Since fleeing revolutionary Russia in 1918, Prokofiev had struggled to find a musical home conducive to his strikingly original talent.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

He initially spent four years in North America, where he completed two masterworks, premiered within a fortnight of each other in December 1921 \u2013 the melodically enraptured Third Piano Concerto and The Love of Three Oranges<\/i>, a scintillatingly inventive opera which epitomised his bracing creative fusion of \u2018the classical, innovative, motoric, lyrical and grotesque\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yet he never felt entirely happy on foreign soil. \u2018I wandered through Central Park,\u2019 he reflected despondently, \u2018and thought of the wonderful American orchestras that cared nothing for my music, and who recoiled at the first sign of anything new.\u2019\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The best recordings of Prokofiev\u2019s Piano Concertos<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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A move to the artistic hustle and bustle of 1920s Paris hardly improved matters. \u2018Foreign air does not inspire me because I\u2019m a Russian, the least suited of men to live in exile,\u2019 he despaired. Accordingly, much of the music he produced at this time \u2013 including the ballets Le Pas d\u2019acier<\/i> (\u2018The Steel Step\u2019) and The Prodigal Son<\/i>, the Third and Fourth Symphonies, and Fifth Piano Sonata \u2013 only fleetingly capture his inspiration operating at white heat.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
From 1929, Prokofiev<\/a> <\/strong>began reassociating himself with Mother Russia, and although Moscow hardly welcomed Le Pas d\u2019acier <\/i>with open arms, renewed contact with the Homeland appears to have inspired a poignant distillation of his musical essence in the Fifth Piano Concerto. The turning point came when \u2013 despite being unsure what \u2018sauce\u2019 to put on it \u2013 he agreed, at the author\u2019s suggestion, to compose the music for a forthcoming film adaptation of Yuri Tynyanov\u2019s waspishly comical tale, Lieutenant Khize<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\nThe story focusses on the eponymous soldier, whom Emperor Paul I assumes exists after spotting his distinctive name entered mistakenly in a set of official records. No one dares admit the clerical error, so an entire life history is quickly invented in order to save the situation. Prokofiev\u2019s initial reluctance was entirely understandable \u2013 after all, movie soundtracks were still in their infancy and he may also have been aware of the young <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/dmitri-shostakovich\/"\">Dmitri Shostakovich<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s early attempts at film music. <\/span><\/p>\nNevertheless, viewing it as a unique opportunity for his work to reach a wider audience and to collaborate with the director Aleksandr Feinzimmer on his first major feature, he set to work and produced 16 short numbers, lasting around 15 minutes.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nIn contrast to the more generalised, post-Romantic mood music prevalent at the time, Prokofiev meticulously wove his inspiration into the narrative fabric of the film, and in so doing created a melodically enchanted, emotionally beguiling soundworld that would characterise much of his music during his period of repatriation. <\/span><\/p>\nAlthough he was not especially keen on the film itself, the music was another matter. So when the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra suggested he might turn it into an orchestral suite, despite the immense task of rescoring and restructuring involved \u2013 he despaired that the suite caused him \u2018more trouble than the film itself\u2019 \u2013 he was confidant he could produce a sure-fire winner.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nRecommended recording:<\/strong><\/p>\nLieutenant Kij\u00e9 Suite: Israel PO\/Leonard Bernstein, French National Orchestra\/Lorin Maazel<\/p>\n<a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/reviews\/reissues\/prokofiev-83\/"\">Read full review<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<section class=\""highlight\"> <div class=\""highlight__content\" editor-content=\"\"> \n<ul>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/best-russian-composers\/"\">Top 10 Russian composers<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/six-best-russian-orchestral-works\/"\">Six of the best Russian orchestral works<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/six-of-the-best-pieces-of-soviet-chamber-music\/"\">Six of the best pieces of Soviet chamber music<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/six-best-lesser-known-works-soviet-composers\/"\">Six of the best lesser-known works by Soviet composers<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> \u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By BBC Music Magazine Published: Sunday, 25 December 2022 at 12:00 am Since fleeing revolutionary Russia in 1918, Prokofiev had struggled to find a musical home conducive to his strikingly original talent. He initially spent four years in North America, where he completed two masterworks, premiered within a fortnight of each other in December 1921 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23233,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/12\/how-lieutenant-kije-brought-prokofiev-back-to-russia.jpg",2126,2335,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/12\/how-lieutenant-kije-brought-prokofiev-back-to-russia-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/12\/how-lieutenant-kije-brought-prokofiev-back-to-russia-273x300.jpg",273,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/12\/how-lieutenant-kije-brought-prokofiev-back-to-russia-768x843.jpg",768,843,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/12\/how-lieutenant-kije-brought-prokofiev-back-to-russia-932x1024.jpg",800,879,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/12\/how-lieutenant-kije-brought-prokofiev-back-to-russia-1399x1536.jpg",1399,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/12\/how-lieutenant-kije-brought-prokofiev-back-to-russia-1865x2048.jpg",1865,2048,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By BBC Music Magazine Published: Sunday, 25 December 2022 at 12:00 am Since fleeing revolutionary Russia in 1918, Prokofiev had struggled to find a musical home conducive to his strikingly original talent. He initially spent four years in North America, where he completed two masterworks, premiered within a fortnight of each other in December 1921…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/23232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}