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Eclectic Historicism in Music
Eclectic historicism, in which elements of two or more historical styles are blended, is fairly common in architecture but relatively rare in music. The phrase "two or more historical styles" requires some further explanation. If a contemporary musical composition exhibits characteristics of, say, a late baroque suite, depending on the degree to which it reflects early eighteenth-century practices, it could be designated "adaptive" or "pure" historicist. To fit the definition of "eclectic," however, it would have to show evidence of influence from at least one other historical style as well.
Until relatively recent times, Western composers had decidedly limited access to the music of the past and most particularly to the traditional repertories of non-European cultures. In late-eighteenth-century Vienna, even the works of Bach and Handel were not widely known, and largely remained the province of aristocratic antiquarians and their circles. As a consequence, eclectic historicism in musical practice does not appear to have emerged to any significant degree much before the nineteenth century. The recognition of musical historicism as a subject of musicological interest in its own right is a fairly recent development, although scholars have long studied and documented historical stylistic influences on specific composers and periods.
W. A. Mozart - The Magic Flute, K. 620
The romantic eclecticism of the eighteenth century embraced all times and places in the known world, both real and imaginary. Chinoiserie cabinets stood side by side with Neoclassical urns. Pagodas and Greek temples often graced the same landscape gardens. Literary works such as Tobias George Smollett's Travels through France and Italy (1766) and William Beckford's Vathek, an Arabian Tale (1786) fed and stimulated an increasing desire for aesthetic experiences that freely crossed or even erased conventional temporal and geographical boundaries. A revolutionary spirit was in the air, and dramatists either happily observed or willfully violated Aristotle's three "dramatic unities"—action, time, and place—as they saw fit. Opera in particular proved to be an ideal vehicle through which the romantic spirit could realize its fullest expression. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute, K. 620, mirrors the historicist and eclectic aspects of eighteenth-century romanticism to an extraordinary degree.
In July of 1791, Mozart entered the opera into a catalog of his works, and on 30 September of the same year The Magic Flute opened at the Freihaus-Theater in Vienna. Although Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder thought of it as a Singspiel, the original playbill of The Magic Flute describes it as a "Grosse Oper."1 In truth, it is both, combining as it does the traditions of serious opera with the spoken dialog and lighthearted subject matter of German comic opera.
Schikaneder's book was probably inspired by a number of sources, but several seem to have held for him a special appeal. The story "Lulu oder die Zauberflöte," published in C. W. Wieland's popular anthology Dschinnistan (1789), was familiar to Viennese audiences of the time. The play, Thamos, King of Egypt, by fellow freemason Tobias von Gebler, is another likely influence, as Mozart had composed incidental music for the same play (K. 345) in the early 1770s. Abbé Jean Terrasson's novel Sethos (1731) may also have contributed something to the exotic mystique of The Magic Flute, although it is by no means an Egyptian opera in the same sense as Verdi's Aida.
The Magic Flute consists of two acts, containing nineteen and thirty scenes respectively, which correspond to the various musical numbers Mozart composed for each. Schikaneder's libretto is largely written in the simple metrical style of the Singspiel, although for purposes of vivid characterization, the language of each role is further differentiated according to its serious or comedic purpose. Mozart's instrumentation also reflects distinctions between "high" and "low" characters: Prince Tamino ceremonially performs the Magic Flute itself, while his bird-catcher companion Papageno plays simple panpipes or bells.
The story is subject to interpretation on various levels: an enchanting fairy tale in which Prince Tamino rescues Princess Pamina from her duplicitous mother, the Queen of the Night; the overthrow of despotism through revolutionary democratic idealism; or the ultimate triumph of good over evil, light over dark, and knowledge over nescience.
What makes The Magic Flute a work of seminal, even revolutionary significance is precisely the degree to which it succeeded in juxtaposing and ultimately reconciling such diverse elements and traditions. From a musical standpoint, it is a virtual compendium of every current or historical style which Mozart had mastered, both secular and sacred. Two brief but important examples must serve to illustrate the extraordinary stylistic range found in this, Mozart's last completed work.
The aria, "Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden," sung by Monostatos in act 2, scene 7 (no. 13), is an example of the so-called "Turkish" music already evident in such earlier works as the concluding Rondo "Alla turca" of the Piano Sonata in A Major (K. 331, 1781–83); the finale of the Violin Concerto in A Major (K. 219, 1775), and The Abduction from the Seraglio (K. 384, 1782). This style arose in emulation of the distinctive sounds of the Janissary band or mehter associated with the elite military bodyguard of Turkish sovereigns beginning in the fourteenth century.2
The Janissary corps was originally composed of non-Muslim—typically Christian—youths, prisoners of war, and slaves, who were expected to remain celibate and convert to Islam. They remained the property of the sultan, and during military campaigns accompanied him into battle. By the late seventeenth century, their social, political, and economic status had so improved that Turkish Muslims successfully sought to enlist their own sons among the ranks of the Janissaries.
Janissary musicians accompanied Ottoman troops into battle, inspiring courage among the Sultan's own forces while at the same time striking fear into the hearts of the enemy by performing music specifically created for that purpose. Mehter bands, once heard outside the very gates of Vienna when Ottomans laid siege to that city in 1529 and 1683, included not only large drums, cymbals, triangles, and the Turkish crescent, but also various double-reed wind and brass instruments.
It was the Janissaries' arsenal of percussion instruments that most influenced the typical instrumentation of European "Turkish music." In Mozart's lifetime, even harpsichords and pianos were often equipped with a special Janitscharenzug ("Janissary stop") whose rousing percussive effects summoned up imaginary scenes of battles fought a century before.
This "Turkish" style can be traced to the first decades of the eighteenth century, after the Ottoman Turks, who had occupied Hungary from 1526, were forced to retreat.3 Hungarian musical traditions themselves, whose origins have been attributed to itinerant Gypsy populations, played an important role in shaping the characteristics of this "exotic" idiom. However, certain features, such as the distinctive augmented seconds between the third and fourth and sixth and seventh degrees of the so-called "Gypsy scale," may actually be of Indian origin. The augmented second, though regarded as a "pseudonationalist feature" in Hungarian music, is also found in traditional Turkish, Greek, and Jewish repertories.4
Many of the characteristic features of the "Turkish" style are evident in the overture and/or first Chorus of Janissaries ("Singt dem grossen Bassa Lieder") in The Abduction to the Seraglio (appendix 2, nos 8a–e).
Overture to Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, p. 1
Overture to Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, p. 2
Janissary Chorus from Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, p. 1
Janissary Chorus from Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, p. 2
Janissary Chorus from Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, p. 3
They include the following:
Of course many of these features are present in works by Mozart and other composers that have no obvious "Turkish" connection, including the "Allegretto" of Haydn's Symphony No. 100 ("Military," Hob. 100, 1794) and the "Alla Marcia" section of the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, op. 125 (1822–24). In the final analysis, the "Janissary" style seems to be dependent on the relative concentration of these stylistic elements rather than on any of the individual characteristics enumerated above.
Returning to the aria, "Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden," there is a conspicuous absence of percussion and brass instruments of any kind (appendix 2, 9a–9c).
"Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden," from Mozart's The Magic Flute p. 1
"Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden," from Mozart's The Magic Flute p. 2
"Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden," from Mozart's The Magic Flute p. 3
There is not even an oboe to suggest the "exotic" timbre of the Turkish zurna. According to a note in the score, "Everything is to be sung and played quietly as if the music were far away."
The reason for the sempre pianissimo dynamic is clear. Monostatos espies Princess Pamina in a garden sleeping quietly among the roses, and furtively plans to take his will of her. The music must be markedly subdued to conform to the dramatic situation, and to make the sudden entry of the Queen of the Night at the conclusion of the aria, to the accompaniment of thunder and lightening, all the more startling.
But Monostatos is a Moor, and absent any firsthand knowledge of Moorish music, Mozart wanted to convey something of the former's "exotic" character. Thus he pressed the "Turkish" style into service, but in an extremely subtle manner, by the addition of a piccolo, by casting the whole aria in rapid 2/4 time, by the use of irregular phrase lengths and obstinate melodic motives, through the excitement generated by extended bass tremolos on the tonic, and by interjecting characteristic rapid figuration (e.g., the cascading échappés in mm. 30 and 33 are virtually identical to those appearing in the Janissary chorus of The Abduction from the Seraglio).
Mozart resorted to a decidedly different style forged in the early eighteenth-century for scene no. 28, near the end of act 2 (appendix 2, nos. 10a–10c).
"Der welcher wandert diese Strasse" from Mozart's The Magic Flute p. 1
"Der welcher wandert diese Strasse" from Mozart's The Magic Flute p. 2
"Der welcher wandert diese Strasse" from Mozart's The Magic Flute p. 3
At this point the setting changes to a landscape of rocky caves at twilight. Two Men in Armor, of forbidding mien, describe the trial by fire, water, earth, and air that Prince Tamino is about to undergo. Here Mozart slows the tempo to a solemn "Adagio" and invokes the "learned" contrapuntal style of Bach and Handel. The tenor and bass voices intone their admonitions in stark octaves to the tune of the chorale, "Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh' darein," while the strings interject musico-rhetorical sighs as if to emphasize the gravity of the events about to unfold. These ultimately give way to a short-short-short-long rhythmic pattern virtually identical to that of the so-called "Fate" motive in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (cf. also the opening movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25), and shortly afterwards the mood brightens as Pamina enters to join Pamino in his rite of passage.
Had Mozart lived on, it is likely that the revolutionary eclecticism so evident in The Magic Flute would have taken on even more extraordinary dimensions in his creative work. But this would be his last completed opus; Mozart died the first week of December, barely two months after the opera's premiere.
Ludwig Spohr - Symphony No. 6 in G Major, op. 116 ("Historical")
There was a steadily growing enthusiasm for the music of the past during the early decades of the nineteenth century. One of the most significant musical events of this period was the first "modern" performance of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, which took place in 1829 under the direction of a prodigiously gifted twenty-year-old composer—Felix Mendelssohn. Fellow Bach enthusiast and historicist composer Louis Spohr (1784–1859) would play an important part in reviving not only the neglected works of Bach and Handel, but also the compositions of such masters as Palestrina (c. 1525–94), Carissimi (1605–74), Rameau (1683–1764), and Gluck (1714–87).
Spohr enjoyed a particularly illustrious career as Konzertmeister at the court of Gotha (1805–12), orchestra leader at the Theater an der Wien (Vienna, 1813–15), opera director at Frankfurt (1817–19), and Hofkapellmeister at Kassel (1822–57). A towering figure of a man who stood more than six and a half feet tall, Spohr traveled and performed widely as a virtuoso violinist and conductor, impressing all with whom he came into contact by his great musical gifts, artistic talent, and breadth of learning. To his credit, too, are an important autobiography and several practical innovations: the violin chin rest, the practice of conducting with a baton, and the introduction of rehearsal letters in conductor's scores and parts.
Spohr's musical tastes were wide-ranging but in some respects almost contradictory. An ardent devotee of Mozart who, like the Austrian master, embraced Freemasonry and liberal idealism, Spohr was critical of much of Beethoven's music from the Fifth Symphony on. His relations with Beethoven in Vienna, however, were cordial, and Spohr included the Ninth Symphony in his repertoire even if he did regard the principal theme of its finale as a mere Gassenhauer ("pop" tune).
Few composers who reached their maturity in the first half of the nineteenth century were not affected in some manner by Spohr's influence. The young Wagner, who responded positively to Spohr's own highly chromatic, modulatory style, made a lasting impression on the older composer. Both The Flying Dutchman (1841) and Tannhäuser (1843–45) entered Spohr's conducting repertoire, as well as works by Liszt and Berlioz.
The opera, Jessonda, WoO 53 (1823) may well be Spohr's masterpiece. It enjoyed great success in the nineteenth century, and remained in the operatic repertory for many years, only to fall into virtual oblivion in the twentieth, partly as a consequence of Nazi revulsion at the fact that the title character, an Indian noblewoman, is beloved by the namesake of an historical European personage, Tristan da Cunha. Revival today, on the other hand, would likely incite postcolonial allegations of "orientalism," for the libretto attacks both the traditional Hindu practice of suttee and the "idolatry" of Indian Brahmins who are ultimately defeated by a sixteenth-century Portuguese Christian general. Postcolonial critics might be tempted to tease out evidence of crude misrepresentations of the Asian "Other" in a score whose choruses, arias, and finales are actually among Spohr's most musically substantial creations. By virtue of its imaginative historicism and colorful eclecticism, Jessonda is the very embodiment of the romantic aesthetic, and well worth the attention of modern scholars, performers, and audiences.
For all his harmonic audacity and inventiveness, Spohr retained a deep respect for historical musical styles, and on occasion would use his creative work as a vehicle to advance his personal views about the relative merits of modernity and tradition. In his Violin Concerto No. 14 in A Minor, op. 110 (Concertino No. 3) of 1839, which bears the tellingly descriptive title Sonst und Jetzt ("Then and Now"), Spohr pitted his "classical" cantabile style of violin playing, represented by a "Menuetto antico," against a Vivace whose pyrotechnics were intended to ridicule what he regarded as the excessive display characteristic of such contemporary virtuosi as Niccolò Paganini and Ole Bull.5
His most ambitious musical polemic, however, was the quasi-programmatic Symphony No. 6 in G Major, op. 116, which Spohr dubbed "Historical Symphony in the Style and Taste of Four Different Periods" (Historische Sinfonie im Stil und Geschmack vier verschiedener Zeitabschnitte). Completed in 1840, this extraordinary work amounted to a virtual compendium of the various symphonic styles with which composers and audiences of the mid nineteenth century were likely to have some familiarity. Spohr's intentions were clear from the subtitles which he affixed to each movement:
That Spohr strongly differentiated the period of Haydn and Mozart from that of Beethoven and understood the 1840s as an even further departure from his own eighteenth-century ideals is revealed by the fact that the first two movements are both in major keys—G and E-flat—and must be performed at slow "idyllic" tempos. The third movement moves into the dark tonality of G minor, and even though the finale reaches G major once again, it opens in a tonally ambiguous way with jarring diminished seventh chords.
The first movement unfolds in several main sections. It begins with a short but dignified preludial section introducing the subject which will shortly serve as the basis of an extended fugue. The subject recalls but does not replicate that of the Fugue in C Major in the first volume of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Although Spohr is writing for a large "modern" orchestra, he remains faithful to the polyphonic style of the early eighteenth century. A Handelian pastorale serves as the centerpiece of the movement, quietly evoking the "Pifa" (part 1, no. 13) of Handel's Messiah and alluding melodically to the Air, "He Shall Feed his Flock" (part 1, no. 20).6 The fugal material initially returns in B minor, but soon regains the tonic, and the movement ends reverently with a plagal cadence.
The second movement is cast in a seamless sonata-allegro form based on several motives which can be traced primarily to Mozart. The movement on the whole, however, has a Schubertian air about it vaguely redolent of the spirit—but not the letter—of the "Andante con moto" of that composer's Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, D. 485 (1816). Thus Spohr's "1780" tag seems rather too early, as if he did not draw a strong distinction between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
The first motive to appear is a transformation of the ascending dactylic melody heard in the first violins in mm. 2–3 of the "Andante con moto" of Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in E-Flat Major, K. 543 (1788). The next section vaguely recalls the descending scalar motive in thirty-second notes introduced in mm 26. ff. of the "Andante" in Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 (1788), although there is a similar motive present in the "Andante cantabile con moto" of Beethoven's First Symphony, Op. 21 (1799–1800). A third section brings in a metrically altered version of the material heard in mm. 35–37 of the "Andante" movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504 ("Prague"). The motive derived from K. 503 is heard in various guises throughout the entire movement.
A brief but dramatic development section follows this threefold exposition, during which Spohr brings the K. 503 and K. 550 motives into play in a dynamically and harmonically more complex context, with intermittent excursions into the minor mode. The recapitulation presents the same motivic material in the same order as the exposition, but in its middle section recalls the dark minor-key drama of the preceding development. A brief coda is appended, based on the K. 543 motive.
Spohr gives a particularly prominent role to the timpani in his scherzo, evidently to underscore his Beethovenian intentions, but the main theme is actually a variant of the opening melody of the Minuet in Mozart's G Minor Symphony, in the same key. This motivic material serves as the germinal basis of the entire movement. There is no clearly differentiated trio section, although a change of mode serves to articulate the structure.
Had Spohr not already designated his third movement "scherzo," the finale would certain qualify as the ultimate musical joke, however sophisticated its delivery. Clearly intended as a parodistic critique of what Spohr saw as the formal ambiguities and sheer recklessness of some of his composer contemporaries, this movement again exploits the percussion section, augmenting its unnerving effects with a veritable arsenal of ear-shattering diminished seventh chords, explosive dynamics, and harmonic diversions that collectively conspire to achieve a completely uproarious effect. That Spohr managed to realize his satirical objective while maintaining just enough control to bring his symphony to a stirring conclusion is certainly a credit to his own compositional skill.
It is pointless to speak of distinct themes here, although the powerful melodic "crash" superimposed on the opening diminished seventh chords and the perky but impertinent melodic idea beginning with a trill heard immediately afterwards function throughout the movement as the principal sources of excitement and confusion. If one strains to descry its outlines, there may well be a sonata-allegro scaffolding lurking beneath all the hubbub, but Spohr intentionally, even brilliantly, contrived a movement that would defy logical analysis. His compositional approach in any event seems far more kaleidoscopic than systematic, the better to contrast the excesses of modernity with the sublime rationality and formal clarity of his two "eighteenth-century" movements.
There is nothing quite like the "Historical Symphony" anywhere else in symphonic literature. A canny summation of the dominant styles of Western art music in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a paradoxical marriage of order and chaos, a profound homage to the past as well as a powerful jab at the rank charlatanism and superficial showmanship of certain of his contemporaries, Spohr's highly eclectic Sixth Symphony is an important milestone in the emergence of a musical historicism that would persist against all odds throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and emerge in the twenty-first as one of the most galvanic creative forces of the new millennium.
Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony No. 1 in D Major, op. 25 ("Classical")
Although the "Classical" Symphony, op. 25 (1916–17) has long been one of Prokofiev's most popular and frequently performed orchestral works, and stands as one of the earliest and best examples of twentieth-century musical historicism, it is not a composition that is particularly representative of his oeuvre as a whole. If one compares other works that occupied the composer around the same time as the "Classical" Symphony—the four-act opera The Gambler, op. 24 (1915–17); the Visions fugitives, op. 22 (1915–17); the Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major (1916–17), op. 19; and the Third and Fourth Piano Sonatas (in A Minor, op. 28, and in C Minor, op. 29, both 1917 revisions of earlier works)—it will be immediately apparent that the "Classical" Symphony is rather in a class by itself.
The Gambler, based on Dostoyevsky's 1866 novella, captures the psychological complexities and vicissitudes of its literary source in a dark, turbulent, but richly variegated musical language which, while not abandoning late-romantic tonality, invests it with a level of ambiguity and dissonant angst that seems to mirror the unprecedented sociopolitical upheaval leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 as much as it does Dostoyevsky's literary characterizations.
The aptly named Visions fugitives are twenty miniatures in which Prokofiev explored and recorded a wide variety of psychological moods and impressions. They bear a rather romantic inscription from Balmont: "In every fugitive vision I see worlds / Full of the changing play of rainbow hues." Darkly reflective, luminous, dream-like, capricious, playful, grotesque, erratic, vaguely contented, sorrowful, anxious, stubbornly rebellious—these are but a few of the adjectives that convey something of the emotional and imagerial diversity encapsulated in these fleeting musical moments. Often tonally ambiguous, many of the pieces are written without key signatures.
The First Violin Concerto is characterized by an idiom that is at once romantic and modernistic, evoking scenes of both fairy-tale rêverie and unmitigated grotesquerie.
The popular one-movement Third Piano Sonata is a work of intense, often abrupt contrasts, ranging from the manically diabolical to the tenderly lyrical.
The Fourth Sonata, on the other hand, is distinguished by a more traditional approach to form and thematic development. The first movement, alternately brooding and capricious, is a sonata-allegro in a dissonantly tonal idiom. The "Andante assai," which totters between the aggressively modern and romantically lyrical, recalls both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with its distinctive rhythmic figuration and Alberti bass patterns. The rondo structure of the finale, a vivacious "Allegro con brio, ma non leggiere," is clearly articulated by distinctive themes and changes of key. Although the musical language remains pungently dissonant and by no means Haydenesque, this movement mirrors the historicist aesthetic of the "Classical" Symphony far more closely than any of the other works thus far examined.
If there was any single influence in Prokofiev's life that accounts for the unusual style of the "Classical" Symphony, it was certainly that of Nicolai Tcherepnin (1873–1945), who had been the composer's conducting professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1914. By no means a stuffy conservative, Tcherepnin nevertheless felt a deep and genuine affection for the music of Mozart and Haydn that he successfully conveyed to Profofiev, and—in the composer's own words—"that's where the 'Classical' Symphony eventually came from."7 Thus Prokofiev, who early on had acquired the reputation of a musical iconoclast, purposely accepted the challenge of writing a symphony in the style of Haydn, operating on the assumption that "If Haydn had lived to our era . . . he would have retained his compositional style but would also have absorbed something from what was new."8
The charming Gavotte—later reused in Romeo and Juliet (ball scene, act 1)—was composed before the rest of the symphony, followed by the first, second, and fourth movements:
The opening Allegro is a sonata-form movement of the utmost formal transparency. Each of its several themes is introduced in regular succession in the exposition, development, and recapitulation. Obvious "modernisms" include sporadically irregular phrase lengths; metrical displacement of thematic material; very moderate dissonance; mockery or distortion of certain "classical" patterns (e.g., exaggeratedly wide melodic leaps, the "smeared" descending scalar motifs at cadences); and a delightful harmonic quirkiness.
The "Larghetto" (A major, 3/4 time) contains only one full-fledged theme, a delicately lyrical melody of classical grace which occupies the beginning, middle, and end of the movement, which is "book-ended" by a short prelude and postlude. The interpolation of contrasting, essentially athematic pizzicato/staccato sections between the appearances of the theme results in a rondo-like form.
The "Gavotte" is an anomaly in a symphony supposed to have been written in the manner of a "contemporary" Haydn. One might have expected something along the lines of a scherzo, but instead Prokofiev turned to a dance form originating as early as the sixteenth cerntury. The gavotte flourished in the seventeenth century at the court of Louis XIV, and by the early eighteenth century had become so highly stylized that it was used as an optional movement in instrumental suites. Gluck (1714–1787) introduced the gavotte in Orphée et Euridice (1774) and Alceste (1776), as did Mozart in Les petits riens, K. 299b (1778), and Idomeneo, K. 366 (1781), but by the end of the eighteenth century it would have been a rarity in a symphonic context.
Prokofiev's Gavotte corresponds to the baroque prototype in that it is a dance in moderate common time with an upbeat consisting of two quarter notes whose phrase beginnings are thus shifted so that they occur in the middle of a measure (appendix 2, nos. 11a–11b).
Excerpt of Gavotte from Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony, p. 1
Excerpt of Gavotte from Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony, p. 2
Listen to excerpt of Gavotte from Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony (.mid file)
The usual type was a binary form, each of whose halves was repeated. In this instance, however, Prokofiev adopts a simple ABA' form, resulting in a ternary structure that does, indeed, recall the minuet and trio of the late-eighteenth century.
The first and last sections, in D major, most clearly manifest the gavotte character as defined above. The melody, distinguished by wide leaps and fragmentary scalar motives, unfolds in the most ravishingly modulatory manner, effectively obscuring the actual tonality in each case until the final cadence. The contrasting middle section in G major, with its long bagpipe-like drone, recalls the pastoral musette, a dance type often paired with the gavotte in baroque suites.
The finale, like the opening "Allegro," is a sonata-form movement whose several contrasting themes, appearing in extremely rapid succession in the exposition, recur in the recapitulation in the very same order. The entire movement is powerfully propulsive, racing along at breakneck speed. The brief development recombines all of the thematic material with great verve and ingenuity.
In the final analysis, Prokofiev was a brilliant but somewhat ambivalent historicist. As the result of an unpleasant meeting with Stravinsky and Diaghilev, in which the former seemed unduly apathetic and critical towards his music, Prokofiev would write: "I didn't approve of taking over another composer's style as one's own. I, too, wrote a 'Classical' Symphony, but only in passing. For Stravinsky, though, this was the main thrust of his work."9 In spite of his critical stance towards Stravinsky's historicism, Prokofiev continued to be attracted to traditional musical genres, writing fourteen operas, seven symphonies, six piano concertos, two violin concertos, six string quartets, and ten piano sonatas. His "Classical" Symphony, which predated Stravinsky's Pulcinella by several years, actually anticipated late-twentieth-century postmodernism. As biographer Harlow Robinson observes:
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Prokofiev was the forerunner of contemporary polystylistics, based on sharp, at times even jarring collisions of various musical prototypes, of stylistic models. One can hear this principle in action in works from all periods of Prokofiev's career, from the 'Classical' Symphony to Cinderella and Betrothal in a Monastery.10
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