Scythian Suite (Prokofiev)
Encyclopedia
The Scythian Suite is an orchestral suite by Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

 written in 1915.

Background

Prokofiev originally wrote the music for the ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 Ala i Lolli, which is about the Scythians. The score was written to the words of Russian poet Sergey Gorodetsky. But when Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...

 failed to show interest in the piece, the composer reworked the music into a suite for concert performance.

The planned premiere of the suite was cancelled at the last minute due to the difficulty of finding musicians to play the piece; it called for an enlarged orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

, and as many performers had been mobilized due to World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, enough players could not be found. Nevertheless, the Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 music critic Leonid Sabaneyev
Leonid Sabaneyev
Leonid Leonidovich Sabaneyev or Sabaneyeff or Sabaneev was a Russian musicologist, music critic, composer and scientist.-Biography:...

 gave the music a scathing review. This prompted a response from Prokofiev stating that the supposed performance must have been a product of Sabaneyev's imagination, as the only copy of the score was in the composer's hands and thus he had not even been able to see it.

Movements

The suite is in 4 movements, lasting around 20 minutes.
  1. Invocation to Veles
    Veles (god)
    Veles also known as Volos is a major Slavic supernatural force of earth, waters and the underworld, associated with dragons, cattle, magic, musicians, wealth and trickery...

     and Ala - barbaric and colorful music describing the Scythians' invocation of the sun
    Sun
    The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

  2. The Evil God and the Dance of the Pagan Monsters (also known as "The Alien God and the Dance of the Evil Spirits"http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prokofiev-Symphony-No-Scythian-Suite/dp/B000PGTHQW)—as the Scythians make a sacrifice
    Sacrifice
    Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...

     to Ala, daughter of Veles, the Evil God performs a violent dance surrounded by seven monsters
  3. Night - the Evil God harms Ala; the Moon Maidens descend to console her
  4. The Glorious Departure of Lolli and the Cortège of the Sun - Lolli, the hero, comes to save Ala; the Sun God assists him in defeating the Evil God. They are victorious, and the suite ends with a musical picture of the sunrise.

Instrumentation

The music is scored for a very large orchestra consisting of piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

, 3 flutes (3rd doubling alto flute
Alto flute
The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a musical instrument in the woodwind family. It is the next extension downward of the C flute after the flûte d'amour. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range...

), 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets (3rd doubling E-flat clarinet
E-flat clarinet
The E-flat clarinet is a member of the clarinet family. It is usually classed as a soprano clarinet, although some authors describe it as a "sopranino" or even "piccolo" clarinet. Smaller in size and higher in pitch than the more common B clarinet, it is a transposing instrument in E, sounding a...

), bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...

, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...

, 8 horns
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, 4 (optionally 5) trumpets (3rd doubling E-flat trumpet
Piccolo trumpet
The smallest of the trumpet family is the piccolo trumpet, pitched one octave higher than the standard B trumpet. Most piccolo trumpets are built to play in either B or A, using a separate leadpipe for each key. The tubing in the B piccolo trumpet is one-half the length of that in a standard B...

), 4 trombones, tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

, glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...

, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...

, 2 cymbals, tamtam
TamTam
The tamtam is a percussion instrument that is similar to a gong. It is sometimes spelled tam-tam.TamTam, Tam-Tam, tamtam, or tam-tam may also refer to:* Tam-Tams, a weekly drum circle held Sundays in the summer in Montreal...

, triangle
Triangle
A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....

, bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

, snare drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...

, tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....

, 2 harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

s, celesta
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...

, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 and strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

.

Adaptations

The track "The enemy god" on Works Volume 1 by progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 group Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are an English progressive rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson , Greg Lake and Carl Palmer...

is an arrangement of the 2nd movement.
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