P is for Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev

I'll admit it. I've been looking forward to this post since I started this project. As I have proven thus far, I have many favorite composers. Prokofiev currently stands at the head of them all. I find his music to be complex, original, diverse, fun, and just downright enjoyable. I've studied the man, listened to a large portion of his output, and written a paper or two on the subject. And now I get to condense all of that down to a paragraph or two. Did I mention I was also dreading this post?

Prokofiev wrote ballets, symphonies, operas, concertos, piano sonatas, theater music, film music, songs, and more probably. Not the only composer to cover such a wide range of genre, but I think it's important to the man's character. He was a genius that was always looking for something interesting to do. The wide range of his output is made even harder to describe when his own style changed quite a bit over the years. Early in his career he was writing harsher music, a little more dissonant and chaotic. Later in his career, partly due to Soviet "guidance" but not exclusively, his style relaxed and became a bit more accessible to everyone.

I think the thing that sticks out to me most when I listen to Prokofiev is that it does not lead you where you want to go but when you get there you say, oh, well this is nice too. Try it, pick nearly any phrase and stop halfway into it or something. Think about how a normal person would end that phrase, then listen to how Prokofiev ends it. He modulates into temporary keys, elongates phrases, starts an entirely new phrase, just about anything that you wouldn't expect and yet it works perfectly.

The last thing I'll say is read the man's autobiography. Granted I don't read a lot of autobiographies, but I found it to be very fun. He tells a lot of stories from his early childhood and conservatory days that are funny and also help inform how this great composer came to be. There are a few versions of the autobiography and I don't really know where you'd find them, but seek it out. Definitely worth it.

This is one of the pieces that I'd credit with first turning me on to Prokofiev and in so doing leading me into the life of a musician. This is his March Op. 99 performed by a little brass band. Not exactly the most faithful performance, but this type of military-ish band is probably what he would have heard in Russia when he wrote it.



Prokofiev was an amazing pianist and therefore wrote really hard piano music. Some of my favorites are his piano sonatas. I especially like 6 for no real good reason. Here's the finale by some hot shot 12 year old (kinda like Prokofiev, really).



I couldn't leave out my personal favorite. Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet continues to be my "favorite" classical piece. This rarely comes up and it's all apples and oranges anyway, but it's a nice easy answer because it really is a remarkable piece of work. This is the very end of the ballet. Not my favorite musical part of the whole, but quite effective nonetheless.