We've got three performance of the Alexander Nevsky soundtrack this weekend synced along with the film. Here's something I wrote after the first rehearsal on Wednesday (I'm in the chorus)
Orchestration: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (anvil, bass drum, bells, chimes, cymbals, gong, maracas, snare drum, steel plate, tambourine, tom-tom, triangle, woodblock, xylophone), harp, strings, chorus, and mezzo-soprano soloist.
Our percussion arsenal included a mounted I-beam and a suspended brake drum hit with hammers. The very low bells are being played on the organ.
The sax part is quite prominent, including a solo.
The original film (1938) was recorded with three tracks: dialogue, soundscape, and film music. Of the music, Andre Previn had said it is "
the greatest film score ever written trapped inside the worst soundtrack ever recorded." The film music track is dropped, played by the orchestra. What I heard of the dialogue and sfx last night is very good sound quality.
The screen measures about 12x12 meters (40x40 feet) and is hung over the orchestra (actually directly over the horn section). Maybe about 4-5 meters off the ground? The chorus has sight lines to the conductor but, above orchestra seating, the audience will not see us. The conductor is working with a score and three monitors. I think the monitors are: film, click track, clock. The production includes offstage horns, conducted through an open door in the acoustic shell.
We are playing the PGM Productions version (1987) which is a reconstruction of the original score by William Brohm based on Prokofiev's derivative cantata, as the manuscript was locked behind the Iron Curtain and not released until 2003.
Because of this (and because the film recording is so bad) certain political intentions of Prokofiev are being interpolated, much like Shostakovich. This is supposedly especially apparent in the final scene: Alexander Nevsky's entry into Pskov, which in the cantata is a triumphal allegory in praise of Stalin, but in the manuscript is scored with rather empty instrumentation (lack of upper and lower register instruments and spare mid-range) evoking a sober unsettling impression in the listener. In short: the aural information contradicts the visual information.
I am grateful to these two sources for information I included. (
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