Overture on Hebrew Themes

Prokofiev regarded the work as conceived essentially for a sextet, and long resisted suggestions of arranging it for other forces.

In September 1930, he remarked, "I don’t understand what sort of obtuse people could have found it necessary to reorchestrate it" but, nevertheless, he was persuaded to make a version for chamber orchestra in 1934, published as Op.

The orchestrated version is performed less often, because it lacks the earthiness and uncanny timbral balance of the original (Keller 2011, 367).

When a Scots critic, Andrew Fraser, published an article in 1929 describing the Overture as "a beautiful and pathetic work", the composer wrote in response, "its technique is conventional, its form is bad (4 + 4 + 4 + 4)".

When his friend Nikolai Myaskovsky praised the second theme, Prokofiev retorted, with reference to the work's coda, "from the musical point of view, the only worthwhile part, if you please, is the final section, and that, I think, is probably the result of my sweetness and diatonicism" (Nice 2003, 163).

The first theme, Un poco allegro, has a jumpy and festive rhythm, unmistakably evoking klezmer music by alternating low and high registers and using "hairpin" dynamics.