Sergei Prokofiev

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Sergei Prokofiev (April 23, 1891 - March 5, 1953) was a Russian composer.

Early years

Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka (now the village of Krasne in Donetsk oblast), Ukraine, as an only child. His mother was a pianist and his father a relatively wealthy agricultural engineer.

Prokofiev displayed unusual musical abilities at an early age and in 1902, when he started taking private lessons in composition, he had already produced a number of 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 Saint Petersburg and applied to the Academy of Music. 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. He also became friends with Boris Asafiev and Nikolai Myaskovsky.

In the Saint Petersburg music scene, Sergei would gradually get 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 academy, 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.

In 1914 Prokofiev left the academy, this time with the highest marks, which won him a grand piano. Soon afterwards he made a trip to London where he made contact with Serge Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky.

During World War I, Prokofiev returned again to the academy, now studying organ. He composed an opera based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Gambler, but the rehearsals were plagued by problems and the premiere 1917 had to be cancelled because of the February Revolution. In summer the same year, Prokofiev composed his first symphony, the Classical. This was Sergei's own name for the symphony, which was composed in a style inspired by, for example, Joseph Haydn. After a brief stay with his mother in Kislovodsk, Kaukasus, because of worries of the enemy capturing Petrograd, 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 "exile" Russians (such as Sergei Rachmaninov), 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 premiere was cancelled, 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 premiered in Chicago, but the reception was cold, forcing Prokofiev to leave the States again without triumph.

Now Prokofiev moved with his mother to the Bavarian alps for over a year, so as to concentrate fully on his composing. Mostly he spent time on an old opera project, The Burning 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 "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, as well as enjoying a very successful staging of The Love for Three Oranges in Leningrad. 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. 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 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 large tour through Europe too.

In the early thirties Prokofiev was starting to long for Russia again, moving more and more of his premieres and commissions to his home country instead of Paris. An example of the later is Lieutenant Kije, which was commissioned as the score to a russian film. Another commission, from the Kirov theater in Leningrad, was the ballet Romeo and Juliet, today one of Prokofiev's best known works. However, there were numerous choreographical problems, postponing the premier for several years.

Return to Russia

In 1936 Prokofiev and his family moved back to Russia permanently. At this time, the official Russian 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. These policies would gradually cause almost complete isolation for the Russian composers from the rest of the world, by limiting outside influences. 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 premiere of the opera Semjon Kotko was postponed, this time because the producer Meyerhold was imprisoned and executed. Most of Prokofiev's opera projects were plagued by ill luck.

1941 Sergei suffered his first heart attack. It would be followed by others, 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 brought his marriage to an end. It is not impossible that there were political reasons for the breakup too; being a foreigner, his wife Lina was not "politically correct" and she was later arrested for espionage.