Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev | |
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Сергей Прокофьев | |
Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | |
Education | Saint Petersburg Conservatory |
Occupations |
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Works | List of compositions |
Spouses |
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Children | 2, including Oleg |
Signature | |
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev[n 2] (27 April [O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953)[n 3] was a Russian[7][8][9] composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union.[10] As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.
A graduate of the
After the
The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred Prokofiev to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace; he co-wrote the libretto with Mira Mendelson, his longtime companion and later second wife. In 1948, Prokofiev was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism". Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich: he wrote his Ninth Piano Sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter.
Life and career
Childhood and first compositions
Prokofiev was born in 1891 in a rural estate in Sontsovka,
By the time of Prokofiev's birth, Maria—having previously lost two daughters—had devoted her life to music; during her son's early childhood, she spent two months a year in Moscow or St Petersburg taking piano lessons.
Education and early works
In 1902, Prokofiev's mother met
Despite his growing talent, Prokofiev's parents hesitated over starting their son on a musical career at such an early age, and considered the possibility of his attending a good high school in Moscow.[31] By 1904, his mother had decided instead on Saint Petersburg, and she and Prokofiev visited the then capital to explore the possibility of moving there for his education.[32] They were introduced to composer Alexander Glazunov, a professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, who asked to see Prokofiev and his music; Prokofiev had composed two more operas, Desert Islands and The Feast during the Plague, and was working on his fourth, Undina.[33] Glazunov was so impressed that he urged Prokofiev's mother to have her son apply for admission to the Conservatory.[34] He passed the introductory tests and enrolled that year.[35]
Several years younger than most of his class, Prokofiev was viewed as eccentric and arrogant, and annoyed a number of his classmates by keeping statistics on their errors.[36] During that period, he studied under, among others, Alexander Winkler for piano,[37] Anatoly Lyadov for harmony and counterpoint, Nikolai Tcherepnin for conducting, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for orchestration (though when Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908, Prokofiev noted that he had only studied with him "after a fashion"—he was just one of many students in a heavily attended class—and regretted that he otherwise "never had the opportunity to study with him").[38] He also shared classes with the composers Boris Asafyev and Nikolai Myaskovsky, the latter becoming a close and lifelong friend.[39]
As a member of the Saint Petersburg music scene, Prokofiev developed a reputation as a musical rebel, while getting praise for his original compositions, which he performed himself on the piano.[40][41] In 1909, he graduated from his class in composition with unimpressive marks. He continued at the Conservatory, studying piano under Anna Yesipova and continuing his conducting lessons under Tcherepnin.[42]
In 1910, Prokofiev's father died and Sergei's financial support ceased.
In 1911, help arrived from renowned Russian
First ballets
In 1914, Prokofiev finished his career at the Conservatory by entering the 'battle of the pianos', a competition open to the five best piano students for which the prize was a Schroeder grand piano; Prokofiev won by performing his own Piano Concerto No. 1.[49]
Soon afterwards, he journeyed to London where he made contact with the impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev commissioned Prokofiev's first ballet, Ala and Lolli; but when Prokofiev brought the work in progress to him in Italy in 1915 he rejected it as "non-Russian".[50] Urging Prokofiev to write "music that was national in character",[51] Diaghilev then commissioned the ballet Chout ("The Buffoon"). (The original Russian-language full title was Сказка про шута, семерых шутов перешутившего, meaning "The Tale of the Buffoon who Outwits Seven Other Buffoons".) Under Diaghilev's guidance, Prokofiev chose his subject from a collection of folk tales by the ethnographer Alexander Afanasyev;[52] the story, concerning a buffoon and a series of confidence tricks, had been previously suggested to Diaghilev by Igor Stravinsky as a possible subject for a ballet, and Diaghilev and his choreographer Léonide Massine helped Prokofiev to shape it into a ballet scenario.[53] Prokofiev's inexperience with ballet led him to revise the work extensively in the 1920s, following Diaghilev's detailed critique,[n 5] prior to its first production.[54]
The ballet's premiere in Paris on 17 May 1921 was a huge success and was greeted with great admiration by an audience that included Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel. Stravinsky called the ballet "the single piece of modern music he could listen to with pleasure", while Ravel called it "a work of genius".[55]
First World War and Revolution
During World War I, Prokofiev returned to the Conservatory and studied
The symphony was also an exact contemporary of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19, which was scheduled to premiere in November 1917. The first performances of both works had to wait until 21 April 1918 and 18 October 1923, respectively. Prokofiev stayed briefly with his mother in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus.[citation needed][57]
After completing the score of Seven, They Are Seven, a "Chaldean invocation" for chorus and orchestra,[58] Prokofiev was "left with nothing to do and time hung heavily on my hands". Believing that Russia "had no use for music at the moment", Prokofiev decided to try his fortunes in America until the turmoil in his homeland had passed. He set out for Moscow and Petersburg in March 1918 to sort out financial matters and to arrange for his passport.[59] In May, he headed for the US, having obtained official permission to do so from Anatoly Lunacharsky, the People's Commissar for Education, who told him: "You are a revolutionary in music, we are revolutionaries in life. We ought to work together. But if you want to go to America I shall not stand in your way."[60]
Life abroad
Arriving in
In Paris, Prokofiev reaffirmed his contacts with Diaghilev's
In March 1922, Prokofiev moved with his mother to the town of Ettal in the Bavarian Alps, where for over a year he concentrated on an opera project, The Fiery Angel, based on the novel by Valery Bryusov. His later music had acquired a following in Russia, and he received invitations to return there, but decided to stay in Europe. In 1923, Prokofiev married the Spanish singer Carolina Codina (1897–1989, stage name Lina Llubera)[70] before moving back to Paris.[71]
In Paris, several of his works, including the Second Symphony, were performed, but their reception was lukewarm and Prokofiev sensed that he "was evidently no longer a sensation".[72] Still, the Symphony appeared to prompt Diaghilev to commission Le pas d'acier (The Steel Step), a "modernist" ballet score intended to portray the industrialisation of the Soviet Union. It was enthusiastically received by Parisian audiences and critics.[73]
Around 1924, Prokofiev was introduced to Christian Science.[74] He began to practice its teachings, which he believed to be beneficial to his health and to his fiery temperament[75] and to which he remained faithful for the rest of his life, according to biographer Simon Morrison.[76]
Prokofiev and Stravinsky restored their friendship, though Prokofiev particularly disliked Stravinsky's "stylization of Bach" in such recent works as the Octet and the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments.[77][n 6] For his part, Stravinsky described Prokofiev as the greatest Russian composer of his day, after himself.[79]
First visits to the Soviet Union
Prokofiev met Boris Krasin in the violinist Joseph Szigeti's Paris apartment in 1924. In 1927, Prokofiev made his first concert tour in the Soviet Union.[80] Over more than two months, he spent time in Moscow and Leningrad (as St Petersburg had been renamed), where he enjoyed a very successful staging of The Love for Three Oranges in the Mariinsky Theatre.[81] In 1928, Prokofiev completed his Third Symphony, which was broadly based on his unperformed opera The Fiery Angel. The conductor Serge Koussevitzky characterized the Third as "the greatest symphony since Tchaikovsky's Sixth".[82]
In the meantime, under the influence of the teachings of
That summer, Prokofiev completed the Divertimento, Op. 43 (which he had started in 1925) and revised his Sinfonietta, Op. 5/48, a work started in his days at the Conservatory.[88][n 9] In October of that year, he had a car crash while driving his family back to Paris from their holiday: as the car turned over, Prokofiev pulled some muscles on his left hand.[89] Prokofiev was therefore unable to perform in Moscow during his tour shortly after the accident, but he was able to enjoy watching performances of his music from the audience.[90] Prokofiev also attended the Bolshoi Theatre's "audition" of his ballet Le pas d'acier, and was interrogated by members of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) about the work: he was asked whether the factory portrayed "a capitalist factory, where the worker is a slave, or a Soviet factory, where the worker is the master? If it is a Soviet factory, when and where did Prokofiev examine it, since from 1918 to the present he has been living abroad and came here for the first time in 1927 for two weeks [sic]?" Prokofiev replied, "That concerns politics, not music, and therefore I won't answer." The RAPM condemned the ballet as a "flat and vulgar anti-Soviet anecdote, a counter-revolutionary composition bordering on Fascism". The Bolshoi had no option but to reject the ballet.[91]
With his left hand healed, Prokofiev toured the United States successfully at the start of 1930, propped up by his recent European success.
By the early 1930s, both Europe and America were suffering from the Great Depression, which inhibited both new opera and ballet productions, though audiences for Prokofiev's appearances as a pianist were, in Europe at least, undiminished.[95] But Prokofiev saw himself as a composer first and foremost, and increasingly resented the time lost to composition through his appearances as a pianist.[96] Having been homesick for some time, Prokofiev began to build substantial bridges with the Soviet Union.[citation needed]
Following the dissolution of the RAPM in 1932, he acted increasingly as a musical ambassador between his homeland and western Europe,[97] and his premieres and commissions were increasingly under the auspices of the Soviet Union. One such was Lieutenant Kijé, which was commissioned as the score to a Soviet film.[98]
Another commission, from the Kirov Theatre (as the Mariinsky had now been renamed) in Leningrad, was the ballet Romeo and Juliet, composed to a scenario created by Adrian Piotrovsky and Sergei Radlov following the precepts of "drambalet" (dramatised ballet, officially promoted at the Kirov to replace works based primarily on choreographic display and innovation).[99] Following Radlov's acrimonious resignation from the Kirov in June 1934, a new agreement was signed with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on the understanding that Piotrovsky would remain involved.[100] But the ballet's original happy ending (contrary to Shakespeare) provoked controversy among Soviet cultural officials,[101] and the ballet's production was postponed indefinitely when the staff of the Bolshoi was overhauled at the behest of the chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, Platon Kerzhentsev.[102] Nikolai Myaskovsky, one of his closest friends, mentioned in a number of letters that he would like Prokofiev to stay in Russia.[citation needed]
Return to Russia
In 1936, Prokofiev and his family settled permanently in Moscow, after shifting back and forth between Moscow and Paris for the previous four years.[103][104]
That year, Prokofiev composed one of his most famous works, Peter and the Wolf, for Natalya Sats' Central Children's Theatre.[105] Sats also persuaded him to write two songs for children, "Sweet Song", and "Chatterbox";[106] they were eventually joined by "The Little Pigs" and published as Three Children's Songs, Op. 68.[107] Prokofiev also composed the gigantic Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, originally intended for performance during the anniversary year but effectively blocked by Kerzhentsev, who demanded at the work's audition before the Committee on Arts Affairs, "Just what do you think you're doing, Sergey Sergeyevich, taking texts that belong to the people and setting them to such incomprehensible music?"[108] The Cantata was not performed until 5 April 1966, just over 13 years after the composer's death.[109]
Forced to adapt to the new circumstances (whatever private misgivings he had about them), Prokofiev wrote a series of "mass songs" (Opp. 66, 79, 89), using the lyrics of officially approved Soviet poets. In 1938, he collaborated with Eisenstein on the historical epic Alexander Nevsky, composing some of his most inventive and dramatic music. Although the film had very poor sound recording, Prokofiev adapted much of his score into a large-scale cantata for mezzo-soprano, orchestra and chorus, which was extensively performed and recorded. In the wake of Alexander Nevsky's success, Prokofiev composed his first Soviet opera, Semyon Kotko, which was intended to be produced by the director Vsevolod Meyerhold. The opera's première was postponed because Meyerhold was arrested on 20 June 1939 by the NKVD, and shot on 2 February 1940.[110] At the end of the same year, Prokofiev was commissioned to compose Zdravitsa (literally "Cheers!", but sometimes subtitled Hail to Stalin in English) (Op. 85) to celebrate Joseph Stalin's 60th birthday.[111]
Later in 1939, Prokofiev composed his Piano Sonatas Nos.
Meanwhile, Romeo and Juliet was staged by the Kirov Ballet, choreographed by Leonid Lavrovsky, on 11 January 1940.[116] To the surprise of all of its participants, the dancers having struggled to cope with the music's syncopated rhythms and almost having boycotted the production, the ballet was an instant success[117] and became recognised as the crowning achievement of Soviet dramatic ballet.[118]
War years
Prokofiev had been considering making an opera out of
During the war years, restrictions on style and the demand that composers write in a 'socialist realist' style were slackened, and Prokofiev was generally able to compose in his own way. The
On 20 January 1945, Prokofiev suffered a concussion after fainting in his apartment due to untreated chronic hypertension.[123] The composer Dmitry Kabalevsky visited him in hospital and found him semi-conscious, and "with a heavy heart, I left him, I thought it was the end."[124] He never fully recovered from the injury, and, following medical advice, restricted his composing activity.[125]
Postwar
Prokofiev had time to write his postwar Sixth Symphony and his Ninth Piano Sonata (for Sviatoslav Richter) before the so-called "Zhdanov Doctrine". On the day before the decree was published, 10 February 1948, Prokofiev was at a ceremony in the Kremlin to mark his elevation to the status of People's Artist of the RSFSR.[126]
The decree followed a three-day conference of more than 70 composers, musicians and music lecturers convened on 10 January, presided over by Zhdanov. Prokofiev was berated by a minor composer, Viktor Bely, who accused him of "innovation for innovation's sake" and "artistic snobbishness", but unlike Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian and others, Prokofiev gave no speech.[127] His silence set off rumors that he had been deliberately defiant and uncooperative. There is no official record, but according to a variety of witnesses, Prokofiev did not attend on the first day, and had to be fetched, arriving on day two wearing a brown suit and baggy-kneed trousers tucked into his felt boots.[128] Ilya Ehrenburg, who was not in the hall, claimed in his memoirs that Prokofiev fell asleep, woke up suddenly and loudly asked who Zhdanov was.[127] The cellist Mstislav Rostropovich heard that Prokofiev was chatting to the person next to him when a senior figure sitting nearby warned him to be quiet. Prokofiev asked: "Who are you?" The official said that his name did not matter, but that Prokofiev had better pay attention to him, to which Prokofiev retorted: "I never pay attention to comments from people who haven't been introduced to me." This possibly apocryphal story was corroborated by the head of the composers' union, Tikhon Khrennikov, who said that the person Prokofiev snubbed was the Stalinist official Matvei Shkiryatov.[129]
The decree, published on 11 February, denounced six artists—Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Shebalin, Popov, and Myaskovsky, in that order—for the crime of "formalism", described as a "renunciation of the basic principles of classical music" in favor of "muddled, nerve-racking" sounds that "turned music into cacophony".[130] Eight of Prokofiev's works were banned from performance: The Year 1941, Ode to the End of the War, Festive Poem, Cantata for the Thirtieth Anniversary of October, Ballad of an Unknown Boy, the 1934 piano cycle Thoughts, and Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 and 8.[131] Such was the perceived threat behind the banning of the works that even works that had avoided censure were no longer programmed.[132] By August 1948, Prokofiev was in severe financial straits, his personal debt amounting to 180,000 rubles.[131]
On 22 November 1947, Prokofiev filed a petition in court to begin divorce proceedings against his estranged wife. Five days later the court ruled that the marriage had no legal basis since it had taken place in Germany, and had not been registered with Soviet officials, thus making it null and void. After a second judge upheld the verdict, he and his partner Mira wed on 13 January 1948.[133][134] On 20 February 1948, Prokofiev's first wife Lina was arrested and charged with espionage for trying to send money to her mother in Spain. After nine months of interrogation,[135] she was sentenced by a three-member Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to 20 years of hard labor.[136] She was released eight years later on 30 June 1956[137] and in 1974 left the Soviet Union.[138]
Prokofiev's latest opera projects, among them his desperate attempt to appease the cultural authorities,
In spring 1949, Prokofiev wrote his Cello Sonata in C, Op. 119, for the 22-year-old Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the first performance in 1950, with Sviatoslav Richter.[144] For Rostropovich, Prokofiev also extensively recomposed his Cello Concerto, transforming it into a Symphony-Concerto, a landmark in the cello and orchestra repertory today.[145] The last public performance he attended, on 11 October 1952, was the première of the Seventh Symphony, his last completed work.[146] The symphony was written for the Children's Radio Division.[147]
Death
Prokofiev died at age 61 on 5 March 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin. He had lived near Red Square, and for three days throngs gathered to mourn Stalin, making it impossible to hold Prokofiev's funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composers' Union. Because the hearse was not allowed near Prokofiev's house, his coffin had to be moved by hand through back streets in the opposite direction of the masses of people going to visit Stalin's body. About 30 people attended the funeral, Shostakovich among them. Although they had not seemed to get along when they met, in the later years their interactions had become far more amicable, with Shostakovich writing to Prokofiev, "I wish you at least another hundred years to live and create. Listening to such works as your Seventh Symphony makes it much easier and more joyful to live."[148] Prokofiev is buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.[149]
The leading Soviet musical periodical reported Prokofiev's death as a brief item on page 116[150] (the first 115 pages were devoted to Stalin's death).[150] Prokofiev's death is usually attributed to cerebral hemorrhage. He had been chronically ill for eight years.[151]
Prokofiev's wife Mira Mendelson spent her final years living in the Moscow apartment they had shared.[152] She occupied her time organizing her husband's papers, promoting his music, and writing her memoirs, having been strongly encouraged by Prokofiev to embark on the latter. Work on the memoirs was difficult for her; she left them incomplete at her death.[153] Mendelson died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1968, 15 years after Prokofiev.[154] Inside her purse a message dated February 1950 and signed by Prokofiev and Mendelson instructed: "We wish to be buried next to each other." Their remains are buried together at Novodevichy Cemetery.[155]
Legacy
Reputation
Arthur Honegger said that Prokofiev would "remain for us the greatest figure of contemporary music",[159] and the American scholar Richard Taruskin wrote of Prokofiev's "gift, virtually unparalleled among 20th-century composers, for writing distinctively original diatonic melodies".[160] Yet for some time Prokofiev's reputation in the West suffered as a result of Cold War antipathies,[161] and his music has never won from Western academics and critics the same esteem as Igor Stravinsky's and Arnold Schoenberg's, which had greater influence on younger musicians.[162]
In Donetsk Oblast, the Donetsk State Music Academy Named After Sergei Prokofiev and Donetsk Sergei Prokofiev International Airport are named in Prokofiev's honor. The latter facility was destroyed in 2014 during the First and Second Battle of Donetsk Airport.[163]
The All-Ukrainian open pianists' competition named after Prokofiev is held annually in Kyiv and comprises three categories: piano, composition, and conducting.[citation needed]
Recordings
Prokofiev was a soloist with the
Honours and awards
- Six Stalin Prizes:
- (1943), 2nd degree – for Piano Sonata No. 7
- (1946), 1st degree – for Symphony No. 5 and Piano Sonata No. 8
- (1946), 1st degree – for the music for the film "Ivan the Terrible" Part 1 (1944)
- (1946), 1st degree – for the ballet "Cinderella" (1944)
- (1947), 1st degree – for Violin Sonata No. 1
- (1951), 2nd degree – for vocal-symphonic suite Winter Bonfire and the oratorio On Guard for Peace on poems by Samuil Marshak
- Lenin Prize (1957 – posthumous) – for Symphony No. 7
- People's Artist of the RSFSR (1947)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour
- In 2011, his 120th birthday was honored with a Google Doodle.[167]
Works
Important works include (in chronological order):
- Piano Concerto No. 1 in D♭ major, Op. 10
- Toccata in D minor, Op. 11, for piano
- Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 14
- Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16
- Sarcasms, Op. 17, for piano
- Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19
- Scythian Suite, Op. 20, suite for orchestra
- Chout, Op. 21, ballet in six scenes
- Visions fugitives, Op. 22, set of twenty piano pieces
- The Gambler, Op. 24, opera in four acts
- Symphony No. 1 in D major "Classical", Op. 25
- Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26
- Tales of an Old Grandmother, Op. 31, four piano pieces
- The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33, opera in four acts
- Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op. 34, for clarinet and piano quintet
- Quintet, Op. 39, for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double-bass
- The Fiery Angel, Op. 37, opera in five acts
- Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40
- Le pas d'acier, Op. 41, ballet in two scenes
- Divertissement, Op. 43
- Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 44
- The Prodigal Son, Op. 46, ballet in three scenes
- Symphony No. 4 in C major, Op. 47 (revised as Op. 112)
- Sinfonietta, Op. 5/48
- Four Portraits from The Gambler, Op. 49
- String Quartet No. 1 in B minor, Op. 50
- Symphonic Song, Op. 57
- Lieutenant Kije, Op. 60, suite for orchestra, includes the famous Troika
- Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63
- Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64, ballet in four acts
- Suite No. 1 from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64bis
- Suite No. 2 from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64ter
- Suite No. 3 from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 101
- Ten Pieces for Piano from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 75
- Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67, a children's tale for narrator and orchestra
- Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78, cantata for mezzo-soprano, chorus, and orchestra
- Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 80
- The "War Sonatas":
- Piano Sonata No. 6 in A major, Op. 82
- Piano Sonata No. 7 in B♭ major, Op. 83
- Piano Sonata No. 8 in B♭ major, Op. 84
- Zdravitsa, Op. 85
- Betrothal in a Monastery, Op. 86, opera
- Cinderella, Op. 87, ballet in three acts
- War and Peace, Op. 91, opera in thirteen scenes
- String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 92
- Flute Sonata in D, Op. 94 (later arranged as Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 94a)
- Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, Op. 100
- Piano Sonata No. 9 in C major, Op. 103
- Symphony No. 6 in E♭ minor, Op. 111
- Ivan the Terrible, Op. 116, music for Eisenstein's film
- The Tale of the Stone Flower, Op. 118, ballet in two acts
- On Guard for Peace, Op. 124
- Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 125
- Symphony No. 7 in C♯ minor, Op. 131
Writings
- Prokofiev, Sergei (1979). David H. Appel (ed.). Prokofiev by Prokofiev: A Composer's Memoir. Guy Daniels (translator). New York: Doubleday & Co. ISBN 978-0-385-09960-8.
- Prokofiev, Sergei (1991). Soviet Diary 1927 and Other Writings. London: Faber and Faber.
- Prokofiev, Sergei (2000) [1960]. S. Shlifstein (ed.). Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences. Translated by Rose Prokofieva. The Minerva Group. ISBN 978-0-89875-149-9.
- Prokofiev, Sergei (2002). Dnyevnik 1907–1933 (3 vols) (in Russian). Paris. ISBN 978-2-9518138-2-3
- Prokofiev, Sergei (2006). Diaries 1907–1914: Prodigious Youth. Translated by Phillips, Anthony. London/Ithaca: Faber and Faber/Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-4540-8.
- Prokofiev, Sergei (2008). Diaries 1915–1923: Behind the Mask. Translated by Phillips, Anthony. London / Ithaca: Faber and Faber/Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-571-22630-6.
- Prokofiev, Sergei (2012). Diaries 1924–1933: Prodigal Son. Translated by Phillips, Anthony. London/ Ithaca: Faber and Faber/Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-571-23405-9.
- Bibliography, Prokofiev Center
References
Notes
- ^ Marriage declared null and void in 1948.
- ^ /prəˈkɒfiɛf, proʊ-, -ˈkɔː-, -ˈkoʊ-, -jɛf, -jɛv, -iəf/;[1][2][3] Russian: Сергей Сергеевич Прокофьев, tr. Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev, IPA: [sʲɪˈrɡʲej sʲɪˈrɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ prɐˈkofʲjɪf] ⓘ; alternative transliterations of his name include Sergey or Serge, and Prokofief, Prokofieff, or Prokofyev.[4][5] In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Sergeyevich and the family name is Prokofiev.
- ^ While Sergei Prokofiev himself believed 11/23 April to be his birth date, the posthumous discovery of his birth certificate showed that he was actually born four days later, on 15/27 April.[6]
- ^ Prokofiev has the rare distinction for a composer of having won a game against a future world chess champion, albeit in the context of a simultaneous match: his win over Capablanca of 16 May 1914 can be played through at chessgames.com (Java required). For extracts from Prokofiev's notebooks recounting his games against Capablanca, see: The Game (part 2), sprkfv.net.[23]
- ^ "Diaghilev pointed out a number of places which had to be rewritten. He was a subtle and discerning critic and he argued his point with great conviction. ... we had no difficulty in agreeing on the changes." Prokofiev 2000, p. 56
- ^ It has been suggested that Prokofiev's use of text from Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms to characterise the invading Teutonic knights in the film score for Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky (1938) was intended as a dig at Stravinsky's "pseudo-Bachism".[78]
- ^ Quote: "I decided a long time ago that I must compose in a quite different style, and that I would set about it as soon as I had extricated myself from the revisions of Fiery Angel and The Gambler. If God is the unique source of creation and of reason, and man is his reflection, it is abundantly clear that the works of man will be better the more closely they reflect the works of the Creator". Prokofiev 2012, p. 699
- ^ That is not to say that Prokofiev approved of simplistic music: when in June 1926 he arranged "a simplified version of the March from Oranges as a crowd-pleaser", Prokofiev observed in his diary, "The process of denuding for the sake of simplicity is highly disagreeable".[84]
- ^ Prokofiev wrote in his autobiography that he could never understand why the Sinfonietta was so rarely performed, whereas the "Classical" Symphony was played everywhere.[88]
- ^ "Prokofiev wrote the first version of War and Peace during the Second World War. He revised it in the late forties and early fifties, during the period of the 1948 Zhdanov Decree, which attacked obscurantist tendencies in the music of leading Soviet composers." "Prokofiev's War and Peace" by Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 4 March 2002, via Ross's blog. Archived 27 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine
Citations
- ISBN 978-3-12-539683-8
- ^ "Prokofiev". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
- ^ "Prokofiev". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary.
- ^ a b Sergey Prokofiev at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ "Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
- ^ Slonimsky 1993, p. 793.
- Newspapers.com.
The death is announced in Moscow of Sergei Prokofiev, the Russian composer.
- Newspapers.com.
- Newspapers.com.
Sergei Prokofiev, 62, world famous Russian composer [...]
- ISBN 978-1-4422-6842-5.
- ^ Prokofiev 1979, pp. 8, 10; Nestyev 1961, p. 1; and Nice 2003, p. 6
- ^ Nestyev 1961, p. 2.
- ^ Vishnevetskiy (2009): pp. 15–16
- ^ Sidorov, Yuriy (2 August 2012). "ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННЫЕ ЗАПИСКИ". Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ "Sergei Prokofiev". Music Academy Online. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
- ^ "Sergei Prokofiev by Paul Shoemaker". MusicWeb International. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
- ^ Reinhold Glière. "First Steps" from Shlifstein 1956, p. 144
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 6
- ^ "Prokofiev". Ballet Met. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
- ^ Autobiography by Sergey Prokofiev: reprinted in Sergei Prokofiev: Soviet Diary 1927 and Other Writings. London: Faber and Faber, 1991.
- ^ Prokofiev 1979, p. xi
- ^ See: Winter, Edward. "Sergei Prokofiev and Chess", chesshistory.com.
- ^ All references retrieved 19 December 2011.
- ^ Guillaumier 2020, p. 9
- ^ Guillaumier 2020, p. 248
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 15
- ^ a b Prokofiev 1979, p. 46
- ^ Prokofiev 1979, pp. 51–53
- ^ Prokofiev 1979, pp. 53–54
- ^ Prokofiev 1979, p. 63
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 21
- ^ Prokofiev 1979, p. 85
- ^ Layton, Robert: "Prokofiev's Demonic Opera" Found in the introductory notes to the Philips Label recording of The Fiery Angel
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 22
- ^ Nice 2003, pp. 28–29
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 16
- ISBN 978-0-300-11490-4.
- ^ Prokofiev 2006, p. 57
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 43
- ^ Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music, Michael Kennedy & Joyce Kennedy: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 5th edition 2007
- ^ Rita McAllister "Sergey Prokofiev" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: London: Macmillan Publishers, 1980
- ^ Prokofiev 2000, pp. 240–41
- ^ Jaffé 1998, pp. 29–30
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 30
- ^ Polytonality at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ The Many faces of Prokofiev. Part 2. Sprkfv.net. Retrieved on 28 August 2010.
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 74
- ^ Prokofiev 2006, pp. 424–56
- ^ Nice 2003, pp. 99–100
- ^ Prokofiev 2008, p. 22
- ^ Prokofiev 2008, p. 23
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 44
- ^ Prokofiev 2008, pp. 26–27: diary entry 6–9 March 1915
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 75
- ^ Wakin, Daniel J. (8 March 2009). "The Week Ahead: 8–14 March March: Classical". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
- ^ As detailed in Prokofiev's autobiography. Listen to Discovering Music from 1:00 to 3:02, particularly from 1:45 to 2:39
- ^ Nisnevich, Anna (2015). The complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokoviev (PDF). Cal Performances (University of California). p. 8.
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, pp. 259–61
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, p. 261
- ^ Prokofiev 2000, p. 50
- ^ Prokofiev 2008, p. 321
- ^ Prokofiev 2008, p. 364
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, p. 266
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, pp. 267–68
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, p. 268
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, pp. 270–71
- ^ Prokofiev 2008, p. 654
- ^ a b c Prokofiev 1991, p. 273
- ^ a b Prokofiev 2008, p. 680
- ^ Prokofiev 2008, p. 428
- ^ Nice 2003, pp. 196–97
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, p. 277
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 245
- ^ Prokofiev 2012, p. 65
- ^ Prokofiev 2012, p. 635, p. 647
- ^ Simon Morrison. "Dnevnik 1907–1933 (review, part 2)" [Diary]. Serge Prokofiev Foundation. Retrieved 27 August 2019.; originally "Dnevnik 1907–1933". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 58 (1): 233–243. Spring 2005.
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 200
- ^ Kerr, M. G. (1994) "Prokofiev and His Cymbals", The Musical Times 135, 608–09. Text also available at "Alexander Nevsky and the Symphony of Psalms". Archived from the original on 9 January 2009. Retrieved 18 September 2008.
- ^ Martin Kettle (21 July 2006). "First among equals". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
- ^ Prokofiev 2012, pp. 407–569
- ^ Prokofiev 2012, pp. 487–90
- ^ Prokofiev 2012, p. 826
- ^ Prokofiev 2012, p. 779
- ^ Prokofiev 2012, p. 341
- ^ Jaffé 1998, pp. 110–11
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 259
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 267
- ^ a b Prokofiev 1991, p. 288
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 271
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, p. 289
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 118
- ^ Prokofiev 1991, p. 290
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 279
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 310
- ^ Nice 2003, pp. 294–95
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 284
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 303
- ^ Nice 2003, p. 304
- ^ Ezrahi 2012, p. 43
- ^ Morrison 2009, pp. 32–33
- ^ Morrison 2009, pp. 36–37
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 37
- ^ Jaffé 1998, pp. 143–44
- ^ Ian MacDonald 1995, "Prokofiev, Prisoner of the State"
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 141
- ^ Sats 1979, pp. 225–26
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 222
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 65
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 66
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 158
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 159
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 163
- ^ a b Morrison 2009, p. 164
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 160
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 172
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 161
- ^ Jaffé 1998, pp. 160–61
- ^ Ezrahi 2012, p. 54
- ^ a b Morrison 2009, p. 177
- ^ Robinson 1987, p. 530
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 211
- ^ Jaffé 1998, pp. 182–84
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 252
- ISBN 978-1-59558-056-6.
- ^ Jaffé 1998, p. 186
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 296.
- ^ a b McSmith. Fear and the Muse. pp. 273–74.
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 461.
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 299.
- ^ Tomoff 2006, p. 123
- ^ a b Morrison 2009, p. 314
- ^ Morrison 2013, p. 244
- ^ "Serge Prokofiev". Dictionnaire de la musique. Éditions Larousse.
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 306
- ^ Morrison 2013, p. 7
- ^ Morrison 2013, p. 254
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 310
- ^ Morrison 2013, p. 289
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 293
- ^ Nestyev 1961, pp. 408–09
- ^ Jaffé 1998, pp. 205–06
- ^ Nestyev 1961, p. 409
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 357.
- ^ Nestyev 1961, pp. 412–13
- ^ Nestyev 1961, pp. 426–29
- ^ Nestyev 1961, p. 430
- ^ Nestyev 1961, p. 429
- ^ Ross 2007, pp. 282–283.
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 388
- ^ a b "How Josef Stalin Stole Sergei Prokofiev's Flowers". 11 April 2011. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
- PMID 10718530.
- ^ Mendelson-Prokofieva 2012, pp. 577–579.
- ^ Mendelson-Prokofieva 2012, p. 573.
- ^ Morrison 2009, p. 311.
- ^ Mendelson-Prokofieva 2012, p. 26.
- ^ "Sergei Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf". Chandos. Archived from the original on 29 October 2007. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ Norris, Geoffrey (23 January 2003). "My father was naïve". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
- ^ Mann, Noelle (26 August 1998). "Obituary: Oleg Prokofiev". The Independent. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
- ^ Nestyev 1961, p. 439
- ^ Taruskin 1992.
- ^ Robinson, H. "A Tale of Three Cities: Petrograd, Paris, Moscow." Lecture at Stanley H. Kaplan penthouse, Lincoln Center, New York, 24 March 2009.[not specific enough to verify]
- tertiary sourcereuses information from other sources but does not name them.
- ^ Taylor, Alan (26 February 2015). "A Year of War Completely Destroyed the Donetsk Airport". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 30 November 2022. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
- ^ Pearl Records, Naxos Records, amazon.com[not specific enough to verify]
- ^ "Prokofiev and Stravinsky – Composers Conduct". Parnassus Classical CDs and Records. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
- ^ "Prokofiev plays and talks about his music ..." YouTube. Archived from the original on 30 October 2021. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
- ^ "120th of Birthday of Sergey Prokofiev". www.google.com. 23 April 2011. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
Sources
Memoirs, essays, etc.
- Mendelson-Prokofieva, Mira (2012). О Сергее Сергеевиче Прокофьеве. Воспоминания. Дневники (1938–1967) (in Russian). Москва: Композитор. ISBN 9785425400468.
- OCLC 82172875.
- Sats, Natalia (1979). Sketches From My Life. Sergei Syrovatkin (translator). Moscow: Raduga Publishers. ISBN 978-5-05-001099-5.
- Shlifstein, Semyon, ed. (1956). Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences. Translated by Rose Prokofieva. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.
Biographies
- Jaffé, Daniel (1998). Sergey Prokofiev (2008 ed.). London: Phaidon Press.
- Morrison, Simon (2009). The People's Artist: Prokofiev's Soviet Years. Oxford, UK and New York: Oxford University Press.
- Morrison, Simon (2013). The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev. London: Harvill Secker.
- Nestyev, Israel (1961). Prokofiev. Florence Jonas (translator). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Nice, David (2003). Prokofiev: From Russia to the West 1891–1935. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- ISBN 0-670-80419-3.
Other monographs and articles
- Ezrahi, Christina (2012). Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia. Pittsburgh. ISBN 978-1-85273-158-8.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Guillaumier, Christine (2020). The Operas of Sergei Prokofiev. ISBN 978-1-78327-448-2.
- Tomoff, Kiril (2006). Creative Union: The Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939–1953. Ithaca. ISBN 978-0-8014-4411-1.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
Dictionary articles
- ISBN 978-0-02-872416-4.
- ISBN 978-0-333-73432-2.)
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
Further reading
- Dorigné, Michel (1994). Serge Prokofiev. Paris.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Nestyev, Israel (1946). Prokofiev, his Musical Life. New York.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Rakhmanova, Marina Pavlovna, ed. (1991). Сергей Прокофьев: к 110-летию со дня рождения: письма, воспоминания, статьи [Sergei Prokofiev on the 110th anniversary of his birth: letters, reminiscences and articles] (in Russian). Moscow. ISBN 978-5-201-14607-8.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Samuel, Claude (1971). Prokofiev. London. ISBN 978-0-7145-0490-2.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Seroff, Victor (1968). Sergei Prokofiev: A Soviet Tragedy. New York: New York, Funk & Wagnalls.
- ISBN 978-5-235-03212-5.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
External links
- Free scores by Sergei Prokofiev at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Sergei Prokofiev at IMDb
- Works by or about Sergei Prokofiev at Internet Archive
- The Serge Prokofiev Foundation
- "Discovering Prokofiev". BBC Radio 3.