Studying Interpretation: Lieutenant Kije

Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé Suite, which premiered in 1937, contains a standard excerpt for snare drum in it's first movement titled Kijé's Birth. Kijé presents the performer with a series of drags (two grace notes followed by the primary note) and ruffs (three grace notes followed by the primary note) embedded within a gentle march-like figure of eighth notes. The twelve bar passage is marked at 120 quarter notes per minute, and is marked pianissimo (very quiet). Note: we will only focus on the first twelve measures of the excerpt within this comparison.

The technical challenge of the excerpt is two-fold. First, the speed of the drags and ruffs must be similar. Many inexperienced performers will often "crush" the drag and not give proper defintion to each grace note. The second problem is that the excerpt requires a very gentle touch by the performer whom accompanies accompanies the piccolo and flute.

Let's take three outstanding recordings to study. The first two recordings showcase the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Hungarian conductor Fritz Reiner in 1957 and the Italian Claudio Abbado in 1978. The third recording is the Hungarian-born George Szell at the helm of the Cleveland Orchestra in a 1969 recording. Earlier I remarked that there are two major technical challenges of this excerpt. Let's see how each of the (unknown) performers meets those challenges.

Technical execution

Reiner/CSO - The performer uses a tight drum head (presumably on a medium-depth drum) with no noticeable muffing and plays most of the ruffs hand-to-hand (i.e. R-L-R-L). The last ruff sounds like it's played R-L-L-R. The volume levels do not noticably increase throughout the twelve measure passage, and the written accents are observed conservatively.

Abbado/CSO - The passage is played on a tight drum head with modest muffling and is started at a very low dynamic (so quiet, in fact, that I had to adjust the volume in order to hear the first measure!). We can observe a dynamic increase throughout measure 4 of the excerpt with a slight increase in tempo. Some unmarked accents are placed in measure seven, and all written accents are clearly executed. Measures 9-12 are played steadily in the same dynamic and balance well against the flute and piccolo.

Szell/Cleveland - The drum used in this recording sounds more like a deeper field drum; the snares are loose, the head is of medium-high tension, and there is ample muffling on the drum head. The tempo of this selection is the fastest of all three recordings, but is in steady tempo throughout the phrase. It's difficult to determine what ruffs are played hand-to-hand (R-L-R-L) and which are played R-L-L-R as the performer makes the differences indiscernable.

Style

What the Reiner and Szell recordings miss is a bit of sardonic attitude which the Abbado recording does have. Remember, even the name "Kijé" is based on a Russian pun which leads to a fictional character who must die due to his own success. Sarcasm aside, it's difficult to see the Abbado performer winning an orchestral audition with his/her interpretation, however. Instead I would venture to guess the Reiner/CSO recording would achieve a "pass" through an audition committee based on the selection of drum, head tension, muffling, and actual excecution. The Szell/Cleveland recording is a great interpretation and more "rudimental" in sound, and is a nice diversion from the usual way we hear the excerpt performed.

Thus concludes an extremely verbose commentary on twelve measures of music! Send me your commentary if you find any other interesting recordings of this work.