Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Opus 16
Composition and premiere: Prokofiev began his Piano Concerto No. 2 in winter 1912-13 and completed it that April while still a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The composer was soloist for the first performance, on September 5, 1913, at Pavlovsk, with A.P. Aslanov conducting. The original score was lost in a fire during the 1917 Revolution; Prokofiev subsequently reconstructed it from his sketches while at Ettal, in Bavaria, in 1923, then played the premiere of that version on May 8, 1924, in Paris, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. Prokofiev and Koussevitzky also collaborated in the first American performances, which were played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on January 31 and February 1, 1930. The first Tanglewood performance was given by soloist Jorge Bolet with Eleazar de Carvalho and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on August 5, 1951.
During the ten years he spent at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the young Prokofiev developed his own piano playing to a remarkable degree of brilliance and turned out in quick succession his first two piano concertos. The premiere of his First Concerto had given him a taste of what it was like to be somewhat controversial, to be discussed by the leading critics in both St. Petersburg and Moscow. There was something of a furor, and Prokofiev astutely used the excitement when, in his final year at the conservatory (1913-14), he aimed for the Rubinstein Prize, the top piano award offered by the institution, choosing as his competition piece not a classical concerto but his own work, even going to the extent of having the score printed for the occasion! (He won the prize, though the judges were not unanimous.)
By this time Prokofiev had already completed and performed his Second Concerto, which, according to one critic, left its listeners “frozen with fright, hair standing on end.” Actually, many of them seem to have been ready for such a reaction even while on their way to the performance, which took place in the slightly out-of-the-way town of Pavlovsk. The critics came out from St. Petersburg in force, sensing the kind of event that sells news- papers. The reviewer in the Petersburgskaya Gazeta wrote:
The debut of this cubist and futurist has aroused universal interest. Already in the train to Pavlovsk one heard on all sides, “Prokofiev, Prokofiev, Prokofiev.” A new piano star! On the platform appears a lad with the face of a student from the Peterschule [a fashionable school; it should be remembered that the composer was just 22]…. The audience does not know what to make of it…. “Such music is enough to drive you crazy!” is the general comment. The hall empties. The young artist ends his concerto with a relentlessly discordant combination of brasses. The audience is scandalized. The majority hisses. With a mocking bow, Prokofiev resumes his seat and plays an encore. The audience flees, with exclamations of: “To the devil with all this futurist music! We came here for enjoyment. The cats on our roof make better music than this.”
Of course, we can’t be positive that the audience in Pavlovsk heard the piece as we know it today, since the manuscript was lost and had to be reconstructed ten years later on the basis of the solo piano part, but on the whole it seems likely that any changes were relatively minor. Thus, we are rather bemused—not to say astonished—at the vehemence of the early reaction. Certainly there are moments in the score that might raise eyebrows, but there are also wonderful lyric ideas, delicate colors, and accessibly elementary harmonies, with varied passages of rich pianistic elaboration.
Prokofiev’s beginning is about as atypical as one can imagine: instead of dramatic fireworks between opposing forces (piano and orchestra), a gentle introductory phrase in the muted strings (pizzicato) and clarinets ushers in Chopinesque figuration in the pianist’s left hand, supporting a long, delicate melody in the right. A faster, marchlike section brings in the acerbic, witty, piquant side of Prokofiev, culminating in an extended solo that is not a cadenza—more or less irrelevant to the musical discourse—but a continued working out of its issues, though the soloist completely takes over until the climactic return of the orchestra and a pianissimo recollection of the opening.
The scherzo is a relentless moto perpetuo in which the soloist has unbroken sixteenths played by both hands in octave unison throughout, while the orchestra supplies color and background in a sardonic mood. In the Intermezzo, the orchestra suggests a dark, heavy march (with many repetitions of a four-note bass figure hinting at a passacaglia); over this the piano cavorts with figures alternately delicate and forceful.
The finale brings on the traditional opposition between forces, with the soloist attempting to overwhelm the orchestra now with fleet brilliance, now with full-fisted chords. This does not, however, preclude a surprisingly tranquil contrasting passage begun by clarinets and violas, but carried on at some length by the unaccompanied piano, sounding like a Russian folk melody. This melody is the subject of much further discussion, growing more energetic and lively, eventually—after another extended solo passage, here more like a traditional cadenza—reappearing embedded in the rhythmic orchestral material that brings the concerto to its breathtaking close.
STEVEN LEDBETTER
Steven Ledbetter, a freelance writer and lecturer on music, was program annotator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1998.