JAVS Fall 2011

A L ABOR OF L OVE : B ORISOVSKY ’ S R omeo and J uliet T RANSCRIPTIONS

by Matthew Jones

A little more digging uncovered yet another suite of five extracts (in order 9, 12, 16, 14, 10) that was published in 1977 by Moscow Muzyka and once more disappeared from sale within a very short peri od. For many years no version of any of these works was in print, until a relatively little-known sister publisher of Boosey & hawkes (the copyright hold ers of Prokofiev’s music) named Chant du Monde released what seemed to be a complete set of all the extracts. On closer inspection, the only missing excerpt was 7— Mercutio . The high price of this music seemed unimportant compared with the diffi culty in locating it, but the disappointment was that no corrections to the significant number of misprints in all of the previous Russian editions were made before publication. Many of these errors are easily observed ledger line mistakes in the left hand of the The complete list of extracts on the new recording for Naxos, in the order in which they appear in the ballet: (All extracts arranged Borisovsky, except *David Grunes, **Matthew Jones)

Introduction

I was more than a little surprised when I heard, ten years ago, that extracts from one of my favorite orchestral scores, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet , had been arranged for viola and piano. how on earth could the multi-layered, innovative, and exquisite orchestration possibly remain intact to any degree in such a reduction? As a recent convert to the viola, I had not heard of Vadim Borisovsky, and it took many years to realize the full extent of his inestimable contribution to the development of the instrument. Inevitably, when I first heard some of the extracts, I was blown away; first by the extent to which the genial music remained untarnished by the adaptation, and then by the sheer ingenuity of the transcriber’s craft. yizhak Schotten’s performance of five extracts on The Recorded Viola, Volume 4 was the first that I heard, followed by several others that contained mostly the same extracts with the occasional substi tution, but never more than a set of six pieces. After drawing a blank in all of the uK music libraries, a visit to one in Chicago led me to discover an edition by Masters Music Publications of six extracts (in order 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 7 from the list) that had been published in 1992 and was already long out of print, most likely because of unresolved copyright issues with Prokofiev’s estate. This turned out to be Borisovsky’s first “suite” of excerpts, originally published in Russia in 1961. Borisovsky had completed two other tran scriptions around the same as the six in this suite— no. 4 and 11—which, for no obvious reasons, were not included in the suite. These two were later pub lished in an edition in 1967 by Moscow Muzyka that includes four selections (in order 4, 8, 11, 6).

1. Introduction 2. The Street Awakens 3. Juliet as a Young Girl 4. Minuet – Arrival of the Guests 5. Masks* 6. Dance of the Knights 7. Mercutio 8. Balcony Scene 9. Carnival 10. Dance with Mandolins 11. Romeo at Friar Laurence’s Home 12. Death of Mercutio 13. Death of Tybalt** 14. Morning Serenade 15. Dance of the Lily Maidens* 16. Parting Scene and Death of Juliet

V OLuME 27 NuMBER 2 29