Lieutenant Kijé (Prokofiev)
's Lieutenant Kijé music was originally written to accompany the film of the same name, produced by the Belgoskino film studios in Leningrad in 1933–34 and released in March 1934. It was Prokofiev's first attempt at film music, and his first commission.
In the early days of sound cinema, among the various distinguished composers ready to try their hand at film music, Prokofiev was not an obvious choice for the commission. Based in Paris for almost a decade, he had a reputation for experimentation and dissonance, characteristics at odds with the cultural norms of the Soviet Union. By early 1933, however, Prokofiev was anxious to return to his homeland, and saw the film commission as an opportunity to write music in a more popular and accessible style.
After the film's successful release, the five-movement Kijé suite was first performed in December 1934, and quickly became part of the international concert repertoire. It has remained one of the composer's best-known and most frequently recorded works. Elements of the suite's score have been used in several later films, and in two popular songs of the Cold War era.
Background
Expatriate composer
graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1914, having by then acquired an early reputation as an avant-garde composer. His biographer Israel Nestyev asserts that the Second Piano Concerto of 1913 was "Prokofiev's ticket of admission to the highest circles of Russian modernism".When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Prokofiev avoided military service, possibly because he was the only son of a widow. During the war years he continued to compose; in May 1918, in the period of upheaval following the October Revolution and the beginning of the Civil War, Prokofiev obtained permission from the Bolshevik government to travel abroad, and left for America. His biographers have maintained that he did not "flee the country"; rather that he embarked on a concert tour, which he extended when he became convinced that his career prospects would be better served in America and western Europe. He remained in America until March 1922; he then stayed briefly in the small German town of Ettal before moving to Paris in October 1923.
Rather than treating Prokofiev as a fugitive or exile, the Moscow government chose to consider him as a general ambassador for Soviet culture, and the composer returned the compliment by registering in France as a citizen of the Soviet Union, the new state formed on 30 December 1922 by Russia and the states of the former Russian Empire. Prokofiev expressed support for the political developments in what he still considered his homeland, and was keen to resume contacts there. He was accorded VIP status when he paid his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1927, for a recital tour. Further trips followed, and in 1930 Prokofiev took a flat in Moscow, although Paris remained his principal home. During this period of rapprochement he consciously sought to simplify his musical language into a form that he believed would be consistent with the official Soviet concept of art.
Growth of film music
In the first years of the silent film era, from the 1890s, films were generally accompanied by live music, often improvised, provided by piano or pump organ. In the early 20th century, larger cinemas began to use orchestras, which would accompany the film with out-of-copyright classical pieces or, increasingly, with original compositions. The score for the 1916 classic The Birth of a Nation, compiled by Joseph Carl Breil from various classical works and some original writing, was a landmark in film music, and inspired notable composers of the day to provide scores for silent films. Among these were the Americans Victor Herbert and Mortimer Wilson, from France Darius Milhaud and Arthur Honegger, and the Germans Gottfried Huppertz and Edmund Meisel.In 1927 developments in sound technology brought the arrival of "talking pictures". In these, accompanying music was originally recorded on a disc, separately from the film images, but within two years the "Movietone" system enabled sound to be captured on the film itself. Music could now be aligned specifically with the film's on-screen action—the so-called "diegetic" approach. Early pioneers of this method were the Germans Friedrich Hollaender and Karol Rathaus, who provided the music for The Blue Angel and The Murderer Dimitri Karamazov respectively. By this time in the Soviet Union, the young Dmitri Shostakovich had already begun his prolific career as a composer of film sound-tracks, with The New Babylon in 1929 and Alone in 1931.
When planning their proposed film Lieutenant Kijé in 1932, the Belgoskino studios of Leningrad asked the expatriate Prokofiev to write the accompanying music. In some respects Prokofiev was a surprising choice; he was at this stage better known abroad than in the Soviet Union, and had acquired a reputation for dissonance. Moreover, his ballet Le pas d'acier had fared badly at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 1929. The composer's first response was to refuse the commission; a member of the production team recalled that Prokofiev "categorically rejected my proposal. His time was scheduled far into the future, he had never written music for film and he didn't know 'what kind of sauce' to put on it." But, attracted by the story, Prokofiev quickly changed his mind and accepted, seeing this first venture into film music as an opportunity to demonstrate his ability to appeal to a mass Soviet audience.
1934 film
Inception
Lieutenant Kijé was one of the earliest sound films made in the Soviet Union. The origin of the story was a 1927 screenplay by the critic and novelist Yury Tynyanov, written for the Soviet film director Sergei Yutkevich. This project failed, and Tynyanov recast his script into a novella that was published in January 1928. In the early 1930s, when the Belgoskino studios announced their interest in making the film, Tynyanov produced a second script. The story has been described by Prokofiev's biographer Harlow Robinson as "a satire on the stupidity of royalty and the particularly Russian terror of displeasing one's superior". By his own account Prokofiev was at this time "restive, and afraid of falling into academism"; a later critic thought the Kijé story provided ideal material for this "so-often caustic and witty composer".Plot
In the Russian Imperial Palace, while Tsar Paul I sleeps, a dalliance between two courtiers ends with a shriek which wakens the tsar. Enraged, he demands that his officials produce the culprit or face banishment for life. Meanwhile, a clerk's slip of the pen while compiling a military duty roster results in the inclusion in the list of a fictitious officer, "Lieutenant Kijé". When the tsar inspects the list he is intrigued by this name, and asks that the officer be presented to him. The court officials are too terrified of the tsar to admit that a mistake has been made, and are in a dilemma until it occurs to them to blame "Kijé" for the nocturnal disturbance. They inform the tsar, who duly orders the imaginary lieutenant flogged and sent to Siberia.When the real culprit confesses, Kijé is pardoned by the tsar and reinstated in the imperial court with the rank of colonel. The courtiers, in fear of the tsar, are forced to extend their creation's phantom career; thus, he supposedly marries the princess Gagarina, after which the tsar grants him lands and money and promotes him to general and commander of the army. When Paul demands Kijé's immediate presence, the cornered officials announce that "General Kijé" has, unfortunately, died. A lavish funeral is held, with full military honours. The parsimonious tsar demands the return of Kijé's fortune, but is told by the courtiers that Kijé has spent the money on high living—in fact, they have stolen it. The tsar denounces Kijé as a thief, and posthumously demotes him from general to private.
Music
Despite his lack of experience in composing film music, Prokofiev began his Kijé score confidently, later writing: "I somehow had no doubts whatever about the musical language for the film". He told the producers, "What is important to me is the era, the internal meaning of each event, the personality of each hero", and warned them not to expect mere musical "illustrations". He attended rehearsals and made detailed notes of the action and the acting. The period setting of the film appealed to Prokofiev; Robinson comments that the Kijé score is one of several works, including the Classical Symphony, The Love of Three Oranges, Cinderella, and War and Peace, that show "the composer's fondness for the eighteenth century". The language he chose combined elements of humour and romance with an underlying melancholy—he interpreted the story as more tragic than comic. Prokofiev had heard Ravel's Boléro in Paris, and had been much impressed by the French composer's use of the saxophone, an instrument then rarely used in orchestral compositions outside France but which suited Prokofiev's intentions perfectly. The composer Gerard McBurney has pointed out the "haunting sounds of the tenor saxophone" that punctuate the Kijé music.The critic Ernest Chapman refers to Prokofiev's "unfailingly witty and melodious score". It comprises only about 15 minutes of music, written as a series of 16 short fragments or leitmotifs which are repeated at appropriate times during the film's duration, to highlight specific moments in the drama. This approach was a departure in film music from the established form of broad symphonic movements, and was described by Prokofiev's biographer Daniel Jaffé as "well ahead of its time ... one of the most celebrated of that era".