Composed as a soundtrack for Eisenstein’s film of the same name, Alexander Nevsky, a dramatization of the thirteenth-century conflict between the Russian people and Teutonic invaders, struck a resounding chord in the Soviet Union at a time when war with Hitler’s Germany seemed inevitable. The film itself was acclaimed internationally as a masterpiece of cinema, and remains a classic of the medium. In 1939 Prokofiev re-arranged the score as a cantata for concert performance, and through its evocative soundscape of repression, loss and ultimate victory, it soon established itself as one of the most popular Russian choral works of the twentieth century.