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University Centre Auditorium
December 6, 2008
There has never been a closer collaboration between filmmaker and composer than that between Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Prokofiev on the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky. Although it transcends its political origins, the film was clearly intended as propaganda on the grandest scale and nobody watching it even today could be in any doubt that it was aimed, fair and square, at Hitler's Third Reich.
Small wonder, then, that shortly after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939, the movie was withdrawn on official orders.
There are those who would have us believe that Prokofiev created his cantata from Nevsky in order to rescue the music from the oblivion to which it would otherwise have been condemned.
Unfortunately for this thesis, the cantata was first performed on May 17, 1939; evidently Prokofiev was prepared to go through the "tedious" process of arranging the 21 short pieces from the film score into the seven movements we know today - which involved some recomposition and considerable reorchestration - simply because of the quality of the music.
Saturday night's UVic Chorus and Orchestra concert finished with a spectacular and, at times, overwhelming performance of "Nevsky".
From the chilly opening chords of "Russia under the Mongolian Yoke" to the final rousing cacophonies of "Alexander's Entry into Pskov", János Sándor directed a performance that was as engrossing and rivetting as anything I can recall in the concert hall.
The heart of the cantata, as of the film, is "The Battle on the Ice"; Sándor's control in this movement was awesome. Having set the scene with divisi strings - including a wonderful "rasping" tone from the second violas - from the first sounds of the Teutonic cavalry's approach (impossible for those familiar with the film to dispel the images) Sándor subjected the music to a long, slow but inexorable accelerando culminating in the clashes between the two opposing armies.
Admittedly, in the fortissimo battle passages the chorus provided little more than a wash of sound, but at this point it hardly mattered - and they had certainly been audible in the earlier movements.
I do not believe I have ever heard Susan Young in finer voice than in the succeeding movement, The Field of the Dead. There is a fine line to be walked in this movement, between the histrionic and the hysterical and this line Young walked perfectly. She tugged at the audience's collective heartstrings and provided a reflective counterpoint to the surrounding bloodthirstiness.
The chorus's finest moments come in the second and fourth movements. The former, "A Song about Alexander Nevsky" revealed them in fine voice, providing a full and rich sound; the outer sections of "Arise, Ye Russian People" were suitably stirring, the central section more lyrical and tranquil (although I confess that the extremely slow tempo for this section was the only one on which I did not see eye-to-eye with Sándor).
This is a spectacular score and requires spectacular singing and playing, both of which it received. Long lists of individually outstanding moments can easily become tiresome, but I simply must mention some: the brass, powerful throughout and suitably unpleasant when required; and how many scores have such a significant part for the tuba? (the first-class Kory Major).
The wind section has some wonderful music, both obvious passages like the celebratory "primitive" pipe music and subtler points such as the saxophone in the fourth movement. All were excellent.
There were, it is true, moments when the strings failed to penetrate the wall of sound coming from behind them (I am thinking, for example, of their "sword clashes" in the fifth movement), but these were rare; for the most part they reinforced the opinion I had formed at their last concert: this is an excellent body.
Finally, the percussion: timpanist plus six others. I can think of few more exciting moments in music than the final bars of Nevsky, with the entire chorus and orchestra triumphant and the massed percussion apparently going collectively insane at full volume.
I can perhaps best sum up my reaction to the performance by saying that, had I been approached immediately afterwards and invited to help assemble a small party with a view to Storming the Winter Palace, I should have had no hesitation.
Handel's "Dixit Dominus" was a brave choice to open the evening. Vocally it is very difficult and, it must be admitted, there were occasions when this was quite evident.
The space between the string orchestra and the choir, not to mention the size of the choir, must, to a large extent, have dictated Sándor's tempos, which were on the steady side, but never dragged.
There was just one occasion when the geography of the performance space led to problems: at the opening of the second movement, an alto aria supported by continuo of cello and organ. For a bar or two the continuo seemed to be playing in two distinct tempos, before matters sorted themselves out.
The five soloists acquitted themselves well, with no lack of clarity or audibility.
The chorus sang with enthusiasm, spirit and mostly excellent diction - if not always total accuracy.
Having said which, I doubt if anyone present would argue that the Prokofiev was the "main event" of the evening. All we need now is for some enterprising soul to give us a showing of the film with live orchestral accompaniment.
But even that would be hard put to top Saturday's performance for sheer intensity and exitement.
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