Simon Morrison

Russian opera and the symbolist movement

Acknowledgments Note on Dating and Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1: Chaikovsky and Decadence Chapter 2: Rimsky-Korsakov and Religious Syncretism Chapter 3: Scriabin and Theurgy Chapter 4: Prokofiev and Mimesis Conclusion Appendix: The Libretto of the Preparatory Act Index

Skryabin and the Impossible

In 1904, Aleksandr Skryabin conceived a composition that would actualize the Russian Symbolist ideal of spiritual emancipation. In 1913, he determined that the work (called the Mysterium) could not be composed, since his uncertainties about his dual roles as author and participant in it had led him to a dead end. In its place, he decided to compose an introductory work entitled the Preparatory Act. Before his sudden death in 1915, he had finished only a draft libretto and fifty-five partial pages of sketches for it. Analysis of the extant material reveals the paradoxes in creating communal art. It also relates a Symbolist tragedy: how one composer9s philosophical speculations led to creative silence and creative martyrdom.

Prokofiev : from Russia to the West, 1891-1935

An assessment of the life and work of renowned composer, Sergey Prokofiev, in which David Nice draws on a range of sources. The text follows Prokofievs personal and musical progression from his childhood on a Ukrainian country estate to the years he spent travelling in America and Europe as an acclaimed interpreter of his own works. Nice sheds light on Prokofievs early years at the St Petersburg Conservatoire, his departure from Russia in 1918 for what he thought would be a short tour of America, and his marriage and family relationships. He considers the music of Prokofievs years in the West (long dismissed by Soviet musicologists as decadent work weakened by the composers absence from the motherland), moving from the lyricism of his St Petersburg years to the fresh simplicity of his early Soviet scores. Nice also examines the complex reasons which led Prokofiev to move his family to the Soviet Union in 1936. A second volume will cover Prokofievs life from this period to his death in 1953.