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Sergei Prokofiev (Серге́й
Серге́евич
Проко́фьев) (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 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 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
premiere 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.
In 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.
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 premier. In 1944, Prokofiev moved to an estate
outside of Moscow, to compose his Fifth
Symphony which would turn out to be his most successful. It was overwhelmingly received, but shortly afterwards, Sergei
suffered a concussion from which he never really recovered, and which severely lowered his productivity in later years.
Prokofiev had time to write his Sixth Symphony and a ninth
piano sonata (his last) before the Party suddenly changed its opinion about his music. The end of the war allowed the
attention to turn 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.
His latest opera projects were quickly cancelled from the Kirov theater and this, in combination with his declining health,
caused Prokofiev to retire more and more from the scene. Most of his later compositions come across as lame, missing the old
"spark". His last performance was in connection with the premiere of the Seventh
Symphony in 1952. He died from cerebral haemorrhage on the 5th of March 1953 (ironically, the same day as Stalin). He is
buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, Russia.
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