Prokofiev’s Fourth Symphony is not one of his better known ones and it’s perhaps not a surprise to learn of its problematic origins. The musical material began life as a ballet, The Prodigal Son, and its first performance in 1930 was greeted with only moderate enthusiasm. After the war, and with the experience of his well-received Fifth and Sixth Symphonies behind him, he revised it, incorporating a repeating motto theme in the hope of binding it into a more symphonic structure.
As we heard in the LSO’s performance last night under Gianandrea Noseda, he was only partially successful. A number of passages reflect their balletic origin, their disparate registers of mood and style suggesting contrasting tableaux arising from a narrative sequence. Often too, Prokofiev seems to be in cinematic mode. Nevertheless, there’s a good deal of powerful and heart-swelling music in the score and one couldn’t hope for a more persuasive advocate than Noseda.
