Prokofieff's Seventh Symphony

Extract

Prokofieff's seventh and last symphony presents a fluent, melodious aspect of the composer's many sided work: music that unfolds itself simply and naturally, individual certainly in its turn of phrase, but not provocative or challenging in the daring manner of Prokofieff's earlier works. The symphony thus represents a phase of Prokofieff's work, his last phase, and the curious fact here is that the many aesthetic and technical problems which this original composer raised in the Scythian Suite, The Gambler and the second symphony should have been resolved in music of such bland simplicity. If indeed one can refer to this work as a resolution of these problems at all. For the deliberately naiïve character of this last major work of Prokofieff, appealing as it is in its uncomplicated way, does not reflect that final triumph of serenity which one might have expected such a composer to have reached: it does not correspond to the other-worldly idealism of the late works of other composers of an adventurous turn of mind, such as Fauré and Vaughan Williams. Its conventionality, shot through with a sprightliness that is generally disciplined into polite musical behaviour but which nevertheless does occasionally assume the form of one of Prokofieff's ironic grimaces—this conventionality can only be interpreted as a surrender to the social demands which we know are from time to time re-imposed on Soviet composers.