Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev
File:Sergei Prokofiev.jpg Sergei Prokofiev
Born
April 27, 1891 Sontsovka, Russian Empire
Died
March 5, 1953 Moscow, Russia (Aged 61)

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (Russian: Серге́й Серге́евич Проко́фьев, Sergej Sergejevič Prokof’ev; 15/April 27¹, 1891–March 5, 1953) was a Russian composer who mastered numerous musical genres and came to be admired as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. (Alternative transliterations of his name include Sergey or Serge, and Prokofief or Prokofieff.)

Biography

Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka,' (the village of Krasnoe, Krasnoarmiiskyi Raion, in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine). He was an only child. His mother was a pianist and his first music teacher and his father was a relatively wealthy agricultural engineer.

Prokofiev displayed unusual musical abilities by the age of five. His first piano composition to be written down (by his mother), an 'Indian Galop', was in F major but without the customary B-flat—the young Prokofiev did not like to touch the black notes. By the age of seven, he had also learned to play chess. Much like music, chess would remain a passion his entire life, and he became accomplished enough to compete against a number of world champions in his day.

By the age of nine, he had composed his first opera, The giant; an overture; miscellaneous pieces; and began to work on another opera, Ondine.

By 1902, when Prokofiev started taking private lessons in composition, he had already produced a number of innovative pieces. As soon as he had the necessary theoretical tools, he quickly started experimenting, laying the base for his own musical style.

After a while, Prokofiev felt that the isolation in Sontsovka was restricting his further musical development. Although his parents were not too keen on forcing their son into a musical career at such an early age, in 1904 he moved to St. Petersburg and applied to the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He passed the introductory tests and started his composition studies the same year, being several years younger than most of his classmates. He was viewed as eccentric and arrogant, and he often expressed dissatisfaction with much of the education, which he found boring. During this period he studied under, among others, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Later, he would regret squandering his opportunity to learn more from Rimsky-Korsakov. He also became friends with Boris Asafiev and Nikolai Myaskovsky.

As a member of the St. Petersburg music scene, Prokofiev eventually earned a reputation as an enfant terrible, while also getting praise for his original compositions, which he would perform himself on the piano. In 1909, he graduated from his class in composition, getting less than impressive marks. He continued at the Conservatory, but now concentrated on playing the piano and conducting. His piano lessons went far from smoothly, but the composition classes made an impression on him. His teacher encouraged his musical experimentation, and his works from this period display more intensity than earlier ones.

In 1910, Prokofiev's father died and Sergei's economic support ceased. Luckily, at that time, he had started making a name for himself as a composer, although he frequently caused scandals with his forward-looking works. His first two piano concertos were composed around this time. He made his first excursion out of Russia in 1913, travelling to Paris and London where he first encountered Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

In 1914, Prokofiev left the Conservatory with the highest marks of his class, a feat which won him a grand piano. Soon afterwards, he made a trip to London where he made contact with Sergei Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky.

During World War I, Prokofiev returned again to the Academy, now studying organ. He composed an opera based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler, but the rehearsals were plagued by problems and the première scheduled for 1917 had to be cancelled because of the February Revolution. In summer the same year, Prokofiev composed his first symphony, the Classical. This was his own name for the symphony which was written in the style, that according to Prokofiev, Joseph Haydn would have used if he had been alive at the time. Hence, the symphony is more or less classical in style but incorporated more modern musical elements (see Neoclassicism). After a brief stay with his mother in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus, because of worries of the enemy capturing Petrograd (the new name for St Petersburg), he returned in 1918, but he was now determined to leave Russia, at least temporarily. In the current Russian state of unrest, he saw no room for his experimental music and, in May, he headed for the USA.

Life abroad

Arriving in San Francisco, he was immediately compared to other famous Russian exiles (such as Sergei Rachmaninoff), and he started out successfully with a solo concert in New York, leading to several further engagements. He also received a contract for the production of his new opera The Love for Three Oranges but, due to illness and the death of the conductor, the première was cancelled. This was another example of Prokofiev's bad luck in operatic matters. The failure also cost him his American solo career, since the opera took too much time and effort. He soon found himself in financial difficulties, and, in April 1920, he left for Paris, not wanting to return to Russia as a failure.

Paris was better prepared for Prokofiev's musical style. He reaffirmed his contacts with the Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and with Stravinsky, and returned to some of his older unfinished works such as the Third Piano Concerto. Later, in 1921, The Love for Three Oranges finally premièred in Chicago. However, the reception was cold, forcing Prokofiev to again leave America without triumph.

Prokofiev then moved with his mother to the Bavarian Alps for over a year so he could concentrate fully on his composing. Most of his time was spent on an old opera project, The Fiery Angel. By this time his later music had started sifting back into Russia and he received invitations to return there, but he felt that his new European career was more important. In 1923, he married the Spanish singer Lina Llubera, before moving back to Paris.

There, a number of his works (for example the Second Symphony) were performed, but critical reception was lukewarm, perhaps because he could no longer really lay claim to being a "novelty". He did not particularly like Stravinsky's later works and, even though he was quite friendly with members of "Les Six", musically he had very little in common with them.

Around 1927, things started looking up; he had some exciting commissions from Diaghilev and made a number of concert tours in Russia; in addition, he enjoyed a very successful staging of The Love for Three Oranges in Leningrad (as Saint Petersburg was then known). Two older operas (one of them The Gambler) were also played in Europe and in 1928 he produced the Third Symphony which was broadly based on his unperformed opera The Fiery Angel. The years 1931 and 1932 saw the completion of his fourth and fifth piano concertos.

In 1929, he had a car accident in which his hands were slightly injured, preventing him from touring in Moscow, but permitting him to enjoy some of the contemporary Russian music instead. After his hands healed, he made a new attempt at touring in the USA, and this time he was received very warmly, propped up by his recent success in Europe. This, in turn, propelled him to do a major tour through Europe.

In the early 1930s, Prokofiev was starting to long for Russia again and he moved more and more of his premières and commissions to his home country instead of Paris. One such was Lieutenant Kije, which was commissioned as the score to a Russian film. Another commission, from the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad, was the ballet Romeo and Juliet, today one of Prokofiev's best known works. However, there were numerous choreographic problems, postponing the premiere for several years.

Return to Soviet Union

File:Prokofiev.jpg

Sergei Prokofiev

In 1934, Prokofiev moved back to the Soviet Union permanently, but his family came a year after him. At this time, the official Soviet policy towards music changed; a special bureau, the "Composers' Union", was established in order to keep track of the artists and their doings, and regulations were drawn up outlining what kind of music was acceptable. By limiting outside influences, these policies would gradually cause almost complete isolation for the Soviet composers from the rest of the world. Still mostly untouched by this, Prokofiev turned to composing music for children (Three Songs for Children, Peter and the Wolf, and so on) as well as the gigantic Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution, which was, however, never performed. The première of the opera Semyon Kotko was postponed, this time because the producer Vsevolod Meyerhold was imprisoned and executed.

In 1941, Prokofiev suffered the first of several heart attacks, resulting in a gradual decline in health. Because of the war, he was periodically evacuated south together with a large number of other artists. This had consequences for his family life in Moscow, and his relationship with the 25-year-old Mira Mendelson finally led to his separation from his wife Lina, although they remained married for the next seven years. It should also be mentioned that marriage with foreigners was made illegal at this time and some believe that the breakup with his wife may have been forced.

The outbreak of war inspired Prokofiev to a new opera project, War and Peace, which he worked on for two years, along with more film music for Sergei Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible) and the second string quartet. However, the Union had many opinions about the opera which had to undergo numerous revisions and no première. In 1944, Prokofiev moved to an estate outside of Moscow, to compose his Fifth Symphony (Op. 100) which would turn out to be his most successful. It was overwhelmingly received, but shortly afterwards, Sergei suffered a concussion as a result of a fall, from which he never really recovered and which also severely lowered his productivity in later years.

Prokofiev had time to write his postwar Sixth Symphony and a ninth piano sonata (for Sviatoslav Richter) before the Party suddenly changed its opinion about his music. The end of the war allowed attention to be turned inwards again and the Party saw fit to tighten its reins on domestic artists. Prokofiev's music was now suddenly seen as a grave example of formalism, and generally dangerous to the Soviet people.

On February 20 1948 his wife Lina was arrested for 'espionage'—she tried to send money to her mother in Spain via an embassy. She was sentenced to 20 years, but was eventually released after Stalin's death and later left the Soviet Union; in that same year, Prokofiev married Mira.

His latest opera projects were quickly cancelled from the Kirov Theatre and this, in combination with his declining health, caused Prokofiev to retire more and more from the scene. His last performance was the première of the Seventh Symphony in 1952, a piece of a somewhat bittersweet character, for which Prokofiev was asked to substitute a cheerful ending. He died at the age of 61 from a cerebral haemorrhage on 5 March, 1953 (the same day and even hour and cause that Communist Party leader Joseph Stalin died). Prokofiev had lived near the Red Square and for three days the throngs gathered to mourn Stalin made it impossible to carry Prokofiev's body out for the funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composer's Union. Paper flowers and a taped recording of the funeral march from his Romeo and Juliet had to be used, as all real flowers and musicians were reserved for Stalin's funeral. He is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Lina Prokofieva outlived her ex-husband for many years, dying in London in early 1989; royalties from sales and performances of her late husband's music provided her a modest income.

Works

Compositions

Further information: List of compositions by Sergei Prokofiev and Category:Compositions by Sergei Prokofiev

Autobiography

Prokofiev's diaries have been published.^{[citation needed]}

Biographers

• David Nice
• Daniel Jaffe
• Harlow Robinson
• Israel Nestjev

Music Analyses

• Stephen Press
• Stephen C. I. Fiess

More modern references to Sergei Prokofiev

• In the song "Russians" from The Dream of the Blue Turtles, Sting used a theme from the "Romance" from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije.
• In 1978, Isao Tomita, one of the godfathers of electronic music, used excerpts from Symphony No. 5 and 6, the Violin Concerto No. 1, Romeo and Juliet ballet suite and Scythian suite, for his album Bermuda Triangle.
• In 1991, punk survivors The Damned recorded a tribute single, Prokofiev.
• Billy Joel references Prokofiev in his hit We Didn't Start the Fire; specifically the reference is to Prokofiev's death.

Trivia

• Throughout his life, 23 April was believed to be his birth date, but many years later a birth certificate turned up which showed he was actually born four days later, on 27 April.Template:Citationneeded
• Igor Stravinsky characterized him as the greatest Russian composer of his day, other than Stravinsky himself.
• The Political Compass organisation rates Prokofiev as one of the most left-wing individuals on their "Composers' Political Compass" [1]
• Technical death metal band Necrophagist samples a piece of the Romeo and Juliet ballet score in their song "Only Ash Remains"
• His death occurred on March 5, 1953, the same day that Joseph Stalin passed.

External links

• The Prokofiev Page
• The Serge Prokofiev Foundation
• IMSLP: Download Prokofiev scores
• Boosey and Hawkes' Prokofiev page - Most of Prokofiev's music is published by B&H.
• IMSLP - International Music Score Library Project's Prokofiev page.
• Holdings of the Serge Prokofiev Archive listed under AIM25.
• Piano Society.com - Prokofiev - A short biography and some free recordings in MP3 format and info.
• The chess games of Sergei Prokofiev Four for posterity
• List of Prokofiev's complete works