On Guard for Peace (), also translated as On Guard of Peace, Op. 124 is an oratorio by Sergei Prokofiev scored for narrators, mezzo-soprano, boy soprano, boys choir, mixed choir, and symphony orchestra. Each of its ten movements sets texts by Samuil Marshak, who had collaborated previously with the composer in the work Winter Bonfire, Op. 122.
Prokofiev composed On Guard for Peace under difficult personal circumstances. He had been among six composers censured by the Union of Soviet Composers in its 1948 Anti-Formalist Resolution on Music, which had immediate professional and financial consequences for him. The resulting stress exacerbated his chronic health problems from hypertension, which led to a stroke in 1949. Against his doctors' advice, Prokofiev wanted to compose a large oratorio on the theme of world peace, which he hoped would result in a paid commission from the Union of Soviet Composers or the Committee on Arts Affairs. With help from Alexander Fadeyev and Sergey Balasanian, Prokofiev was granted a commission for his oratorio from the children's programming division of the Radio Information Committee.
During the composition process, Prokofiev revised the name of the oratorio and some of its movements several times before settling on their final names. As in many of his late works, Prokofiev willingly amended his score according to the advice offered by his collaborators and friends.
On Guard for Peace was premiered on December 19, 1950, in Moscow; the performance was conducted by Samuil Samosud. It was received warmly in the Soviet Union, where it earned a Stalin Prize, second class, Prokofiev's last; it also signaled the beginning of his political rehabilitation. Discourse about the work in the West was affected by the Cold War and tended to be hostile. Its reputation there has remained mixed.
Background
The years spanning World War II and the immediate postwar were the most successful of Prokofiev's career. According to Sviatoslav Richter, Prokofiev "tirelessly replenished the treasury of the latest classical works" during this period. He was widely regarded as the leading composer of the Soviet Union and a living classic. By 1947, the number of distinctions and prizes he earned were unmatched in the history of Soviet music, on top of which were several foreign honors, including a gold medal from the Royal Philharmonic Society. His Sixth Symphony was premiered to widespread acclaim that year and was the last time any of his new music succeeded without need of outside intervention during the composition process.
On January 5, 1948, Joseph Stalin and members of the Politburo attended the Bolshoi Theatre for a performance of the opera The Great Friendship by the Georgian composer Vano Muradeli. The opera outraged Stalin for reasons that remain undetermined. He immediately directed Andrei Zhdanov to investigate the opera, which led to a wider campaign against musical formalism, during which Prokofiev emerged as one of the main targets. On February 10, Prokofiev and five other Soviet composers were censured by the Politburo in their 1948 Anti-Formalist Resolution on Music, which resulted in the banning of a number of his works, including previously lauded scores such as the Sixth and Eighth piano sonatas. With his music no longer performed or published in the Eastern Bloc, Prokofiev and his wife, Mira, had to rely on charity from friends in order to live. He was unable to maintain the loan that allowed him to purchase his dacha in and by August 1948, he had incurred a personal debt of R180,000. According to Marina Frolova-Walker, the punishment meted out to Prokofiev was arguably the harshest of all the censured composers, with its "devastating effect" leading to the "catastrophic deterioration of his health". He was out of official favor for a longer period of time than the other composers named in the resolution, an outcome which the failed reception of his opera The Story of a Real Man aggravated.
On July 7, 1949, Prokofiev had a stroke as a result of stress and chronic hypertension. Despite his declining health, Prokofiev insisted to his doctors, who strictly regimented his activities, that he be allowed more time to compose. One of them eventually gave way to the composer's demands:
One cannot keep an artist from creating ... the music will live in his soul, and the impossibility of writing it out will only worsen his moral and psychological state: "Let him live a shorter life, but as he wishes".
Prokofiev's health partially recovered in late 1949.
Composition Origin
Prokofiev had first expressed interest in composing a vocal-symphonic work on the topic of world peace while composing Winter Bonfire and the Cello Sonata earlier in 1949. He first discussed and developed the idea with Alexander Gayamov, a Russian-Armenian writer. Together, they devised an outline for a five-movement oratorio on a "broad Russian theme". It would have included an orchestral movement representing the Great Patriotic War, a recitative addressed to "the peoples of the world", a portrayal of "the citizens of the future" who protect the "ideal" of world peace, and ended with a choral apotheosis.
Prokofiev later explained in an article he wrote for Izvestia in 1951 that the oratorio's theme of peace "sprang from life itself" and his observations of "scenes from everyday Soviet life":
[On Guard for Peace] tells of the grim days of World War II, of the tears of mothers and orphans, of towns swept by fire, of the terrible trials that fell to the lot of our people; of Stalingrad and the victory over the enemy; of the radiant joy of creative labor, of the happy childhood of our children. In this composition I have sought to express my ideas about peace and war, and my firm belief that there will be no wars, that the nations of the world will safeguard the peace, save civilization, our children, our future.
In another article from that same year, Prokofiev said he was "possessed" with the need to contribute to the cause of peace:
"Everyone must fight for peace" is the main theme of the oratorio. [...] The ranks of peace advocates grow and grow stronger every day. They are stronger than all the instigators of war. They will block the path to war. The people of peace will stand up for peace.
On November 26, 1949, Prokofiev and his wife Mira attended the Moscow premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's oratorio Song of the Forests. According to Mira, Prokofiev said "the oratorio was masterly, the instrumentation brilliant, but it was not rich in melodic material". wrote that Prokofiev was delighted by Shostakovich's scoring for children's choir, but felt it was used too infrequently. He first heard about Song of the Forests on July 1 from , a mutual friend of both composers. With the success of Shostakovich's Song of the Forests, Prokofiev returned to the idea of composing a large-scale vocal-symphonic work, now clearly envisioned as an oratorio. He spent the closing months of 1949 preparing a program for the work and finding a librettist. Prokofiev's doctors warned him against taking on any more work, but he persisted as he hoped his proposal for an oratorio would result in a paid official commission from the Committee on Arts Affairs. Despite continuing health problems, Mira recalled that Prokofiev had a "burning, passionate desire to write [On Guard for Peace]" and that he resolved to complete as much music as he could:
[Prokofiev] did not like to talk about his illness. Nor did he like others talking about it. The only reason I am writing about it now only is because it was from autumn 1949 that he decisively changed his way of life, concentrating all his physical strength, and all the strength in his soul on the quickest possible fulfillment of his plans. "How much I could have, how much more I should have written", he told me in the last days of his life.
In January 1950, Prokofiev's health deteriorated again. Shostakovich interceded on Prokofiev's behalf and urged Vyacheslav Molotov to permit Prokofiev access to the Kremlin Hospital, which was granted on February 17. New doctors and caregivers confined the composer to his bed, prohibited him from working, and confiscated his manuscript paper; he then sketched his ideas on napkins that he hid under his pillow. By this time, he had started collaborating on the oratorio's libretto with the novelist Ilya Ehrenburg, who was unsure whether to proceed further with the project as he had never worked with a composer before.
Prokofiev was released from the hospital on April 3 and immediately traveled to Barvikha where he checked into a local sanatorium. While convalescing, he was visited by the writer Alexander Fadeyev, a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU and Supreme Soviet. Fadeyev then told Sergey Balasanian, deputy director of the Radio Information Committee in charge of programming, to approve the commission of an oratorio from Prokofiev for the children's programming division. The composer attempted to negotiate an advance through Atovmyan, but was informed that it could only be offered once the score was completed and presented.
Finding a librettist
Ehrenburg agreed to work on the oratorio and had promised to have the libretto ready for Prokofiev by the beginning of March 1950. However, on March 4, Prokofiev wrote a letter to his wife complaining that he still had not received the libretto.
Prokofiev kept working intermittently during his convalescence, preparing what ultimately became On Guard for Peace while simultaneously revising and editing the piano score for his ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower. Additionally, on March 29, Prokofiev received a letter from his wife informing him that Grigori Aleksandrov wanted him to compose the score for his forthcoming film, Kompozitor Glinka, and was prepared to accommodate the composer's wishes, including paying him at the "highest rate". Prokofiev seriously considered the offer, at one point expressing the hope that the film score could provide the basis for a future opera. The film's depictions of Mikhail Glinka's professional failures led Prokofiev to reflect on the neglect of his own operas; he ultimately declined Aleksandrov's offer.
On May 11, Prokofiev met with Fadeyev and Nikolai Tikhonov to discuss Ehrenburg's libretto. The composer also invited his father-in-law Abram Mendelson, whom he regularly consulted on political matters, to the meeting. Ehrenburg's libretto—which consisted of twelve sections and set the oratorio in a hypothetical Soviet Union devastated by preemptive nuclear strikes launched by the United States with the assistance of NATO—shared similar themes with his recent novel, The Ninth Wave. The libretto described Western financiers celebrating the North Atlantic Treaty and "traders of death" goading for nuclear warfare, but these are ultimately thwarted by a global coalition of nations led by the Soviet Union. "Peace will defeat war", it concluded.
Fadeyev said the scenario was "interesting", but that it seemed more appropriate for a film script than an oratorio libretto. He was displeased with Ehrenburg, who was considered politically "unreliable" at the time, and cautioned Prokofiev against setting his text. Fadeyev had already approached Tikhonov about writing the libretto instead, but the latter refused citing his lack of experience in children's literature. His next choice was Samuil Marshak, a celebrated writer for children and translator of Shakespeare, who accepted the offer. Fadeyev supervised the project in order to ensure that the pacifist and militarist themes in the oratorio were agreeably balanced; Prokofiev requested alterations to the libretto from him, not Marshak.
Collaboration and personal challenges