Composing for the Red Screen: Prokofiev and Soviet Film

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Kevin Bartig (Assistant Professor of Musicology, Assistant Professor of Musicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI)

Composing for the Red Screen

Prokofiev and Soviet Film

Kevin Bartig (Assistant Professor of Musicology, Assistant Professor of Musicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI)

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English

Oxford University Press Inc
15 April 2013

Films, movies & cinema; Theory of music & musicology; 20th century & contemporary classical music; Musical scores, lyrics & libretti

Series: Oxford Music/Media Series

"Sound film captivated Sergey Prokofiev during the final two decades of his life: he considered composing for nearly two dozen pictures, eventually undertaking eight of them, all Soviet productions. Hollywood luminaries such as Gloria Swanson tempted him with commissions, and arguably more people heard his film music than his efforts in all other genres combined. Films for which Prokofiev composed, in particular those of Sergey Eisenstein, are now classics of world cinema. Drawing on newly available sources, Composing for the Red Screen examines - for the first time - the full extent of this prodigious cinematic career. Author Kevin Bartig examines how Prokofiev's film music derived from a self-imposed challenge: to compose ""serious"" music for a broad audience. The picture that emerges is of a composer seeking an individual film-music voice, shunning Hollywood models and objecting to his Soviet colleagues' ideologically expedient film songs. Looking at Prokofiev's film music as a whole - with well-known blockbusters like Alexander Nevsky considered alongside more obscure or aborted projects - reveals that there were multiple solutions to the challenge, each with varying degrees of success. Prokofiev carefully balanced his own populist agenda, the perceived aesthetic demands of the films themselves, and, later on, Soviet bureaucratic demands for accessibility."

By: Kevin Bartig (Assistant Professor of Musicology Assistant Professor of Musicology Michigan State University East Lansing MI)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 165mm, Width: 241mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780199967599
ISBN 10: 0199967598
Series: Oxford Music/Media Series
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 15 April 2013
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kevin Bartig is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Michigan State University.

Reviews for Composing for the Red Screen: Prokofiev and Soviet Film

A long-awaited, much-needed contribution to Prokofiev studies and Soviet cinema history. In Kevin Bartig's account, Alexander Nevsky, a showcase score of enduring appeal, becomes utterly fresh, and Ivan the Terrible even more compellingly bizarre. Highlights include a meticulous chronicle of the unfinished film The Queen of Spades, one of the great might-have-beens in the Soviet canon. Bartig also makes the case for the commercial (or at least educational) release of Tonya, a propagandistic film of modest musical appeal, while also filling in details of Prokofiev's service to Soviet power during the Second World War. --Simon Morrison, author of The People's Artist: Prokofiev's Soviet Years Bartig's book is essential reading for all Russian film scholars. He makes the technical musicology of Prokofiev's film scores accessible, and he integrates his profound understanding of the composer's work into deeply researched historical studies of each of the films, giving us a world of new insights into a critical facet of film making that is rarely discussed. --Joan Neuberger, author of Ivan the Terrible: The Film Companion