Synopsis

On today’s date in 1945, Sergei Prokofiev conducted the Moscow Philharmonic in the premiere performance of his Fifth Symphony. Written when the tide of the Second World War was turning in the favor of the Allies, the premiere came one day after news reached Moscow that Soviet troops had begun a successful counteroffensive against the Germans.

The symphony proved to be one of Prokofiev’s strongest works, and in the context of 1945 must have had an incredible emotional impact. It was a tremendous success in Moscow, and also in Boston, where Serge Koussevitzky conducted the American premiere later that same year. Prokofiev even made the cover of Time magazine. As musicologist Michael Steinberg puts it: “No question, the Fifth was a repertory piece from Day One.”

How sad, then, to realize how soon things would change for the man who wrote it. In three years Prokofiev – along with Shostakovich and others – would be denounced by Soviet authorities for supposedly straying from the party line. In five years, when the Red Scare in America turned our one-time Ally into Public Enemy No. 1, conductor Maurice Abravenel received a death threat when the Utah Symphony announced the Salt Lake City premiere of Prokofiev’s Fifth.

Music Played in Today's Program

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) — Symphony No. 5 in Bb, Op. 100 (St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Yuri Temirkanov, cond.) RCA/BMG 60984