This is Alexander Nevsky, but not as we know it. Prokofiev prided himself on his professionalism and his adaptability, traits that made him ideally suited to film work. He was fortunate to work on equal terms with the legendary Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948), a man who trusted him implicitly, often cutting his sequences to fit a pre-recorded music track. Supremely effective in context, Nevsky’s score was subsequently rejigged into the patriotic cantata we know today, one of Prokofiev’s greatest hits. More recently imaginative promoters have tried to have the best of both worlds, projecting an appropriately doctored version of the movie in conjunction with a live performance (suitably tweaked) of the cantata. The present venture represents a further aesthetic leap by reconstructing the complete original score in the thinner instrumentation used in the movie, a work of revivification that doubtless works best ‘in context’.

As a purely sonic experience, via Capriccio’s cleanly recorded hybrid SACD, the exercise seems less than compelling. The stop-start nature of the original cues does tend to drain the material of the cumulative intensity and emotional thrust we have come to expect in the concert version. The hiatuses are eliminated there, while in the film the images exist to take up the slack. The music still begins with a bleak orchestral prelude recalling Russia’s sufferings at the hands of foreign oppressors, only it doesn’t culminate in a stirring celebration of ultimate victory. Along the way, the climactic ‘Battle on the Ice’ is a bit of a damp squib, lacking continuity and without a huge orchestra on hand to depict the cut and thrust of battle. Likewise, the scene in which a Russian girl walks through bloodied corpses in search of her lover. Intriguing though it may be to hear its searing melody transmogrified into a funeral dirge in a treatment cut from the cantata, the first strain of the aria is here baldly instrumental, in accord with cinematic priorities.

Given that Prokofiev manipulated the forces available to exploit the limited technological possibilities of the day, we should not exaggerate the ‘authenticity’ of what is on offer. Of the nearly 20 minutes of extra music, much is derivative of what we already know and, as in so many Russian films, the bells do a lot of tolling. Prokofiev specialists will, of course, find it all fascinating. The otherwise detailed trilingual booklet gives the texts in translation yet omits the original Russian.