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SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891 - 1953)
Russian pianist and composer
Sergei Prokofiev was indisputably one of the supreme composers of the 20th Century. He was composing serious music and had begun working on an opera before the age of 10. His precocious talent was quickly recognized by Sergei Taneyev who was then Director of the Moscow Conservatory. Taneyev arranged for no less a luminary than Rheinhold Glière to spend the summer with the 11 year old Prokofiev in order to give him lessons in composition.
By the age of 13, Sergei Prokofiev had already composed three operas and began formal training at the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he worked with the likes of Glazounov, Tcherepnin, Lyadov, and Rimsky-Korsakov. His modernistic compositional tendencies inevitably ran afoul of the conservative Russian establishment resulting in poor grades, so he concentrated for a while on the piano. But in the end, his genius as a composer won out and he graduated at the top of his class in 1914. By this time Prokofiev had written two of his piano concerti, the second having caused a scandal at its premier.
Around this time Prokofiev began to travel. He met Diaghilev in Paris, as had his compatriot Stravinsky several years earlier, and his international career as a composer was launched.
Prokofiev left Russia after the revolution. He went to America in 1918 where he did not share the same good fortune as Rachmaninov, and then to Paris in 1920. His importance as a composer grew steadily, and in 1935 he returned to great acclaim to the Soviet Union which was to be his home until his death in 1953.
SERGEI PROKOFIEV PLAYS
"Suggestion Diabolique" Op 4~4
recorded in 1935
Toccata in D minor, Op 11
piano roll
from Ten Small Piano Pieces, Op 12
1 March - 2 Gavotte - 3 Rigaudon - 7 Prelude - 10 Scherzo
Duo-Art piano roll
7 Prelude "Harp" from Ten Small Piano Pieces, Op 12
piano roll from the early 1930s
10 Scherzo
9 pieces from Visions Fugitives, Op 22 (1915–17)
9 Allegro Tranquillo - 3 Allegretto - 17 Poetico - 18 Con una dolce lentezza
11 Con vivacità - 10 Ridicolosamente - 16 Dolente - 6 Con eleganza - 5 Molto giocoso
Gavotte from Symphony 1 in D major, Op 25 "Classical"
Piano Concerto 3 in C major, Op 26
Piero Coppola conducting the London Symphony Orchestra
recorded in 1932
i Andante. Allegro
ii Tema con Variazioni
iii Allegro, ma non troppo
Andante Assai from Piano Sonata 4, Op 29
recorded in 1935
March from "The Love for Three Oranges"
Duo-Art piano roll
Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op 34
with Alexandre Volodin, clarinet and the Beethoven Quartet
(Dmitri Tsyganov, Vasily Shirinsky, Vadim Borisovsky, Sergei Shirinsky)
recorded in 1937
Etude for piano, Op 52~3
Mussorgsky "Promenade" and "The Old Castle" from Pictures at an Exhibition
1923 Duo-Art piano roll
Rimsky-Korsakov-Prokofiev "Fantasia on the theme of "Scheherazade"
1926 Ampico piano roll
Glazunov Gavotte in D major, Op 49~3
piano roll
Rachmaninoff Prelude in G minor, Op 23~5
1919 Duo-Art piano roll
For those of you who enjoy murder mysteries, here is my first with a strong musical polemic as background
Murder in the House of the Muse
which is also available as an audiobook.
And this is the more recently published second mystery in the series:
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