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The Quiet Revolution of a B Natural: Prokofiev's ‘New Simplicity’ in the Second Violin Concerto

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2011

DEBORAH RIFKIN
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Abstract

This essay explores changes in Prokofiev's compositional style that occurred in the mid-1930s, around the time that he was making his decision to return to his homeland. In his diary Prokofiev wrote about a desire for a ‘new simplicity’, a style that featured simple melodies and comprehensible form. Compared to the avant-garde aspirations of his earlier works, his ‘new simplicity’ features a self-conscious return to Classical precedents. Prokofiev believed his new lyricism would be a uniquely modern yet accessible music for the Soviet people. Many of his most popular works, including Lieutenant Kijé (1933), Romeo and Juliet (1935–6), and Peter and the Wolf (1936), are written in the style associated with this ‘new simplicity’. The style is distinctive because of its sudden and markedly trangressive chromatic swerves to distant harmonic areas. By invoking and then thwarting tonal conventions, Prokofiev creates a compelling tension between Classicism and modernism. This essay presents the first movement of his Violin Concerto no. 2 (1935) as an exemplar of his ‘new simplicity’. The fractured musical surface is interpreted as a musical narrative, as an ironic satire of sonata form.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , September 2009 , pp. 183 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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