# SS 07.12.13 - Prokofiev #5



## realdealblues

A continuation of the Saturday Symphonies Tradition:

*Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953)*

Symphony #5 in B Flat Major, Op. 100 

1. Andante
2. Allegro marcato
3. Adagio
4. Allegro giocoso
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Post what recording you are going to listen to giving details of Orchestra / Conductor / Chorus / Soloists etc - Enjoy!


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## realdealblues

This Saturday I'm going to listen to...

View attachment 29842


Leonard Bernstein & The New York Philharmonic


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## DaDirkNL

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## Vesteralen

I've listened to this symphony a lot lately - the Mercury Living Presence disc with Dorati (3 times in the last month or so), and the Vox Box Martinon version (4 times in the last month or so).

I won't have time to join the listening group anymore since my weekends are non-stop busy, but I must say that having heard these two versions (instead of the Karajan version I had for years) changed my mind about it. I LOVE this symphony. One of my all time favorites.


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## maestro267

Walter Weller's recording. I can't remember whether it's London Symphony or Philharmonic, but it's that conductor.


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## Mika

Simon Rattle & CBSO


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## hillisg

Szell/Cleveland


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## AClockworkOrange

This one is easy as I only have the one recording - Klaus Tennstedt & the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.
View attachment 29869


This is another fantastic recording by Tennstedt. I really don't understand why he isn't discussed more frequently.


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## Mahlerian

I'm going to go for Dutoit/Montreal on this one. It's taken some time for me to come back around to Prokofiev, but I've been enjoying his music much more recently.


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## Cosmos

Seiji Ozawa, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra


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## GioCar

Gergiev and London Symphony Orchestra.
A thrilling performance.


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## techniquest

I'm going to listen to Dmitrij Kitajenko from his box set of the 7 Prokofiev symphonies









Also I will listen to the RPO / Vernon Handley recording on CfP


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## senza sordino

I love this symphony too. My CD is Herbert Von Karajan with the Berlin Phil. I've always enjoyed Prokofiev. His story is interesting. He had a passport and was free to come and go from the USSR during the 20s and 30s, even during the Stalin purges, but he always returned to the USSR. Then one day in 1938 they took away his passport and he could no longer leave. Prokofiev died one hour before Stalin.


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## david johnson

kletzki/philharmonia


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## maestro267

I bought the complete boxset of Prokofiev's symphonies earlier this year, and it's a fantastic set! Mainly because of its key and the placement and key of the scherzo, I can't help but compare it with Brahms' 2nd Piano Concerto. In fact, the start of the scherzo uses a similar motif to that which starts the 2nd movt. of Shostakovich's 4th Symphony. Of course, it goes off in another direction immediately afterwards, so there's nothing really there. I just notice little things like this.

The ending of Prokofiev 5 is quite abrupt. A climax is reached, then the music dies down a bit (still maintaining it's quick tempo), then a "plinky bit" with piano prominent. A quick crescendo, and suddenly the piece is over.


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## brotagonist

Karajan/BPO

This album opened my ears to Prokofiev:









As a result, I now have all of his symphonies. In under 6 months, Prokofiev went from being a nobody to a composer of whom I have collected 10 albums.


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## techniquest

As promised on page 1, I listened to two recordings of this symphony.
Firstly, Vernon Handley with the RPO on Classics for Pleasure (1987). The first movement opens slightly slower than I'm used to, and the recording seems to be a little on the quiet side, though it's crisp and clear throughout. I like the fact that you can hear the piano in this recording as an integral part of the orchestra. You also get excellent percussion, especially in the final climax where the tam-tam / stand cymbal salvo is well recorded (unlike Karajan's ridiculously overmic'ed tam-tam).
The second movement is typical of Prokofiev's motor-rhythm style. Some of the interludes are taken rather too hastily, and the piano sound is just a tad too far back as are the wood-block and snare drum, though the tambourine is fine. The central quacking trumpet slower section is not quite slow enough to take advantage of really staccato 'quacks' and the accelerando loses it's impact too due the initial speed so it only gets to hot up right at the end of the section to bring us back to the chugging 'motor-rhythm'. I think this is the poorest movement in this recording.
The third movement, on the other hand, is beautifully played. For me, this is Prokofiev's most heartfelt slow movement and here Handley plays it without heaping on too much over-emotion. The central slightly faster section has a lot of power in it's bass-drum led 3/4 with a big crashing tam-tam over great horns. Perhaps the die down and reprise of the main theme happens a little too matter-of-fact, but those super-high violins really sing out.
The 4th movement opens with quotes from the 1st movement before getting into another chugging motor-rhythm allegro superficially similar to the 2nd movement, but actually with a completely different feel. Although sounding jolly for most of it's bouncing journey, swapping themes from the woods to the strings over rhythmic horns; the final section has a different mood entirely and it is here that recordings of the symphony can very easily fail. Not in this recording though: the harsh industrial, mechanistic rhythms, clicks and thuds are very well captured.


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## techniquest

My second listen was to the Kitajenko / Gurzenich-Orchester Koln recording from the complete symphonies set on Phoenix Edition.
I immediately noticed that this is recorded much louder than the handley, so turning down the hi-fi by 4 stops was necessary. Recorded live in January 2007, this just goes to show how much production values can differ, this recording having a far greater depth of sound all round. The first movement comes across far more powerfully than in the Handley recording, particularly at the end with wall-shaking bass drum and a much heavier tam-tam, and blaring dissonances before the final chord.
The second movement has a nicely forward snare drum and some very nice deep piano notes which are all-too-rarely noticed in this movement. The quacking central section is very nicely realised and there are some raspy horns just as the main fanfares return that I haven't noticed in other recordings.
The 3rd movement opens atmospherically with the strangely tremoring strings which turn into very high violins just a few seconds later over very deep bass pedal notes. This symphony demonstrates what an important instrument the bass drum is for Prokofiev - there are some loud thuds of course, but mostly he uses the instrument quietly to produce distant, almost threatening booms such as in the section where there are some quacking trumpets reminiscent of the 2nd movement. The section where the bass drum leads the big 3/4 climax is truly terrfying in this recording and it is taken at a far slower tempo than most recordings I've heard.
The 4th movement opens and chugs along with faultless playing. However, it's that final mechanical section that interests me most as it is so different to the rest of the symphony, and I don't think this is a victorious cheer for the human spirit. Quite the opposite, for me the human spirit has been taken away at the end of this symphony, though it has been very much in evidence all the way through until these last couple of minutes. 
I think this is a rearkable recording, and the Kitajenko set is really well worth having, my only gripe being that there are no fillers meaning that CD's 4 & 5 (Symphonies 5 & 6) are standalone at about 45 minutes each which is a pity.


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## Ukko

Ormandy/Philadelphia. One of my early LP purchases.


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## Pip

A great interpreter of this symphony was Sergiu Celibidache. I saw him do it in London with the LSOin 1979 and then again in Munich in the late 80s - It could even be this one -







He can also be seen conducting this in a much earlier performance from Italy in 1969 -








This is an excellent DVD and gives anyone who has never seen him the chance to appraise him.


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## realdealblues

I will admit this is the first composer that we've come across during the Saturday Symphonies of whom I am not a raving fan. I love his 1st Symphony, but most other works I've heard from Prokofiev haven't done much for me up to this point. Now with that in mind I believe I have only heard this particular Symphony 2 or 3 times and it's been quite some time since I last heard it, so it was kind of like hearing it for the first time.

I listened to my chosen recording with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on Saturday.

There were some parts in the 1st movement that I enjoyed, but it wasn't until the 2nd movement that I found myself really enjoying what I was listening to. The 3rd movement again had some nice parts, but then during the 4th movement, much like the 2nd I found myself really enjoying what I was hearing. I don't know that I really enjoyed the abrupt ending though.

Overall, I liked this Symphony more than I thought I would and I would like to check out another recording. Prokofiev is just a little too modern at times for myself in most things I have heard. As some on this forum know, I have a hard time "enjoying" more modern composers and in my general listening I like more lyrical or melodic works which is why much of my listening comes from the Baroque and Classical periods, although the sweeping melodic lines of later composers such as Bruckner, Dvorak and especially Mahler are also among my favorites. 

So part of my reason for continuing through the Saturday Symphonies is a chance for me to go back and listen to many of these works that I am less familiar with and didn't necessarily enjoy upon first listen. Many times it has been a long time since I listened to them so I am listening with fresher and hopefully more open ears than I did 5, 10 or 15 years ago.

This week did leave me wanting to check out another recording of Prokofiev's 5th so I guess some might call that progress.


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## Vaneyes

brotagonist said:


> Karajan/BPO
> 
> This album opened my ears to Prokofiev:
> 
> View attachment 29937
> 
> 
> As a result, I now have all of his symphonies. In under 6 months, Prokofiev went from being a nobody to a composer of whom I have collected 10 albums.


That HvK is my lone remaining Prokofiev symphony rec. At times, I had the rest via singles (sets I auditioned didn't appeal), but nothing stuck. I might pick it up again, when a symphonic savior appears.


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## Vasks

Ukko said:


> Ormandy/Philadelphia. One of my early LP purchases.


This one, Ukko?









I've had it since the late 60's and just last week gave it a go


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## Zarathustra

Being new to the forum means that I'm late to this Saturday Symphony party so I have some catching up to do. I too listened to Kitajenko. I found it enjoyable though I can´t say I feel too connected with the music. The finale was a bit abrupt so I ended somewhat underwhelmed. The next time I will pay more attention to see if I can get where Prokofiev was aiming at. 

Actually I've decided to hear it again now. Why wait?


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## lupinix

Anything Gergiev! <3 
its my favorite symphony (but close followed by rachmaninov 2, prokofiev 6&4 and shostakovich 4)
i love the kind of gladness and other less wordable kinds of emotion in the first movement, the genious and sarcastic second still makes me laugh more than anything
in the third movement im dragged into the horror of a war and deep despair and anxiety, and yet the final movements gives a kind of joyfull and lightly sarcastic ending


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## Guest

Does it count if I've been listening almost non-stop for a fortnight - and not just on a Saturday?

First "recording" I heard was at the Proms 2013.






Unfortunately, the sound is very slightly out of sync on this, but I really took to this symphony: I know the Classical (1st), Romeo and Juliet, and Peter and the Wolf, but not much else, and having been immersed in Shostakovich for so long, this was a breath of fresh air. So, checked out suggestions at Presto, I bought this...










I think it's very good. Further research on Youtube turned up excerpts from the BPO with Dudamel, Rozhdestvensky with the Moscow (I think) and several other less well known versions.

Now I want to buy the complete symphonies, and note the following recommendations...

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/89839

These two are well commended by Amazon buyers...
















Two questions: Which would TCers recommend and why? Will I find anything as uplifting, exciting yet insane as the 5th among symphonies 2-7?


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## AndorFoldes

Karajan/BPO 1984


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## techniquest

> Now I want to buy the complete symphonies, and note the following recommendations...
> 
> http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/89839
> 
> These two are well commended by Amazon buyers...
> 
> Two questions: Which would TCers recommend and why? Will I find anything as uplifting, exciting yet insane as the 5th among symphonies 2-7?


I have the Weller set (as well as the Kitajenko) and it is certainly an excellent set to have, as well as being ridiculously cheap. Also it has a couple of great extras in the Scythian Suite and the Russian Overture (such an overlooked piece). Neeme Jarvi also made some really superb Prokofiev recordings for Chandos and I would see no reason why that set shouldn't be a real keeper too, though I don't have to to make comparisons. One advantage with the Jarvi set is that you get both versions of the 4th symphony, however you don't get any fillers.
Your second question - you will certainly find exciting (and insane?) music in the symphonies. I would suggest that in terms of general sound, the 6th will come closest to the 5th, but you must hear numbers 2 and 3 to get a feel of just how startling and at times violent early Prokofiev sounds. The 7th symphony is a gentle affair in comparison with all the others: it's pleasant but by this time Prokofiev was very ill and had lost his spark and it really shows here. Enjoy!


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## Brahmsian Colors

One of my absolute favorite modern symphonies. Especially like Kletzki/Philharmonia Orchestra, Ansermet/Suisse Romande Orchestra and Maazel/Cleveland Orchstra.


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## Guest

Still one of my favourites too, I bought the SNO/Jarvi complete and as techniquest suggested, found the 2nd and 3rd particularly spiky. I also picked up copies of the 5th by Karajan/BPO and the Oramo/Finnish RSO!


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