Prokofiev's Latin
Music often plays a significant part in the success or otherwise of a film. A skillful composer can reinforce the effect of the visual images to add to the drama or beauty of what is on the screen. People can listen to the music afterwards and recall the film. However it is often the case that the music can be rather less interesting on its own, particularly to those who have not seen the film.
This in not a charge that can be levelled at Prokofiev's music to Eisenstein's film of 1938, Alexander Nevsky. While the film may not be seen often outside art film clubs, the suite the composer wrote from the music for the film is one of the most dramatic choral works of the 20th century. At its climax is the Battle on the Ice where the gallant Russian soldiers defeat the invading Teutonic Knights on a frozen lake.
While the defending forces are depicted in a positive way with jolly rhythmic tunes the invaders are depicted as faceless hordes, chanting monotonously in Latin:
Peregrinus expectavi pedes meos in cymbalis estwhich translates as
A stranger I have awaited my feet in cymbals iswhich is clearly nonsense. When I was rehearsing it the first time, I felt at the back of my mind that the individual words were familiar, but I couldn't work out from where. Eventually I realised that they all occurred at some point in Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, apart possibly from "est" which I haven't tracked down yet.
Why was he doing this? Was it an "in" joke? Was it just a coincidence, though that seemed unlikely. Surely I wasn't the first person to notice this. Maybe I should do some research.
Luckily I found somebody who had looked into it and written a very interesting article for the Classical Association of New England, so I shall leave it to him.
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