Music Director
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No.3
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, Ukraine in April 1891, during the reign of Nicholas II, the last crowned Emperor of Russia. This was years before the February and October Revolutions of - 1917, which led to the creation of the Soviet Union. In 1991, one hundred years after Prokofiev's birth, the Soviet Union collapsed. Prokofiev left Russia in 1918, traveling and performing in Europe and the United States. He reestablished permanent residency in the Soviet Union in 1936, and died in Moscow on March 5, 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin.
Prokofiev was born into a farming family in a small village. His mother was a good pianist who became Sergei's first teacher. Sergei's musical ability attracted the attention of Reinhold Gliere, who went to Sontsovka several times to teach Sergei music theory and composition in preparation for study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Prokofiev was at the Conservatory for ten years, from 1904 to 1914. While there, he studied with Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Anatol Liadov. He graduated with the Anton Rubinstein Prize in piano for playing his own Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major. At the Conservatory, Prokofiev received a solid education in the fundamentals of music theory, but from early on he sought musical innovation, as did other progressive composers. Prokofiev's first public appearance as a pianist was in St. Petersburg at a 1908 concert series known as Evenings of Contemporary Music. He found a progressive circle of musicians Moscow, who helped Prokofiev make his debut as a composer in the summers of 1911 and 1912.
Prokofiev was drawn the innovators in all the arts of the time. He liked the modernist Russian poets, the Russian followers of Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso, and the experimental theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold. Prokofiev studied the works of Igor Stravinsky, the Russian composerwho, like many other artists in all media flocked to Paris in the first few decades of the twentieth century. In 1914, Prokofiev traveled to London and Paris, and as Stravinsky did, became a collaborator with the ballet impresario Sergey Diaghilev. Prokofiev wrote the score for Diaghilev's ballet Ala and Lolli'm 1914. Operas followed, including The Gambler (1915-16, a dynamic adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novella.
In 1917, the year of Russian Revolution, Prokofiev composed the Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, some sonatas, and the choral work Seven, They Are Seven. The Classical Symphony, a symphony using classic form, but using modern harmonic and rhythmic technique in an almost sarcastic manner was also completed that year. The Classical Symphony became a paradigm for the new neoclassic style used by many other composers, including Stravinsky.
Prokofiev began work on his Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major in 1917 as well. Prokofiev approved of the revolution, thinking there would be more artistic freedom, and a break from the past that would be conducive to innovative technique. With the civil war that followed the revolution, Prokofiev found that not to be the case. He applied for permission to travel, and came to New York in 1918. Rachmaninoff had been there since 1909, playing mostly classical programs with only a few pieces of his own. As the leading Russian pianist in the USA, Rachmaninoff was tough to compete with. Prokofiev wanted to play his own music, and was disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm for new, innovative music.
Russian Composer Serge Koussevitky left the Soviet Union in 1921 and conducted the premiere of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite, and Prokofiev conducted the premiere of his work,
Prokofiev completed his third Piano Concerto in Brittany during the summer of 1921. Prokofiev's three-movement work is primarily diatonic, and uses elements from Russian folklore. Prokofiev played the premiere in Chicago, with the Chicago Symphony on December 16, 1921, under the direction of Friedrich Stock.
Prokofiev returned permanently to the Soviet Union in 1936. Despite the terror of Stalin's paranoid rule, Prokofiev continued to compose. Later works include the ballet Romeo and Juliet, and some of the first serious film scores ever written. Prokofiev composed music for Sergei Eisenstein's films Alexander Nevsky, and Ivan the Terrible.
Beth Bergman Fisher