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Sergei Prokofiev

75K views 388 replies 145 participants last post by  FluteLover2459 
#1 ·
Prokofiev

Among some of the best few Russian composers would definitely be Prokofiev. I have to be honest, I don't listen to his music that often (just hearing his first piano concerto again for the...3rd or 4th time :eek: I thought to start a thread on him).

To mention some favorites: The Love for Three Oranges, Romeo and Juliet (I only have excerpts, so any recommendations for a full album would be helpful), Pno Concerto 1 in D flat, and symphonies 5 and 7.
 
#115 ·
ok...we'll speak about him more seriously

Let's start with a list:

Ballets
Band Music
Cantatas/Oratorios
Cello
Chamber Music
Concertos
Film/Incidental Music
Flute
Operas
Orchestral
Piano
Symphonies
Violin
Vocal

= Click to see Orchestration
By Title
By Opus
By Date
By Genre

By Popularity
By # of Recordings
By # of Concerts

*Note: All known works are contained in this catalog except the 'Juvenilia' early piano works. These works will be added in the future.

Alexander Nevsky, Cantata for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, Op 78 1938-1939 Cantata
Chout (The Tale of the Buffoon), Ballet in Six Scenes, Op 21 1915-1920 Ballet
Cinderella, Ballet in Three Acts, Op 87 1940-1944 Ballet
Fiery Angel, Op 37 1919-1927 Opera
Lieutenant Kijé - Symphonic Suite, Op 60 1934 Orchestral Suite
Love for Three Oranges: Symphonic Suite, Op 33bis 1924 Orchestral Suite
Peter and the Wolf, Op 67 1936 Speaker & Orchestra
Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor, Op 16 1912-1913 Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto No 3 in C major, Op 26 1917-1921 Piano Concerto
Piano Sonata No 6 in A major, Op 82 1939-1940 Piano Sonata
Piano Sonata No 7 in B flat major, Op 83 1939-1942 Piano Sonata
Piano Sonata No 8 in B flat major, Op 84 1939-1944 Piano Sonata
Romeo and Juliet, Ballet in Four Acts, Op 64 1935-1936 Ballet
Scythian Suite, from Ala and Lolli, Op 20 1914-1915 Orchestral Suite
Sinfonia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra, Op 125 1950-1952 Cello Concerto
Sonata for Violin and Piano No 1 in F minor, Op 80 1938-1946 Violin Sonata
Symphony No 1 in D major "Classical", Op 25 1916-1917 Symphony
Symphony No 5 in B flat major, Op 100 1944 Symphony
Symphony No 6 in E flat minor, Op 111 1945-1947 Symphony
Toccata in D minor, Op 11 1912 Piano
Violin Concerto No 1 in D major, Op 19 1916-1917 Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto No 2 in G minor, Op 63 1935 Violin Concerto
Visions Fugitives, Op 22 1915-1917 Piano
War and Peace, Op 91 1941-1952 Opera

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Impressive? It is, a big output. 10 operas, 9 wonderful, one weird (the gambler), 7 symphonies, 6 beautiful, one a bit corny (the first one). 5 piano concertos, all awesome, 10 piano sonatas...Wow! two violin concertios, wow again! many ballets, awesome.
Incidental music (a few NOT-AT-ALL good...Eugene Oneguin, Boris Godunov)...

Different styles, th eguy evolved a lot and came to sources as Schönberg

Martin
 
G
#116 ·
Best to make your own list, though, wouldn't it be? Rather than a cut and paste from the Prokofiev site?

10 operas, 9 wonderful, one weird (the gambler), 7 symphonies, 6 beautiful, one a bit corny (the first one). 5 piano concertos, all awesome, 10 piano sonatas...Wow! two violin concertios, wow again! many ballets, awesome.
Incidental music (a few NOT-AT-ALL good...Eugene Oneguin, Boris Godunov)...
And best to be a bit more accurate. Especially if you're going to be slamming your fellows for their lack of knowledge. The official count of Prokofiev operas is eight (excluding juvenilia). He started two others, but they're unfinished (and unrecorded), so it's difficult to credit that you know enough about Khan Buzay and Distant Seas to call them "wonderful." (Isn't "wonderful" stretching it a bit for Story of a Real Man and Maddelena? And I'd say that at least the stories of Love for Three Oranges and The Fiery Angel are much weirder than that for The Gambler. The only one whose music could be called weird would be The Fiery Angel, I'd think.)

And only nine completed piano sonatas, though hearing the unfinished tenth is easy enough if you have the right CD set.

And why name Eugene Onegin as one of the "not at all good" incidental music scores? Surely Egyptian Nights and Hamlet are more on the level of Boris Godunov than Eugene Onegin is. Just think of all the works that ended up with bits of Onegin in them. Now there's an interesting list--all the works with bits of Eugene Onegin in them.
 
#119 ·


My special tribute to Prokofiev I made a while back. I hope it's not banned from you all because of copyright issues.
Very nice video, I dont think copyright should be an issue as this is probably covered under fair use laws.
 
#118 ·
Thank you

And best to be a bit more accurate. Especially if you're going to be slamming your fellows for their lack of knowledge. The official count of Prokofiev operas is eight (excluding juvenilia). He started two others, but they're unfinished (and unrecorded), so it's difficult to credit that you know enough about Khan Buzay and Distant Seas to call them "wonderful." (Isn't "wonderful" stretching it a bit for Story of a Real Man and Maddelena? And I'd say that at least the stories of Love for Three Oranges and The Fiery Angel are much weirder than that for The Gambler. The only one whose music could be called weird would be The Fiery Angel, I'd think.)

==================================================
The 9th is the Giant (his first)....The Fiery angel is a master piece...do you really like the Gambler? The story is not weird (Dostoyevsky) but the music. Love for 3 oranges is an old Italian writer called Carlo Gozzi who also wrote Turandot (Puccini), the Fiery angel is the opera I appreciate the most....It is the Evil-Prokofiev....The music was reused in his
3rd symphony.

I don't want to slam anybody...I know almost nothing...you see, I thought it was 10 operas, I made a mistake and as you have said there are 8...the Giant "doesn't exist"...
Maybe you wanted to slam me....LOL

Martin, humbler than you think
 
#126 · (Edited)
Air
I think that Prokofiev thought that he and Stalin would be like Haydn and Esterhazy :) But he didn't understand at first that Soviet regime was more ideological and that (unlike in 18 century) the Soviet elite was more "democratic" with more "democratic" tastes. They prefered composers who wrote simple songs. And he hadn't thought that such persons as Khrennikov would get the top position in music. When he was writing his last works he was very ill and unhappy person. He didn't not become a Soviet man in his mentality (btw, he supported the Whites during the Civil War and was the adept of Christian Science Church).

***
Why do you hate his First symphony? Could you explain.

***
I think that The Fiery Angel should become more well-known opera. I wonder, why it isn't such famous, as e.g. Eugene Onegin or Don Carlo. The story (I have read the book by Valery Brusov) is so interesting and has this occultistic site wich is always popular (esp. in modern Russia). Why it did not become a world-wide blockbuster, I still don't understand.

toucan
Boulez is a clever man and I like his Ravel and Scriabin and Schoenberg (but not sure about his Mahler - it is interesting and Boulez knows what he wants, but is it Mahler with his high-romanticism pathos?), but I don't think that he is right about Shostakovich being the second-pressed Mahler. Their musical language is very different. Is Ravel second-pressed Debussy?
 
#127 · (Edited)
Thanks for the information Moscow-Mahler, that was very interesting. I never argued that Prokofiev adopted a Soviet type mentality, but merely that the Soviet regime itself may have stifled his growth as a progressive composer. This may have been, as you said, more due to Prokofiev's mindset towards the regime than the regime's direct actions towards him, but realistically I'd say it was a little of both. His opinion of what would be accepted by the government probably caused him to compose in great fear, to avoid what many of his contemporaries were going through at the time. After all, they didn't hesitate to ban Popov's First Symphony at its premiere, and this probably influenced Shostakovich too to withdraw his Fourth Symphony. In comparison to his earlier symphonies, the Fourth Symphony really showed a new sort of guts, but of course the young Shostakovich highly feared what the Pravda, and Stalin, had to say - a problem that would remain with him for the rest of his career. I think it's true to say that Prokofiev faced this problem to a similar degree throughout his lifetime yet very few people tend to recognize this or even sympathize with him in the same way they do with Shostakovich.

I don't hate the First Symphony, I just consider it the worst of his seven. What frustrates me is simply how much attention the First Symphony receives compared to the superior and more ambitious 2nd, 3rd, and 6th symphonies.
 
#128 ·
This is an interesting discussion. I'd like to add that I think that Prokofiev was still quite experimental, even in his later years under Stalin. Just listen to the Symphony-Concerto for cello & orchestra. It's definitely not your run of the mill cello concerto. Comparing it to Myaskovsky's effort (which I have coupled with it on the same disc with Rostropovich as soloist) it's quite out-there. & it was from the final years of Prokofiev's life, though I do understand that he was also integrating ideas from an earlier cello concerto into it. So influential was this work, that Shostakovich & Britten would be highly inspired by it in writing their own concertante works for cello & orchestra. At heart (as the quote under Air's posts shows) Sergei was a radical, and I don't think that he never really stopped being a radical throughout his whole career, although he did go through quite a number of stylistic changes & there are works in which he did inevitably have to pander a bit to the regime...
 
#129 ·
Andre
It's difficult to say... Sometimes Prokofiev said about himself: "I'm just a XX century classical composer".

His cello concerto was originally written during his last years in Paris. So, it's difficult to say to which period it belongs. BTW, in the new version's finale he added the comical quatation from the song of Zaharov, one of the song-writers who supported Khrennikov (about some simple Russian guy who is waiting near his girl's house). There was a big scandal :) It was his revenge.
 
#130 ·
In Alexander Nevsky op.78 a battle starts on the ice. Just hear the scratching of the strings to evoke the army getting closer&closer on skates! My favourite Prokofiev is Semyon Kotko & Piano Sonata no.6. Just recently I got hold of a CD with Nikolai Lugansky breaking his fingers on this. But Vladimir Ashkenazy's mastering of this remains unsurpassed.
 
#134 ·
It's BRILLIANT! I downloaded Prokofiev's own recording of some of the pieces which was put up on youtube. I love it so so much. He plays with utmost character.

I'm a fanatic of Prokofiev's piano music in general.
 
#141 ·
Happy Birthday!

Since it's disputed whether Prokofiev's birthday is on the 23rd of April or the 27th of April (historians are leaning towards the 27th these days), I'll just make that an excuse to celebrate his birthday and listen to his music extensively on both days!
har har har. :D

Today I will go for those crazy piano sonatas. Capping it off with Richter's recordings of the War Sonatas.
 
#142 ·
Haha seriously the 27? (by the way, I'm going to a concert hopefully on the 27 to see the Prokofiev PC No. 1, that'll be a blast. That will be the 3rd Prokofiev concert this year, as a celebration :) )

Well, I got my proof it's the 23rd from 3 sources: a music encyclopedia/dictionary, my local radio station who announces such things, and an actual quote by Prokofiev:

"I was born on Wednesday 11 April (Old Style), at five o'clock in the afternoon. This was on the hundredth day of the year. 11 April corresponds to 23 April (New Style), not 24, as some have mistakenly calculated." (Autobiography)

LOL looks like people have even calculated to the 27. Wikipedia has it wrong :eek: Bad!
 
#145 ·
In many ways, he was more original than Shostakovich, but his popularity has been in a serious decline. One would expect the opposite to be true.

I hope this changes in time.
Better to be pretty famous that overly famous. Shostakovich will get the backlash of criticism later, some people think he's overrated right now. Prokofiev should never get to the point that he is overrated, that would be bad.
 
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