REPRINT SERIES Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4 is actually two works, both using material created for The Prodigal Son ballet. The first, Op. 47, was completed in 1930 and premiered that November; it lasts about 22 minutes. The second, Op. 112, is too...

REPRINT SERIES The text to both songs comes from one of Prokofiev's favorite poets, Konstantin Balmont. The two choruses in this set were entitled "The White Swan" and "The Wave." The former was premiered in 1910, with the composer conducting a...

Prokofiev extracted an orchestral suite from the On The Dnieper Op. 51, using six of its twelve movements. This Symphonic Suite is sometimes identified as Op.51a or Op.51bis depending on the catalog, but it's the same work. On the Dnieper (На Днепре),...

The concerto was premiered on 26 November 1938 in Moscow by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. Alexander Melik-Pashayev was the conductor and Lev Berezovsky played the cello.The premiere of Prokofiev's Cello Concerto (Op. 58) was generally thought to...

Sergei Prokofiev's Symphonic Song (Russian: Симфоническая песнь), Op. 57, was written in 1933. It's a work demonstrating Prokofiev's transition from Parisian modernism to Soviet lyricism. Prokofiev had described of it as "a serious piece of work, and I...

On the Dnieper (На Днепре), Op. 51, is a ballet in two scenes with prelude and epilogue by Sergei Prokofiev. Composed in 1931 as his fourth work in the genre, it resulted from a commission by the Ballet de l'Opéra National de Paris after the...

REPRINT SERIES Seven, They Are Seven (Russian: Семеро их) (op. 30) is a cantata by Sergei Prokofiev composed in 1917 for large orchestra, chorus, and dramatic tenor soloist. It was composed in Yessentuki and Kislovodsk, and the words are taken from the...

REPRINT SERIESResponding to Soviet governmental directives to produce music accessible to children, Sergei Prokofiev wrote an album of short, pictorial piano pieces in 1936. Published as Music for Children, Op. 65, these went over so well that Prokofiev...

REPRINT SERIES In 1936 Prokofiev returned permanently to the USSR. He showed sketches of the overture to Eugen Szenkar, who accepted it for his orchestra. Prokofiev used a large orchestra, as he had previously in the Scythian Suite and Seven, They are...

REPRINT SERIES Prokofiev wrote a ballet Trapèze on a theme of circus for the touring company Boris Romanov. Trapèze was written for quintet to suit the small instrumental section of the company. In 1929, he adapted movements from the...

REPRINT SERIES Sergei Prokofiev wrote his Sinfonietta in A major, Op. 5, in 1909 and dedicated it to Nikolai Tcherepnin, his conducting professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Prokofiev subsequently modified it twice, once in 1914 and finally in...

Certainly Prokofiev’s own ‘stories’ for children end happily – and there are quite a number, not merely those recorded here. The first was The Ugly Duckling, a setting of an adaptation (by Nina Meshchersky, Prokofiev’s first...

Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4 is actually two works, both using material created for The Prodigal Son ballet. The first, Op. 47, was completed in 1930 and premiered that November; it lasts about 22 minutes. The second, Op. 112, is too different to be termed...

REPRINT SERIES The Prodigal Son, or Le Fils prodigue (L'enfant prodigue), Op. 46 (Russian: Блудный сын) is a ballet created for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes by George Balanchine to music by Sergei Prokofiev (1928–29). The libretto, based on the...

The music derives from Prokofiev's opera The Fiery Angel, a touching love story set against the backdrop of demonic possession.This opera had been accepted for performance in the 1927–28 season at the Berlin State Opera by Bruno Walter, but this...

REPRINT SERIES Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40, in Paris in 1924-25, during what he called "nine months of frenzied toil". He characterized this symphony as a work of "iron and steel". Prokofiev modeled the symphony's structure on...

Dreams has a curious structure, featuring one theme and a few related motifs, a churning, mysterious background, and virtually no development. Yet the work lasts ten minutes or more. The ethereal main theme returns again and again, only slightly varied...

REPRINT SERIES   After he departed the Soviet Union in 1918, Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953) spent a fair amount of time in the U.S. concertizing. On one such tour in 1930, the Library of Congress commissioned him to compose a string quartet; the...