Composing for the Red Screen

Prokofiev and Soviet Film
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-0-19-021328-2
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 428 g

Reihe: 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bartig, Kevin

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musiktheorie, Musikästhetik, Kompositionslehre
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik Geschichte der Musik: Klassische Musik des 20./21. Jahrhunderts
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Partituren, Autographen, Libretti, Liederbücher

Über Autor(innen)

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