Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, Op. 100
Sergei Prokofiev
(b. April 27, 1891 in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine; d. March 5, 1953 in Moscow)
In 1944, Prokofiev joined the greatest Soviet composers of the day at a safe haven in Ivanovo some 180 miles northeast of Moscow. In relative security, surrounded by understanding comrades, he began a new symphony and finished it in a month. Prokofiev spoke of, “a symphony about the human spirit,” adding, “I wanted to sing the praises of the free and happy human being—of such a person's strength, generosity and purity of soul.”
By January 1945 everyone was exhausted with grief and loss, but finally victory was at hand. The night of Symphony No. 5's premiere, the Red Army crossed the Vistula river, on the march into Nazi Germany. Back in Moscow, the city celebrated with artillery fire. The premiere was a crowning moment in Prokofiev's career.
The first movement is atypical just in its leisurely tempo. The melodic offerings are generous. The second movement could be called a scherzo but isn't. Most often a scherzo movement follows a slower movement and so it does.
The third movement is the emotional climax although it is studiously placid, a patient elegy. The last movement begins with a shimmery echo of the opening movement before a driving rhythm starts that, after a short bit of relief, returns and propels onward to a percussion-punctuated final frenetic frenzy.
Legendary pianist Sviatoslav Richter was at the premiere and remembered it this way:
“The Great Hall was illuminated, no doubt, the same way it always was, but when Prokofiev stood up, the light seemed to pour straight down on him from somewhere up above. He stood like a monument on a pedestal. And then, when Prokofiev had taken his place on the podium and silence reigned in the hall, artillery salvos suddenly thundered forth. His baton was raised. He waited, and began only after the cannons had stopped. There was something very significant in this, something symbolic. It was as if all of us—including Prokofiev—had reached some kind of shared turning point.”
Prokofiev first embarked on an international career, but after nearly two decades in America and Europe, homesickness brought him back to the Soviet Union for good in 1936. He knew he would be troubled by Soviet meddling in the arts, but reconciled himself to it to be where he needed to be. His sense of place was too deep to be anywhere else.
The protracted agony borne by the Soviet Union on its own soil in WWII will forever trouble the imagination. The amalgam of Soviet citizens who in peacetime could decry Stalin's tyranny or wish for self-determination united behind their war effort as one people. The wishes of the composer, the aspirations of the people, and the proprieties of the state all aligned. Prokofiev had only to be faithful to his milieu. In the music itself he adhered to highly traditional forms.
Although the symphony enjoyed immediate success which still endures success, it was sadly the last high point of Prokofiev's life. Days later he fell. The complications from hypertension and the concussion he suffered made it difficult for him to work. Moreover, his music no longer pleased Soviet authorities in peacetime and much of it was banned. A final random indignity occurred when he died at the same time as Stalin so his death went virtually unreported and unnoticed.