Alexander Nevsky

Music by Sergei Prokofiev

 

 

 

 

 

 

The music of Alexander Nevsky (1938) participates of classical music and soundtracks catalogues with rare respectability. Independent of any musical school or film genre, the music of Alexander Nevsky, impresses with its immediate expression – basic ingredient of the best film music – and extraordinary greatness.

The opening in Russia Under the Mongol Yoke, carries the dramatic colors and suggestion of glacial coldness of the Russian steppes. Choral performances (the union of voices as a union between men) have an important presence on the score and in nationalist cantatas Song About Alexander Nevsky and Arise Ye Russian People. For its turn, the long suite The Battle of the Ice (12 minutes) is often mentioned as one of the greatest creations ever made for a movie for its association with the movie edition and support to the narrative. The sequence is punctuated with amazing suggestive power by the orchestral mass, from the opening climatic preparation and the first movements of speed, until the violent clashes (but not exactly heroic) that lead to the tragic conclusion. The following track, with the funeral tone of The Field of the Dead, accentuates even more the wide expression of Battle of the Ice. Then, Alexander's Entry Into Pskow concludes the work with gloriously triumphant choral chants between bells and metal explosions. Edited in the series The Originals, from label Deutsche Gramophon, the CD also includes the music for the film Leutnant Kije (1933). Although vibrant and of frequent use of military rhythms, the music brings more intimate and humorous moments, such as the sympathetic solo piccolo on Kije's Birth. Introspective moments as in Romance and dancing waltzes of Kije's Wedding and Troika, add variety and fluency. Also on this CD, the piece Scythian Suite (1915), composition for concert halls, but so expressive and colorful with their barbaric rhythms and evil vibration that could easily pass as a soundtrack, and its inclusion along the two compositions for films, is quite appropriate.