While the last few decades have seen a revolution in the number of live symphonic Concert Hall performances of film music, the scores are still ghettoized, relegated to ‘Pops’ programs or Special All-Film Nights; not pure enough for Subscription Series. While Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto is now regularly played alongside Brahms, a suite from THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD wouldn't be. A rare exception? The suite Sergei Prokofiev made from his film music to LT. KIJE in 1934. (Prokofiev struck again with the cantata fashioned from his ALEXANDER NEVSKY/’38 score.) Yet, while this suite (which contains nearly all the music from the film) was instantly popular (still is), the film remains unknown. Deservedly? Well . . . pretty much yes. But still fascinating to see where the cues come from even when early Soviet film technology leaves a lot to be taken on faith visually and sonically. In a set-up loaded with comic potential the eponymous Lt. turns out to be no more than a clerical error made during the reign of Czar Paul I. Born by a slip of the pen 1800; dying by pen the same year. All because no one dares to admit the Czar could be in error. Anyway, this phantom soldier is useful as a scapegoat. A very Russian bureaucratic comedy not too far from Gogol’s THE INSPECTOR GENERAL and all too close to THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES. The comic acting broad even for The Kremlin; very nudge-nudge/wink-wink under debut megger Aleksandr Faintsimmer. (No Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Players here.) But it does tell you something about Prokofiev and why he was so excited to visit the Disney studio years before they got around to making their PETER AND THE WOLF short.
LINKS: Check it out for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCL_wTViYF0 (Don’t forget to turn the subtitles on.)
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: Really a HEAR THIS with the score far more alive on its own than in the film in this never bettered 1957 recording from Fritz Reiner & the CSO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK9mOTugCxk
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The KIJE score shows up all over the place in the movies. Probably best used in Woody Allen’s earliest mature work, LOVE AND DEATH/’75.
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