Overview

The Diaries of Sergey Prokofiev Volume 2: 'Behind the Mask The second volume covers the years 1915 to 1922, a period embracing momentous events in Russia, Western Europe and America, although the diarist, with the characteristic absorption in himself and the irresistible creative drive within him we have come to recognise in Volume One, pays attention to them only when they affect him personally. However, there is plenty in Prokofiev's own life to sustain the interest: the developing, if rocky, relationship with Diaghilev leads to the abandonment of the original ballet commission but its transformation into one of his most brilliant and iconoclastic orchestral scores, the Scythian Suite. Diaghilev returns with a counter-offer which, after consultation with Stravinsky, becomes the later commission of Chout. Defying Diaghilev's advice to forget opera and concentrate on ballet, the composer embarks on two operas: The Gambler and Love for Three Oranges, which are conceived and put into production, while a third, The Fiery Angel, begins its painful and ultimately, for the composer at least, still-born eight-year gestation. Russia's agony in the First World War, the tottering and eventual implosion of the Romanov dynasty, the events of the February and October Revolutions, all find Prokofiev immersed in his composing and performing activities. Only in 1918 does boredom with the relative security afforded by provincial seclusion in far-off Kislovodsk in the Caucasus, combine with a vague but increasingly insistent feeling that the new environment in Petrograd and Moscow may not prove particularly conducive to future musical successes, prompting a firm desire to leave the country, at least for a time. Succeeding in getting both an exit visa and a berth on the last trans-Siberian express to get through, Prokofiev travels to the United States via Vladivistok and a stay of a few months in Japan, where as well as giving concerts he gives an interview to a Japanese journalist, a Russian version of which has recently appeared. Since it offers a revealing snapshot of his views on life and music at the time, I propose to incorporate it in this volume as an appendix. Once in America, Prokofiev endures what are probably the two most difficult years of his life in the West. The struggle to become established as composer and virtuoso performer - the latter always in the shadow of Rachmaninoff - is set out in some detail, in particular the roller-coaster saga of the commission from the Chicago Opera of Love for Three Oranges. The relatively unknown young composer's refusal to be browbeaten by the impassive might of one of America's most powerful cultural institutions makes a fascinating chronicle.

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Anthony Phillips learnt Russian in the Secret Classrooms of National Service in the 1950s and later Oxford. The language continued to play an important part during his later career in music administration, during which he became general manager of London's Royal Festival Hall. Story of a Friendship, his translation of Shostakovich's letters to Isaak Gilkman, was published by Faber in 2000, and Anton Chekhov: A Life in Letters with Rosamund Bartlett) by Penguin Classics in 2004.

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