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...

REPRINT SERIES   The suite is in four movements, and lasts around 20 minutes. It is based on Prokofiev's ballet "Ala e Lolli" (Ala and Lolly).1. Invocation to Veles and Ala - barbaric and colorful music describing the Scythians' invocation of the...

The symphony, written as an elegy of the tragedies of World War II, has often been regarded as the darker twin to the victorious Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major.The symphony is in 3 movements (rather than the conventional 4), and lasts 40–45...

REPRINT SERIES The Stone Flower was the last of Prokofiev’s Soviet ballets, dating from 1948, and is based on a folk tale from the Urals. The Suite contains music of great beauty, with soaring tunes that are as memorable as anything in the two...

The Seventh Symphony was Prokofiev's last completed major work. It was written for the Soviet Children's Radio Division, but the simplicity of the composer's approach in the work often conceals deeper expressive currents. Though the Symphony adheres to...

REPRINT SERIES A one-movement concerto, it is the shortest of his five complete piano concertos, lasting only around a quarter of an hour. The first and last sections have a clear thematic relationship, as the concerto begins and ends with the same...

REPRINT SERIES The concerto radiates a crisp vitality that testifies to Prokofiev's inventive prowess in punctuating lyrical passages with witty dissonances, while maintaining a balanced partnership between the soloist and orchestra. Of the five piano...

Also known as Symphony-Concerto in E minor, Op. 125,  it is a reworking of the Cello Concerto Op.58.  This "Sinfonia Concertante" is a large-scale work for cello and orchestra, dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich. The three movements are all...