventurous, far too rarely performed Symphony No. 4 is programmed before the interval. In this work Prokofiev reused material from an unfinished ballet. Riccardo Chailly conducts the second, much improved, version from 1947. The second movement in particular is one of the finest hidden gems in the orchestral repertoire.

Alexander Nevsky was the result of an extraordinary collaboration between the composer Sergey Prokofiev and the film director Sergey Eisenstein, who had great admiration for each other. Prokofiev took the best parts of the film score to forge a floridly orchestrated cantata, with songs brimming with tragedy, suspense and folk melodies.

On Alexander Nevsky

Like many other twentieth-century compositions, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, composed at the height of Stalin’s regime, is linked to nationalist ideologies. The text, about a thirteenth-century prince who defeated the invaders, glorifies the collective identity and moral righteousness of ‘the Russian people’. However, performing the cantata is not the same as endorsing its nationalistic content. The Concertgebouw Orchestra wishes to emphasise that performing the work in the context of a concert allows it to be listened to critically, as a historical artefact and as music, rather than to be used as a means of state propaganda.

Conductor Riccardo Chailly says: ‘I focus solely on the artistic value. It is a masterpiece. Period. Great artists of the past, such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich, must be protected from any association with the current regime.’