LDV74

FLORIAN NOACK 25 It would be a reprehensible oversimplification automatically to link Prokofiev’s American exile with the pervasive nostalgia of the Tales of an Old Grandmother op.31. And, as if to harp on the obvious, commentators are in the habit of brandishing a remark uttered by our composer on a day of extreme dejection: ‘Some memories have been half-erased from my memory; others will never be erased.’ The image is not far from the headscarfed babushka hobbling amid her hens, trusting in St John Chrysostom to ensure an abundant harvest. However, this is to ignore the enduring fascination for Russians of fairytales, which are present at all levels of popular culture andwhich – far fromdiverting children – aimrather to terrify them. No ingenuous languor for the distant homeland, but bitter-sweet reminiscences that slalomblithely between Pictures at an Exhibition (the ostinato does not conceal its sidelong glance at Bydlo ) andminiature ballerinas dragging their slippers in little minor-key gestures. This apparent delicacy, however, is only an artifice, because there is a harshness in these pieces: ‘A cart moves through the countryside. Its wheel, which shudders, is a heavy stone. It is this relentless advance – flattening all in its path – that we should hear in the Tales of an Old Grandmother .’ As if nostalgia were not the most crushing feeling of all.