136 RUSSIAN CULTURE
composer from being accused of apostasy. However, he ostenta-
tiously displayed his return to classicism in his Apotton Musagete
and King Oedipus (both composed in 1927), his return to Bach
in a piano concerto (1924), and again to Chaikovsky in The Kiss
of a Fairy. Each of these works confused the public and critics
with its new method of composition* The orchestra grew ever
smaller (in King Oedipus Stravinsky resorted to strings only), the
harmony became more simple, the style more and more translu-
cent, and dynamics yielded to majestic immobility. "It is only left
for him to compose a mass/' remarked Schloezer after King Oedi-
pus, but instead Stravinsky astonished the public once again by
composing The Kiss of a Fairy. When finally he arrived at the
conception of a religious subject he produced the Symphony of
Psalms (1930). In this work Stravinsky wiped out entirely his
many experiments and returned to the colorful orchestration of
which he was such a great master during his early creative period.
The result was immediate: the public received the symphony with
tremendous enthusiasm, while the critics found themselves in an
awkward position, wondering "where Stravinsky was directing
his gaze,"
Another great name in Russian and in contemporary music
generally, is that of Prokofiev. He is not only ten years younger
than Stravinsky but by nature is a different and in many respects
even a contradictory type. What Stravinsky attained with long
study and close work on the score, came to Prokofiev as a gift.
Everyone applies the words "young" and "cheerful" to him, the
critics say that he "sings like a bird,1* and the opinion is unanimous
that this young composer's creative power is inexhaustible. In
his spontaneity, naivete, eternal youth, and great productivity
Prokofiev resembles Haydn and Mozart. While Stravinsky's meta-
morphoses were many and painful, Prokofiev's works are uniform
in their precipitous flow, and the critics^ whose opinion of Stravin-
sky was ever in sharp disagreement, are unanimous about Pro-
kofiev. Only towards the end of his evolution did Stravinsky
return to classicism, whereas Prokofiev, in a sense, is a classicist
by nature—a classicist from the very beginning, notwithstanding
the fancies and whims that outwardly express his buoyant imagi-
nation, and the spontaneous manner in which he welcomes every