How do music and movement relate? Is one merely accompaniment to another? An ornament, akin to a costume, or just the setting鈥攑erhaps a stage? Or might music itself embody the motions of dance and so convey a sense of story? For conductor St茅phane Den猫ve, Prokofiev鈥檚 music creates entire scenes through sound. In the ballet Romeo and Juliet, for example, the teenage heroine is introduced with a rising C-major scale that climbs ever upward. A pause in the ascent suggests a moment鈥檚 hesitation, a looking down to measure the distance, before the music moves up again. The simple scale thus captures the lure of freedom, suggests a desire to escape. Den猫ve asks the musicians he conducts to imagine 鈥渓anding on a cloud鈥� at the end of the episode. Another tune is then introduced, but with an errant note, signaling Juliet鈥檚 polite but knowing refusal to heed the rules.
Prokofiev himself, in composing Romeo and Juliet, refused to heed Shakespeare鈥檚 text: not wanting Juliet to die, he concluded the original 1935 version of his ballet in an undefined elsewhere. The young couple simply walks out of the plot, away from the drama, and into a realm awash in lush C-major chords鈥攖hat same key of Juliet鈥檚 first appearance. She and her beau are left spinning alone to the music of the spheres. Love lives on. (Or at least it did until the composer was overruled and Shakespeare鈥檚 ending was restored for the ballet鈥檚 premiere.) You can hear it all at the David Geffen Hall January 25鈥�27.
In a recent conversation about Romeo and Juliet, violinist James Ehnes reminded me that Prokofiev鈥檚 First Violin Concerto also relates to dance. In 1979 Jerome Robbins used the concerto for his Opus 19 / The Dreamer, which traces a man鈥檚 search for his female counterpart in such an undefined elsewhere. 鈥淚 performed The Dreamer dozens of times,鈥� Ehnes recalls, 鈥渁nd only once got to turn around to see the dance.鈥�
Thus Ehnes and Den猫ve have devised their own interpretation, their own 鈥減lan鈥� for the concerto, which highlights features in common with Romeo and Juliet, composed some two decades later, after Prokofiev had relocated to Moscow from Paris. Ehnes points to 鈥渢he delicate architecture鈥� of both scores, and Den猫ve hears in Prokofiev鈥檚 music great peril, a suggestion that 鈥渢he world could explode at any moment.鈥�
Of the concerto, Ehnes explains: 鈥淭he ending of the third movement鈥攖he supernova before the coda鈥攊s the most difficult to pull off. The movement has to wind down so that, structurally, everything is as it has to be.鈥� However, there is less a feeling of fatefulness in the concerto and more a sense of magic than in Romeo and Juliet. 鈥淧rokofiev gives us an alternate fairy-tale land,鈥� according to Ehnes. 鈥淭he sound is as if behind the clouds and shadows, but also somehow fantastical.鈥� The elsewhere.
Even as an instrumentalist, Ehnes invokes dance. He stresses the kinetic element, muscle memory, the solo violin鈥檚 鈥渞eflexive way of playing the very fast triplet stuff, the unusual patterns. Nothing in the concerto is terribly unidiomatic,鈥� he insists, 鈥渂ut in certain places you get the sense of Prokofiev noodling around at the keyboard and coming up with interesting combinations.鈥� The magic.
Prokofiev鈥檚 elusive imagination, his play of possibilities, bewitches musicians and audiences alike. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a wonderful peculiarity to the melodies,鈥� Ehnes marvels, and the 鈥渦nexpected detours that somehow get us back to where we started鈥濃攐r, at least, were meant to go. As Den猫ve explains: 鈥淭here is a natural flow, with confident, predictable rhythms,鈥� along with 鈥渇abulous surprises.鈥� The conductor lauds the elusive, expressive power of Prokofiev鈥檚 music, which he describes as 鈥渟urrealistic but also emotionally devastating.鈥� It appeals to 鈥渨hat is mysterious or dreamed, suggestive of an idealized or sentimental expression.鈥�
Ultimately, both concerto and ballet partner with the listener in a pas de deux of anticipation and expectation. 鈥淧rokofiev has an incredible sense of timing, which allows him to balance lyricism with quite dissonant music, the piquant with traditional harmonic lushness,鈥� Ehnes says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 masterfully manipulative.鈥�
Simon Morrison is professor of Music and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. His most recent book is Bolshoi Confidential (Norton, 2016).
