Welcome to the Ether Game Weekly Podcast! This week, the Ether Game Brain Trust is picking a fight and exploring some " Famous Feuds" in the music world! See if you can guess this piece on our podcast selection. Remember to keep your ears out for a portion of Tuesday night's Teaser selection. And don't forget to tune into the full show on Tuesday, July 25th at 8:00pm for a chance to win a prize!
Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953): THE LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES SUITE, OP. 33: March
National Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Slatkin, conductor. Slatkin/Prokofiev (RCA Victor)
Sergei Prokofiev's odd opera The Love For Three Oranges was polarizing when it premiered in Chicago in 1921. But the person that Prokofiev did not expect to have a negative reaction to his new work was Igor Stravinsky. Both Prokofiev and Stravinsky had written ballets for impresario Sergei Diaghilev before. One evening, Diaghilev invited Prokofiev to play his new opera for himself and Stravinsky. Prokofiev didn't make it past the first act before both men started criticizing him. They both asserted that Prokofiev was wasting time composing operas, Stravinsky adding that Prokofiev was on the wrong path. Prokofiev jumped in and yelled at the older Stravinsky, saying quote "My path is real, and your path is the path of the past generation!" The two composers nearly came to blows, and Diaghilev (Stravinsky's biggest fan) stopped commissioning works from Prokofiev after the incident.