Sergei Prokofiev s troika?

Question

i have heard a different version of this tune usually on christmas adverts and it sounds more christmassy .
does anyone know what its called or who does it?

not gregg lakes version

Answer 1

This is a movement from film music that Prokofiev wrote for the Soviet film 'Lieutenant Kijé' (Kizheh) in 1933. Prokofiev wrote several film scores in the 1930s and 1940s, the best known being this one, 'Ivan the Terrible' and 'Alexander Nevsky' (the two latter ones being epics by director Sergei Eisenstein). From the film score Prokofiev extracted a 20-minute, five-movement suite which became quite popular. The five movements are:
1 Birth of Kijé
2 Romance
3 Kijé's wedding
4 Troika
5 Death of Kijé

'Lieutenant Kijé' is a satiric comedy set in the court of Tsar Paul I. The tsar misreads a badly-written report of one of his aides and creates a non-existent name out of the syllable 'ki', which ended the aide's name, and a Russian expletive 'zhe'. The aide was afraid to correct an imperial error, so Lieutenant Kijé suddenly existed. With a little connivance from the courtiers, Kijé assumed a paper existence which kept everyone hopping to prevent the tsar from learning the truth.

A 'troika' is a type of sleigh drawn by three horses. The horses would often have had bells attached to their livery, hence the sleigh bells in Prokofiev's music. The Christmas link is fair enough as a troika would only be used in winter (being designed to be pulled along on snow). although the piece doesn't actually have any real Christmas association.

There are numerous recordings of the Lieutenant Kijé suite and many more of the Troika alone. I'd get the whole suite if I were you as the other four movements are also well worth a listen.

Answer 2

theres a souped-up version used by woolworths
as well as bbc 2 ident