A COMPOSER’S CREED
Reading edition
The principal lines which I followed in my creative work are these:
The first is classical, whose origin lies in my early infancy when I heard my mother play Beethoven sonatas. It assumes a neo-classical aspect in the sonatas and the concertos, or imitates the classical style of the eighteenth century, as in the Gavottes, the Classical Symphony, and, in some respects, in the Sinfonietta.
The second is innovation, whose inception I trace to my meeting with Taneieff, when he taunted me for my rather “elementary harmony.” At first, this innovation consisted in the search for an individual harmonic language, but later was transformed into a desire to find a medium for the expression of strong emotions, as in Sarcasms, Scythian Suite, the opera The Gambler, They are Seven, the Second Symphony, etc. This innovating strain has affected not only the harmonic idiom, but also the melodic inflection, orchestration, and stage technique.
The third is the element of the toccata or motor element, probably influenced by Schumann’s Toccata, which impressed me greatly at one time. In this category are the Etudes Op. 2, Toccata, Op. 11, Scherzo, Op. 12, the Scherzo of the Second Piano Concerto, the Toccata in the Fifth Piano Concerto, the persistent figurations in the Scythian Suite, Le Pas d’acier, and some passages in the Third Piano Concerto. This element is probably the least important.
The fourth element is lyrical. It appears at first as lyric meditation, sometimes unconnected with melos, as in Fairy Tale, Op. 3, Réves, Esquisse automnale, Legend, Op. 21, etc., but sometimes is found in long melodic phrases, as in the opening of the First Violin Concerto, the songs, etc. This lyric strain has for long remained in obscurity, or, if it was noticed at all, then only in retrospection. And since my lyricism has for 4 a long time been denied appreciation, it has grown but slowly. But at later stages I paid more and more attention to lyrical expression.
I should like to limit myself to these four expressions, and to regard the fifth element, that of the grotesque, with which some critics are trying to label me, as merely a variation of the other characteristics. In application to my music, I should like to replace the word grotesque by “Scherzo-ness,” or by the three words giving its gradations: “Jest,” “laughter,” “mockery.”
SERGE PROKOFIEFF
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