Lieutenant Kijé

The story is ludicrous but great fun all the same. At the court of Tsar Paul I, an official, compiling a duty list of officers, makes a mistake which looks like the Russian word "Kijé." The tsar demands to know who this officer is and asks to meet him, but nobody dares correct him. A whole host of adventures are dreamed up for this "Lieutenant Kijé" to justify his absence, and when the officials finally run out of ideas they invent a heroic death for him. Prokofiev’s music was originally written for a 1934 Soviet film satirizing the incompetence and absurdity of tsarist rule. It was his first score for the cinema and also one of his earliest attempts to move from avant-garde provocation to a more accessible, potentially popular style. As such it was a triumph, and when Prokofiev released an orchestral suite based on the music it quickly became a popular classic. It is a very colorful score, the lineup including tenor saxophone, cornet, and sleigh bells, but, as so often with Prokofiev, what really stands out is the wonderful melodic writing, never predictable, but appealing directly to the emotions. One movement, "Troika" (Sleigh Ride), has been used so widely in popular culture that many people recognize it instantly without knowing where it comes from, which would almost certainly have delighted and amused Prokofiev.