Slow Waltz (Prokofiev)

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The slow waltz Cinderella and the Prince is a piece from the ballet Cinderella or Solushka ( Золушка ) by Sergei Prokofjew . Cinderella began in the early 1940s, but, interrupted by the Second World War , it was not performed until 1945 in Moscow's Bolshoi Theater . The waltz appears both in the second act in the ball scene as a dance with the prince, as well as in the third act in the second scene, shortly before the end of the story of Cinderella , when the prince recognizes her by the matching (previously lost) shoe. It has never become as popular as the great waltz from the ball scene (No. 30) in the second act of the ballet. In a revised form, however, it is part of Prokofiev's concert suite op. 102 for piano from 1944, which contains five other pieces from Cinderella in addition to the waltz .

Musical structure, motifs and themes

In the ballet, combined motifs of the slow and the great waltz are heard towards the end of the third and last act as a reminder of the ball scene from the second act, which was played shortly before midnight, shortly before the prince found her. In his orchestral suites op. 107 and 108 from 1946, Prokofiev took up this principle of combining motifs as a memory with pieces from Cinderella.

However, in Prokofiev's Cinderella Suite op. 102 for piano ( Six Pieces from Cinderella ), which appeared in 1944 before the first performance of the ballet, and in the orchestral suite op. 109 from 1946, the slow waltz is an independent, thoroughly composed movement. It is entitled Waltz: Cinderella and the Prince ( Вальс: Золушка и принц ) and in op. 109 the title Slow Waltz ( Медленный вальс ).

After a very quiet and slow, almost non-rhythmic introduction of eight bars , the swinging three-quarter time typical of ballet waltzes in the pas de deux begins with a powerful bass on the first beat and sometimes strange and magical-sounding chords on beats two and three in the following eight bars. Then the first theme of the waltz appears with 32 bars. This theme is strongly syncopated and thus underlines the light-footed, dancing character of the scene from the third act. The previously elegant melody over large intervals is replaced in the second theme of the waltz by discordant notes and a loud pounding bass, which points to the action of the ballet namely both the hateful anger of Cinderella's stepsisters, which the prince disdains in contrast to Cinderella, but perhaps also the hint of a brief argument between Cinderella and her beloved prince. This theme extends over 16 bars and is repeated. Then the elegant first waltz theme appears again in a slightly alienated form. After a transition, the third theme appears, which after 16 bars leads to an exotic, fairytale-like harmony with a subdued, passionate-looking increase in volume and tempo. After a repetition with again a short passionate increase and large chords, the dance fades away, as it began, more and more slowly in ever softer, completely harmonic tones in an E major chord.

The American writer and music journalist Robert Cummings writes about the waltz: “[…] is sinister and suggests strife and anything but romance between Cinderella and the Prince” (“[…] is dark and suggests quarrel, anything but a romance between Cinderella and the Prince ”).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedbert Streller: Prokofjew and his time . Laaber 2003, ISBN 3-89007-554-1 , chapter catalog raisonné p. 345 and 353
  2. ^ S. Prokofiev: Collected Works. Volume 3 ( Собрание сочинений ). Moscow 1956.
  3. ↑ Sergey Prokofiev: Pieces (6) for piano (from the ballet Cinderella), Op. 102 on Allmusic.com (with a description of the suite op. 102).