Kijé

A favorite piece of music.  We had this at our wedding, with two flutes and a guitar approximating the bit that begins at 10:00.  I particularly like the part beginning at 19:00 as well.



The suite's five movements, which were written to accompany a 1934 Soviet film of the same name, follow the career of a fictional lieutenant in the Russian army. A clerk to the Tsar creates the lieutenant by miscopying two words. The new "officer" catches the attention of the Tsar, who begins to write out orders for him, which no one dares refuse. The lieutenant falls in love, marries, and finally ceases to be a problem when the palace administrators announce his death and burial.

I guess I always thought Prokofiev was earlier than he really was.  He was born in 1891.  Like many great composers, he was a child prodigy who began producing operas and symphonies as a pre-teen; this was before World War I.  After the Revolution, he spent time in the United States and Europe, but began rebuilding ties with the Soviet Union in the early 30s, when he composed Lieutenant Kijé, and resettled in Moscow in 1936.  Eventually, of course, he began to experience blowback from the maniacs in charge, but he never got into serious trouble.  He died in 1953, at about the same time as Stalin.