Society as the Paradigm of 20th Century Art (on the Materials of Sergei Prokofiev’s Music)

Abstract

According to the traditional perspective of the nature of the musical art, it is characterized by
a rather modest potential for depicting elements connected with social relations. In reality, though,
society exerts a pervading impact on music. One of the proofs may be demonstrated in the legacy
of Sergei Prokofiev, who always stayed aloof from politics. Analytical study is presented here of
three of Prokofiev’s works directly relevant to the annals of the “country of the Soviets.” As a
leading representative of the “Scythian” trends in the arts, the composer made the attempt in an
appropriate manner to portray the revolutionary events of Russia in 1917 in his cantata “Seven,
They are Seven” (1918). The meaning of the events depicted in this work may be viewed as a
grandiose ritual of violent subversion. The global character of the scope combined with a semi-
fantastic color is capable of evoking the picture of the Great Flood, or a Great Advent. The “Cantata
for the 20th Anniversary of October” (1937) recreates a holistic view of the development of the
revolutionary movement, reconstructing the gradual movement from the irradiation of communist
ideas in the West before their implementation in Russia. By means of the entire aggregate of artistic
expression Prokofiev clearly actualizes the verbal outline (texts from the political writings of Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin), assimilating it to the realities of the mid-1930s, and with a catching
temperament conveys the atmosphere of the social confrontation of that time period. Prokofiev's
Sixth Symphony (1947) depicts with extraordinary prominence the opposition of two elemental
principles in a way characteristic of the “cold war” – one of which is aggressively overpowering,
and the other personifying the humanistic values of human existence.

Keywords: society and the art of music, depiction in Prokofiev’s works of the most important
milestones of life in Russia in the first half of the 20th century.