Overture on Jewish Themes (Prokofiev)

In the history of classical music, an Overture on Jewish themes was the first composition to be performed by a chamber ensemble consisting of a clarinet, string quartet and piano ^[2] .

In the fall of 1919, the Jewish sextet Zimro arrived in America. Prokofiev knew one of the members of the ensemble, Joseph Chernyavsky, whom he wrote in New York about a meeting with him in New York: “There was a cellist Joseph Chernyavsky, my ardent admirer since performing the Scythian Suite in St. Petersburg, where he played cellos and defended my name from the orchestra scolding him ” ^[3] . After completing the opera Love for Three Oranges , waiting for its production, the composer had time and readily responded to the request of Zimro musicians to write a play for their repertoire.

In mid-October 1919, Sergei Prokofiev wrote in his Diary: “Chernyavsky and Beylison showed Jewish themes, some of them were flabby, but others were very good. Having taken the material and returning home, I immediately decided to write “Overture on Jewish Themes” for piano, quartet and clarinet, that is, for the composition of their ensemble. He worked all day and by the end slammed the whole “Overture”. Of course, there are still few details, but the whole skeleton. If we now put things in order and instruct in two days, it would very soon come out ” ^[4] . This was the composer's first work for a chamber ensemble.

The self-esteem of the composer of this composition, indicated in a letter to N. Ya. Myaskovsky from Ettal on June 4, 1923, is interesting : “I do not attach any importance to an overture on Jewish topics: I composed it in 1½ days (instrumented for a week) and did not even want to put an opus. It really sounds briskly, as if not 6 people were playing, but more: from the musical point of view, it’s only the final part in it, and that, I think, is probably due to my weakness for diatonism ” ^[5] . Despite such a self-critical assessment, the work quickly won the public’s success ^[6] .

In 1930, a disc appeared with a reordering of the work for a symphony orchestra by an unknown author ^[7] , so Prokofiev shifted the overture to be performed by the orchestra, marking it in his collected works under op. 34 bis. The author was engaged in this orchestration of the Jewish Overture in May 1934 at the cottage of P. P. Konchalovsky , when the artist painted a famous portrait of the composer ^[8] . Score Overture on Jewish Themes, op. 34, was published by A. Gutheil in 1922, and its version for the symphony orchestra, op. 34 bis - in the same place in 1935 ^[7] .

According to Ya. L. Soroker , the Overture is built in a classically strict form of sonata allegro , where the main part is the dance type "sher" (Jewish figured, mostly wedding dance in moderately fast movement), and the lyrical girlish song is secondary ^[9] . According to other sources in the sextet, both developing themes are the main ones: lively, humorous, grotesque, and lyrical chant ^[10] . They were based on two Jewish melodies selected from the recordings of Zimro musicians: the instrumental melody of the Klezmer dance Freilehs and the Yiddish wedding song “Be Healthy” ( Zayt Gesuntereit ^[2] , or Zayt Gesuntereit Main Liebe Eltern ^[1] ), in which Sadness of the bride when she says goodbye to her stepfather’s house. However, some aspects of the overture are common to both Jewish and Ukrainian, Romanian and Moldavian folklore traditions, so the question of original borrowings is complex and proves the impossibility of determining which of the traditions affected the other ^[1] .

According to Ya. L. Soroker , the overture-sextet clearly expressed the gift of Prokofiev, the “genre writer” and the witty “narrator,” when he comes to “humor and buffoonery of early works (humorous scherzo) in humor painted in rich folk-national tones” ^[11] .

About the theme of the work and the skill of the composer, J. L. Soroker wrote the following:

In the genre-lyrical Jewish themes chosen by young Prokofiev for the Sextet Overture, he was probably attracted by good-natured humor, a touch of irony, and cunning; It also attracted the opportunity to depict (or rather mimic) the game of a small town wedding orchestra ^[12] .

In the Overture, the property of Prokofiev, the author of folklore compositions, was vividly realized: the ability to find common ground, internal - “underlying” - kinship of two different in nature themes, to solder them into a single whole, forcing them to believe that they were born for one work ^[13] .

I.I. Martynov wrote that the “Jewish Overture” “showed a growing desire for liberation from the extravagance of musical language. True, a little later the composer again embarked on the path of complexity, which led him to create a second symphony , quintet and some other works of the 1920s ” ^[14] .

• The first violin - Yakov Mestechkin
• The second violin - Grigory Bezrodny
• Alt - Karel Moldavan
• Cello - Joseph Chernyavsky
• Clarinet - Simon Bellison
• Piano - Leo Berdichevsky, re-performed by Sergei Prokofiev

Overture on Jewish Themes, op. 34, was first performed by the Zimro ensemble on February 2, 1920 at the Bohemian Club in New York ^{[15] [1]} . Probably, the date of the premiere on December 26, 1920, indicated by I.V. Nestiev and Ya. L. Soroker, is erroneous ^{[16] [6]} . The program indicated that the piano was played by Lev Berdichevsky, who, when re-performed, was probably replaced by the author ^[16] . Soon, in the same 1920, the overture was successfully presented on March 22 in Chicago, on April 2 in Baltimore ^[17] and on April 24 in Carnegie Hall ^[1] . In August 1923, an overture was performed in Salzburg ^[18] .

For the first time in the USSR, the opus was performed on October 24, 1923 by the quartet of the Moscow State Conservatory ( D. M. Tsyganov , V. P. Shirinsky , V. V. Borisovsky , S. P. Shirinsky ), K. N. Igumnov and S. V. Rozanov ^{[19] [20]} , as well as abroad, won success. The first performance in Leningrad took place on May 16, 1924 performed by the Glazunov Quartet composed of I. Lukashevsky , A. Pechnikov, A. Ryvkin and D. Mogilevsky with the participation of P. Vantrob (clarinet) and A. Kamensky (piano) ^[16] . In 1932, the author performed the piano part when presenting an overture in chamber concerts of his works on November 27 in Moscow with A. V. Volodinin and the Beethoven Quartet , on December 3 in Leningrad with V. I. Gensler and the Glazunov Quartet ^[21] .

An overture on Jewish themes of Prokofiev is included in the repertoire of modern chamber ensembles, while the fame of the Zimro ensemble, despite its significant contribution to the history of Jewish music , was forgotten ^[2] .

• 1935 - S. S. Prokofiev - piano, A. V. Volodin - clarinet, Beethoven quartet (D. M. Tsyganov, V. P. Shirinsky, V. V. Borisovsky, S. P. Shirinsky) ^[22]
• 1937 - entry in the above composition ^[23]
• 1963 - Ivan Mozgovenko - clarinet, Borodin Quartet (Rostislav Dubinsky, Yaroslav Aleksandrov, Dmitry Shebalin , Valentin Berlin ), Dmitry Bashkirov - piano. Firm Melody D 011361-2 ^[24]

• 1992 - premiere of the concert "Overture on Jewish Themes" staged by V. V. Vasiliev to music by S. S. Prokofiev at the Moscow Conservatory ^[25]

• Martynov I.I. Sergey Prokofiev. Life and art. - M .: Music, 1974. - 560 p. - (Classics of world music culture).
• Nestiev I.V. Life of Sergei Prokofiev / Editor I. Prudnikova. - 2nd revised and supplemented. - M .: Soviet composer, 1973. - 663 p.
• Prokofiev S. S. Diary 1919-1933 / Foreword by Svyatoslav Prokofiev. - Paris: sprkfv [DIAKOM], 2002. - T. 2. - 813 p. - ISBN 2951813813 .
• Prokofiev S. S., Myaskovsky N. Ya. Correspondence / Entry. article by D. B. Kabalevsky; comp. and sub. text by M. G. Kozlova and N. R. Yatsenko; comm V. L. Kiseleva; foreword and pointers M. G. Kozlova. - M .: Soviet composer, 1977 .-- 600 p.
• Soroker Y. L. Chamber-instrumental ensembles of S. Prokofiev. - M .: Soviet composer, 1973. - 103 p.
• Yuzefovich V. A. "If you add a little pepper to your laurel soup ..." // Seven Arts: Journal. - 2011. - No. 9 (22) .
• Kravetz, Nelly. I must be the only Jewish composer! Prokofiev and Jewish Music : [ eng. ] // Three Oranges: Journal / Mann, Noëlle. - 2014. - No. 26.
• Nemtsov, Jascha. A Broken Concert Tour ( link unavailable) . SWR Music. Date of treatment July 22, 2017. Archived March 26, 2017.

• Overture on Jewish themes of Prokofiev on YouTube - performance of a sextet consisting of: A.V. Volodin - clarinet, Beethoven quartet (D.M. Tsyganov, V.P. Shirinsky, V.V. Borisovsky, S.P. Shirinsky), S. S. Prokofiev - piano. 1937 record
• Prokofiev Jewish Overture on YouTube - Performance by the Munich Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra featuring clarinetist Gior Feydman
• Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op. 34 (Prokofiev, Sergey ) . International project of the musical score library . Date of treatment July 22, 2017. - score Overture on Jewish themes, op. 34