Riccardo Chailly conducts Prokofiev at Concertgebouw Orchestra

Riccardo Chailly

Film music, ballets, symphonies - Prokofiev could do anything and was rarely shy of catchy melodies. The orchestral wizard gets a podium of honor with Riccardo Chailly with the compelling cantata Alexander Nyevsky, in which the Concertgebouw Orchestra is joined by the Groot Omroepkoor and celebrated mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk. Before intermission, Prokofiev's adventurous, far too unknown Fourth Symphony will be heard.

Prokofiev

Alexander Nyevsky was the result of an extraordinary collaboration between the composer Sergei Prokofiev and the film director Sergei Eisenstein, who greatly admired each other. Prokofiev forged the best pieces from the soundtrack into a flowery orchestrated cantata, with songs full of tragedy, suspense and folk melodies. In his 1930 Fourth Symphony, Prokofiev reused material from a ballet that was never completed. Riccardo Chailly conducts the second, greatly improved 1947 version. The second movement is one of the finest hidden gems in orchestral history.