Awesome Music / Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev is perhaps the most famous composer from Soviet Russia (give or take his friends and rivals Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian),^note  As early as 1957, four years after Prokofiev died but while Shostakovich and Khachaturian were still alive, Time magazine called them "the three modern giants" of Soviet music. and left many awesome pieces for future generations to enjoy.

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• "Dance of the Knights" (AKA "The Montagues and Capulets") from Romeo and Juliet, instantly recognisable to UK listeners as the theme from The Apprentice. The perfect music to accompany any scene of armies on the march.
• Prokofiev added several gems to the symphonic canon over the course of his career.
  • By far his most popular symphony, partly as it is the shortest,^note  Under 15 minutes in most performances and recordings; apart from the original version of No.4, which clocks in at 20-25 minutes, Prokofiev's other symphonies are all in the 30-45 minute range. merriest, and most musically accessible, is No.1 in D major, the Classical. With the symphony, he tried to answer the question "What sort of music would Joseph Haydn write if he were alive today?" (meaning 1916), and came up with a meditative slow movement and a wryly humorous gavotte bookended by a sonata allegro and a finale packed to the gills with energy and charming melodies. While the formal and tonal language owes a lot to Haydn (and Mozart), Prokofiev put an individual and memorable spin on said language with more contemporary harmonic progressions.
  • At the other end of the spectrum, No.2 in D minor is one of Prokofiev's least often performed and recorded symphonies^note  Prokofiev composed it over nine months of "frenzied toil" while in voluntary exile in Paris, producing a work of "iron and steel" to appeal to audiences more partial to the mechanics of pieces like Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231. Critics and audiences were baffled by the results, leading Prokofiev to have his first serious doubts in his ability as a composer; a planned re-working only existed in his head when he died. and stands out for its brutality. A shrieking opening trumpet call sets the stage for the savage first movement sonata allegro, packed with angular dissonances and full orchestral outbursts. The second (and last) movement opens with a dreamlike theme that is pulled apart over six variations, which, apart from the slow yet troubled fourth, gradually build in intensity until the nightmarish fifth and sixth variations respectively resurrect the atmosphere and thematic material of the first movement, climaxing with a violent unison rhythm... that almost immediately fades into a reprise of the theme, this time finishing on a shimmering, spine-tingling juxtaposition of C-sharp minor against D minor and leaving us wondering whether the theme was the dream and the variations were reality, or vice versa.
  • Just behind No.1 in terms of popularity and frequency of performance and recording is No.5 in B-flat major, composed in just one month as the tide of World War II was turning in the Allies' favour, and described by the composer as "a hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit." The tightly constructed opening Andante unfolds from a relaxed melody that returns, after a tense scherzo assembled from sketches for several other pieces and a hauntingly nostalgic Adagio that builds to a tortured climax before ebbing to where it began, to introduce a lively finale with a surprisingly dark coda that hints more at B-flat minor than B-flat major. The symphony is an especially fine example of Prokofiev's skill at weaving a piano into orchestral pieces so that it functions not as a featured soloist, but as another orchestral instrument.^note  Of Prokofiev's seven symphonies, the only ones not to feature a piano are Nos.1 and 3 (although No.4 only had a piano added to the orchestra when Prokofiev revised the work a decade and a half after its first performances).
  • Symphony No.6 in E-flat minor is one of Prokofiev's most underrated works. The first movement builds to an especially dark climax; seldom has a major-key resolution sounded so menacing. And although the other two movements both begin and end in major keys, there is no sense of triumph, especially in the shrieking coda of the finale (which comes after a reminiscence of the minor key first movement). Like No.5, it features particularly adept use of the piano as an orchestral instrument across all three movements.
• Prokofiev's five piano concerti all rank among the early twentieth century's very best.
  • No.1 in D-flat major was composed to perform in a concerto competition; Prokofiev reasoned that playing his own concerto would improve his chances, as the judges would be less likely to know how well he was playing it. The gamble paid off (though not without fiercely dividing the judges^note  Alexander Glazunov, despite encouraging Prokofiev as a conservatory student, was especially opposed to awarding him first prize.), winning him a grand piano and cementing his reputation as both a performer and a composer. The concerto is remarkable in its compactness, fitting a four-movement structure into a single movement that essentially functions as a sonata allegro with a slow interlude and scherzo as its development; the soaring, majestic theme that opens the work re-appears at the halfway point and again in the coda to reinforce the sense of musical unity.
  • The intensely emotional No.2 in G minor is a masterwork, if also one of the most brutally difficult concerti in the standard repertoire^note  Many otherwise technically gifted pianists either refuse to touch it (such as the Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich) or put off learning it (such as the Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin); even Prokofiev himself had trouble playing it during a 1930s performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.. From a first movement dominated by an almost five-minute long solo cadenza of ever-mounting technical ambition that builds to an apocalypse-like restatement of the enigmatic opening measures by the full orchestra, to a blazing perpetual motion scherzo that powers along at almost ten notes a second, to a violent intermezzo heralded by a thundering ground bass in the lower orchestra instruments which returns in epic style for a climax that sounds like the forces of Hell unleashed, to a finale with a lullaby-like main theme bookended by frenzied dance sections in which the soloist gallops and/or hops across three or four octaves and back again, the savage technical demands hardly let up for a moment, and must be seen, not just heard, to be believed. To add to the awesome, Prokofiev wrote it when he was just 22 years old.^note  Though the version performed today is a revision from ten years later; the original score was lost to fire during the Russian Revolution, and Prokofiev re-constructed and revised the concerto from the sketches, but said it might as well have been a completely new piece.
  • From the serene opening clarinet solo to the non-stop fireworks of its final pages, No.3 in C major seizes the listener by the collar and never lets go. After the slow introduction, the strings practically buzz with excitement before the piano bounds straight to centre stage for nearly ten minutes of breathless exhilaration (with a brief interlude recalling the introduction). The second movement presents a solemn, songlike theme for a set of variations that explore a wide emotional range, and the finale flanks another island of shimmering sonority with adrenaline rushes, particularly in the coda; the ascending-descending double note scales as the concerto gallops full speed to its triumphant final measures must, again, be not just heard but seen to be believed (especially if the soloist plays them as written rather than "cheating" and playing them as glissandi^note  Curiously, despite keeping her distance from Concerto No.2, Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich is among the few performers with the courage and technical chops to play the double note scales from No.3 as written.).
  • The only piano concerto Prokofiev did not write to perform himself was No.4 in B-flat major for the Left Hand, composed for the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein.^note  After having his right arm amputated during World War I, Wittgenstein appealed to every composer he could contact for concert works for the left hand only, the most famous result being Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. He never performed Prokofiev's concerto, as he was initially confused by the piece's inner logic and wanted to wait until he understood it before taking to the stage with it; unfortunately, he never got around to it. The introductory rondo gives way to an intensely reflective Andante (the melody of which was re-used in the ballet Romeo and Juliet) and a sarcastic Moderato, both movements showing that music for the left hand could be just as technically and emotionally varied as music for both hands. But it is the finale, a distillation of the first movement material down to its very essence that lasts just over a minute, in which Prokofiev truly puts his individual stamp on the concerto, the music building to a wryly understated final ascent to the top B-flat.
  • Although No.5 in G major is the least often performed and recorded of Prokofiev's concerti for two hands, it is one of his most uniquely original compositions for soloist and orchestra, its pages positively bursting with melody and packed with acrobatic leaps for the soloist. It began life as "Music for Piano and Orchestra", its defiance of convention reflected in its five-movement structure. The confident opening movement is followed by a darkly comic march full of glissandi and fluid scalar runs. After a brief yet fierce toccata that re-works the themes of the first movement (right down to opening with the same melody), the concerto reaches its emotional heart, a Larghetto in which several passages sound as though they require three hands to play. The finale is startling in its use of the Locrian mode, and waits until near the end of the triumphant coda to finally settle into the concerto's home key of G major.
• The Symphony-Concerto in E minor is one of the most blisteringly difficult cello concerti ever written; any cellist who can pull off a successful rendition is almost guaranteed to send your jaw crashing to the floor. It boasts a slow first movement that alternates a strident, marchlike motif (similar to one found in Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet) with a haunting contrary motion scalar figure, a fast second movement full of technically mind-blowing passages for the soloist, including an extended unaccompanied cadenza, and a third movement loosely structured as a theme and variations with an interruption in the form of a folk tune first stated in the bassoon, all building to a final gesture by the cello in the very, very top of the instrument's register.
• Of Prokofiev's nine piano sonatas, the most popular have long been the three "war sonatas", written during World War II when he wasn't under as many state-mandated stylistic restrictions. Though the war had not yet begun when he conceived the sonatas, they remain among the most arresting music influenced by the effects of the rise and fall of Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union, with No.6 conveying a sense of foreboding at the coming battles, No.7 depicting the chaos and sorrow those battles would bring, and No.8 showing the end of the war in spite of the nations' continued differences.
  • No.6 in A major was completed by 1940, before Hitler pointed his armies at Moscow. Its first movement is dominated by a harsh descending parallel thirds motif, full of disorientingly sharp accents and dissonances. After a jaunty "quick march" with a reflective centre section and a slow waltz with an extroverted interlude at its heart, the finale is a typical Prokofiev toccata that ultimately returns to the descending thirds from the first movement to bring the sonata full circle.
  • Prokofiev composed No.7 in B-flat major (sometimes nicknamed Stalingrad) as the war raged almost on his doorstep, while he mourned the deaths of several close friends in Stalin's purges.^note  His mood was not helped when he was "invited" (read: "ordered, under penalty of death") to compose a celebratory cantata for Stalin's 60th birthday. The opening sonata allegro casts an almost atonal first theme against a more languid second theme that slowly builds in tempo and energy until the recapitulation begins with a crash; the movement finally disappears into the shadows with the composer's trademark sly humour. After a sombre slow movement with a melody based on Robert Schumann's Lied "Wehmut" ("Sadness") and a dark, heavily chromatic centre section, the piece goes out in a blazing fireworks display in 7/8 time, its energy not letting up for even a second.
  • No.8 in B-flat major is the longest of Prokofiev's piano sonatas, and is dedicated to Mira Mendelson, whose affair with Prokofiev is sometimes thought to have been the catalyst for his conception of the three "war sonatas".^note  Prokofiev left his wife Lina for Mira in 1941, and a government decree dissolving marriages between Soviet and foreign nationals in 1947 (Lina was half-Spanish) opened the door for the two to marry, although Lina maintained that she was Prokofiev's only legitimate wife right up until her death in 1989. Though less atonal than No.7, it is more harmonically unstable, frequently casting unrelated keys against each other. The sonata opens with the longest single movement from any Prokofiev sonata, an extended musical journey of long melodic phrases and nods to the previous sonata. The hypnotic, dreamlike second movement carries performer and listener alike to usually unreachable realms. The concluding rondo incorporates themes from the first two movements and provides the perfect summation not just for this sonata, but for the one before it, with a coda that binds together ideas from both sonatas.
• Although Prokofiev's chamber work is often overshadowed by that of his younger fellow Soviet composer, Shostakovich, his sonatas for stringed instruments and piano are some of his greatest compositions.
  • Of his two violin sonatas, No.1 in F minor is one of his darkest compositions, with an ominous opening Andante assai, a harsh scherzo, an eerily beautiful Andante, and a finale that starts out energetic but soon reverts to the darkness of the first movement, with an ambiguous major resolution that feels like the sweet release of death rather than a triumph. The vastly brighter No.2 in D major started out as a flute sonata, and is a more traditionally Classical four-movement sonata with many moments of virtuosity and lyricism.
  • Prokofiev's Cello Sonata in C major was composed especially for Mstislav Rostropovich (also the inspiration for the composer's decision to revise his earlier cello concerto as the Symphony-Concerto), and while unwelcome attention from Stalin's cultural enforcers^note  Prokofiev was one of the more high-profile casualties (others included Shostakovich and Khachaturian) of the 1948 Zhdanov decree that Soviet composers must stop writing such complicated, formalist nonsense and instead celebrate all that is good about Stalin and the Soviet Union, in that order. meant that his usual fondness for dissonant, dense harmonies had to be scaled back to something much simpler, the result is one of the jewels in the crown of cello music, with an expansive slow opening movement, a buoyant central scherzo, and a lively finale that acknowledges Prokofiev's oft-denied debt of influence to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.
• Prokofiev contributed two hidden gems to the 20th century string quartet canon.
  • Quartet No.1 in B minor was commissioned by the Library of Congress during Prokofiev's voluntary exile in the USA; after galloping out of the gate with a dizzying sonata allegro, the music seems to move toward a slow movement, only to take a sudden turn into an edgy scherzo. Instead, the slow movement is saved for the end, giving the quartet an emotionally flooring climax of which Prokofiev was justly proud.
  • The composer was evacuated from Moscow to the Kabardino-Balkar region during World War II, and extensively studied the local folk music to incorporate into Quartet No.2 in F major, but while the melodies of the brash, strident opening Allegro, the highly exotic central Adagio, and the troubled yet ultimately triumphant finale were borrowed from his Kabardinian hosts and the score includes imitations of the plucked and percussion instruments of the region (particularly in the Adagio, in which the accompaniment mimics a kjamantchi), the harmonic language is very much Prokofiev's own.
• One of Prokofiev's lesser-known works is his Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution. The sixth movement is especially notable for its use of various unusual instruments such as accordions, large brass bells, a siren, a megaphone (for the choir member playing Lenin), cannons, and even a machine gun (specifically a Maxim gun).
  • Because cannons and machine guns are dangerous items, the artillery is often substituted by normal percussion. The cannons are played on the bass drum whereas the machine gun part is played on either several snare drums or by drumming on the shell of a bass drum.
  • This is probably the best rendition as it contains an actual Kalashnikov! One of the loudest and most epic things to ever occur in orchestral writing.

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