As G. Alfeevskaya 11 notes, the theatrical nature of the composer's thinking determined the importance of the musical and theatrical genres in his work, represented by operas, ballets, film music and performances saturated with vivid and multifaceted imagery. The hallmarks of many ballets and operas are the amusing intrigue, the swiftness of the dynamics of the development of the action, the role of the comedic beginning.
As L. Danko 12 notes, the continuous creative process of the composer's work in this direction is due to the development of musical stage dramaturgy in connection with three main lines:
Comedy-scherzo (for example, the ballet "Jester", the opera "Love for Three Oranges")
Conflict and dramaturgy, starting from the opera The Gambler and ending with the opera "War and Peace"
Lyrical-comedy (opera The Duenna, ballet Cinderella)
The fourth line, connected with folk songs, was formed in the last years of the composer's life (the opera The Tale of a Real Man, the ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower.
The theme of opera plots covers samples of Russian and European classical literature; the range of time spans from the Middle Ages to the present. In general, Prokofiev's operatic work is distinguished by the prevalence of symphonism, the tendency to strengthen orchestral episodes, the desire to recreate modern ideals in music and reflect the characteristics of a particular era.
It should be noted that S. S. Prokofiev, being a playwright, updates the opera genre, introducing elements of drama theater and cinema into it. Also, the composer's operas are distinguished by the diversity of images and stage situations, the polarity in the reflection of reality.
Ballets S.S. Prokofiev is also of great interest. In the 20th century, Russian ballet, thanks to a highly developed symphonic beginning, reached a new level and even began to compete with opera. In many ways, this trend is associated with the name of S. Diaghilev, who often ordered ballets from S.S. Prokofiev 13 .
Continuing the ideas of P. I. Tchaikovsky, S. S. Prokofiev finally turns a choreographic performance into a dramatic performance. Ballets S.S. Prokofiev, with different plots, are united by the following features: all ballets are symphonized, the orchestra began to play a large role, and there is also a developed leitmotif system. Also, all the composer's ballets have a lyrical and psychological nature, which means that it was the classical form of ballet that became the main one for S. S. Prokofiev.
Instrumental music is another of the most important areas of S. S. Prokofiev's work, which expressed the main, typical features of the author's style - complex, but very refined. All works are connected by an extraordinary melodic gift, harmony, saturation with a bright national color. Examples should be given, such as Symphony No. 1, written in the classical, "Haydnian" style; symphonies No. 2-4, written abroad and reflecting the spirit of the contemporary composer of the time, symphonies No. 5-7, written in the late period of his life, nevertheless, filled with optimism and joy of life (No. 7) 14 .
S. S. Prokofiev created 6 cantatas (“Seven of them”, Cantata for the 20th anniversary of October, “Health resort”, “Alexander Nevsky”, etc.). For example, "Alexander Nevsky" gained massive popularity due to the fact that in 1938 the film by Sergei Eisenstein "Alexander Nevsky" with music by S. Prokofiev was released on cinema screens. This cantata occupies a special place in the composer's work - the heroic-epic national theme will further develop in the opera "War and Peace", in the music for "Ivan the Terrible", in the Fifth Symphony and some other compositions 15 .
The composer's innovation also penetrated deeply into his piano work. The composer's piano work is characterized by lyrical themes combined with national flavor, which is typical of the composer's entire work. It was important for the composer to present the musical idea as clearly as possible, to show the relief of harmony. Hence - the desire for "transparency" of sound, themes are often revealed in the upper register and are not overloaded with polyphony. The development of thought follows the movement of the melodic line. Prokofiev's piano work is usually divided into three periods:
1) Early . Before leaving abroad (1908 - 1918). During this period, four sonatas, two concertos, etudes (op. 2), plays (op. 3,4), Toccata (Op. 11), Sarcasms (Op. 17), Fleeting (op. 22);
2) Foreign (1918 - 1933). In creativity there is a deepening of the lyrical sphere. Written 3rd, 4th, 5th concertos, 5th sonata, "Tales" (op. 31), four pieces (op. 32);
3) Soviet (mid 1930s). According to Prokofiev himself, during this period of creativity, a “transition to a new simplicity” takes place. Written "Children's Music" (op. 65), transcriptions, sonatas 6-9 16.
The new stylistic features of the music of the young Prokofiev arose as a kind of denial of the aesthetics of musical impressionism. The melodic-rhythmic vagueness of impressionism had to be countered with clarity and activity; fluidity of faces - squareness, dissection, emphasis on cadences; halftones, half-light - the certainty of colors and shades. The nature of the young Prokofiev's talent, his entire mindset, was surprisingly in harmony with these important musical and creative tasks. A man of amazing clarity and harmony of outlook, Prokofiev found a natural support for his compositional thinking in classicism. His artistic aspirations were met by the light harmony of classicist aesthetics, and the refined orderliness of the universal principles of shaping. L. Gakkel in the book "Piano Music of the 20th Century" defined Prokofiev's artistic principles as follows:
1) write for the "big hall", work for a wide audience, become relevant, which means music should be sonorous, contrasting, rhythmically defined;
2) write emotionally contagious music (mobile deployment of the form, moving tempos, dynamic injections) 17 .
The development of S. Prokofiev's style is marked by a gradually increasing attraction to melodicism in comparison with motor skills and scherzo, which was typical of the early period of creativity, which was associated not so much with the period of the composer's life, but with the place and time of the composer's residence.
Characteristics of the composer's piano work
Piano works by Sergei Prokofiev are one of the most interesting pages of his work. It is known that the composer felt the instrumental specifics of the piano and masterfully embodied his original artistic ideas in innovative piano writing and original pianism. Prokofiev, the creator of piano works, and Prokofiev, the pianist, are inseparable from each other, and these phenomena can be correctly understood only in interconnection, and not separately.
Prokofiev composed for the piano, with few exceptions, throughout his entire creative life. The piano writing crystallized his individual style, the features of his handwriting. His first piano opuses date back to his childhood and adolescence, and the last ones were composed during a period of serious illness, on the eve of his death.
The composer's contribution to piano music is enormous: 5 concertos with orchestra, 9 sonatas, 3 sonatinas, about 75 original pieces (including 6 piano cycles) and 50 transcriptions, mostly of his own orchestral works.
Piano works by Prokofiev opened a new chapter not only in Russian, but also in world piano creativity. The composer showed the rich possibilities of music for this instrument thanks to mutual influence of genres. So, for example, the impact of symphonic, and especially theatrical music on the pianoforte, was not as beneficial for anyone as for Prokofiev; at the same time, the piano genre has completely retained its instrumental specificity.
The composer introduced a refreshing and life-affirming element into the pianistic culture of the 20th century, introduced "tangible" concreteness and effectiveness into it. Light and joy, youthful enthusiasm and energy in Prokofiev's early piano music, as well as its soft, deeply human, sometimes gentle, and mostly strict lyrical features, were the concrete sources for the embodiment of optimistic and courageously humanistic imagery in Soviet piano work.
In a significant part of his works, Prokofiev relies on Russian folk song foundations and developments of the "Kuchkists". The influence of European musical classics of the 18th and early 19th centuries is also traced, in particular the work of Haydn and early Beethoven (partly by D. Scarlatti) 19 . But Prokofiev always remained true to his creative path: to rely on traditions only for further movement forward, to rethink them in an innovative way and remain until the end an artist of his time, of his people.
Prokofiev was constantly in search of the new, in the eternal search for modernity. It was the progressive, innovative achievements of Prokofiev that ensured the viability and immortality of his piano compositions. I would like to consider the main, most important features of innovation in the piano work of Prokofiev. In order to understand them, one must immerse himself in the musical atmosphere of that time, understand the causes and preconditions that influenced the emergence of a new musical language in S. Prokofiev's works.
One of the most characteristic features of the advanced art of the early 20th century is its peculiar refraction of the poetics of heightened contrast.
The poetics of contrast in the work of artists of this era included not only the conflict of the images themselves or the clash of emotional antitheses, but also their unusually naked interdependence, interpenetration; and this affected not only the originality of the perception of life, but also the peculiarities of the attitude towards art.
The polarization of contrasting principles and their interconnection in unity are one of the leading features of early Prokofiev's music. After all, it was precisely with this that Prokofiev began, intuitively reflecting the mood of the pre-war, war and pre-revolutionary years (1908-1917), characterized by a stormy reassessment and violent breaking of aesthetic norms. True, the poetics of contrast in the work of the still quite apolitical Prokofiev of those years is devoid of direct social content, it was more from the instability of searches, destructiveness and destructiveness than from a direct reflection of the conflicts of reality itself. But the positive and constructive beginnings of Prokofiev's art were also born from here.
In Prokofiev, the poetics of contrast manifested itself with amazing clarity in the most diverse aspects of his work, showing in him the unity of realistic and romantic principles. Let us recall the clashes of his "destructive", "barbaric" cruel and furious images, on the one hand, and the images of morning and spring, bright girlish lyrics, naive childish spontaneity and purity, on the other. So, for example, dynamic "Scythian" images of violent joy coexist with polar contemplative images of static "falling asleep" and fading, or with images of enlightened sadness that grew in his piano compositions, primarily from the genre rethinking of theatrical and cantata creativity - the images of the Beauty ("Prodigal son"), Juliet and Cinderella, Sophia ("Semyon Kotko") and Natasha ("War and Peace"), Katerina ("The Tale of the Stone Flower"), Brides ("Alexander Nevsky") 22,
Prokofiev boldly confronts images real and fabulous, sublime and base, tragic and comedic, naive and sarcastic (or even demonic), contemplative and dynamic, pictorial and images of reflection. Boldly and sharply, the composer shows the interdependence of all these contrasting images, exposing the interpenetration and interaction of all the contradictory aspects of life, which is especially characteristic of our time.
Another important aesthetic premise of Prokofiev's piano language is his innovative attitude to the psychology of musical perception. We're talking principle compensating for the complex with the simple 23 . Its task is to facilitate perception, to give the expressed complicated features of accessibility. This principle corresponds to the composer's desire to provide his work with a broad social function, a deeply organic (in the early Prokofiev, mainly subconscious) sense of the social role of his art. Prokofiev not only "does not want", but also "cannot" become an artist for the few.
To understand this principle of compensation, it is necessary to know how Prokofiev generally treated the concepts of "complex" and "simple" in art, what was his desire for a "new simplicity". The concept of simplicity was never identified by him with the concept of a vulgar primitive, a worn-out stencil, and the concept of the complex - with deliberate sophistication or home-made embellishment. Prokofiev strove for "extraordinary simplicity", as if reinterpreting the well-known saying of the great Diderot: "everything ordinary is simple, but not everything simple is ordinary." He strove for simplicity, expressing inner emotional tension and a large and complex thought in outwardly restrained, concise forms of expression.
The traits of "openness" in the emotionalism of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Scriabin did not appeal to his individual taste. Such was his individual aesthetic ideal, opposed by his chaste restraint and rigor to both the straightforward emotional "pressure" of the romantics, and the extremely refined sophistication of the impressionists. (It is no coincidence that all his life he admired Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, deeply loved Glinka, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov.) He fought for this ideal in his work, stubbornly sought the form of its embodiment and approached it in different periods creativity with varying degrees of success.
However, the combination of complex and simple, characteristic of Prokofiev already at the very beginning of his career, did not lead to a mechanical summation of different styles of expression, but created their new quality. So, as a result of organic synthesis, interpenetration of seemingly different styles of elements, a new style, a new system of expressiveness was created. And this new, individually unique and specifically Prokofiev style is one of the most interesting examples of the interaction of means of artistic expression, examples of the multifaceted and internally organic dialectic of Prokofiev's creativity.
The third, perhaps the most important aesthetic premise of Prokofiev's piano style is his deep optimism 24 . We are talking about the active, strong-willed striving of Prokofiev's piano (and, of course, not only piano) music towards bright joy, sunny youth.
All his music (individual works to varying degrees) is saturated with optimism. And therefore, the composer, whose first works are still associated with the crisis years of the beginning of the century, nevertheless can be generally attributed to the artists of the new socialist culture. Prokofiev sensed, and subsequently understood, the main direction in the development of our life, and, consequently, the main direction in the development of art. And it joyfully inspired him.
It is no coincidence that Prokofiev so willingly embodied images of childhood in his work; spring-joyful, harmonious vision of the world by children was close to his artistic nature. Let us remember his "The Ugly Duckling", "Petya and the Wolf", "On Guard of the World", Twelve Easy Pieces, op. 65, Ninth Piano Sonata, Seventh Symphony...
A healthy, bright, joyful perception of the world and life, sounding in Prokofiev's music, also determined the optimistic concepts of his monumental works for piano - sonatas and concertos, first of all, the active, energetic character of the finals of his cyclic compositions, in particular.
Here - in the optimistic conception - one must look for the emotional roots and the joyful dynamic rhythm of the composer's works, the rhythm expressing the raging mighty forces of his eternally young, ebullient nature.
Heightened poetics of contrast, the principle of compensating the complex with the simple, and deep, far-reaching optimism - these are the three most important aesthetic foundations of Prokofiev's musical language in general, and in particular his piano works. These basic principles left an imprint on the composer's work, with all its originality, manifested in the nature of imagery.
At the same time, the strongest works of the composer are characterized by classicism(in a broad sense of the term that goes beyond the historical style); not only the national, social, ideological and aesthetic features of Russian Soviet art, the art of socialist realism, are inherent, but also international, stable, universal signs of the category of beauty, eternal signs of architectonic perfection. These are: the subordination of the secondary to the main, the absolute necessity of all elements, the logical sequence in the development of the image, the extremely pronounced ability of selection in the mass of language means used, the best way to organize them in order to express the main idea and the law of their economy, etc. But the unity of the national and international, individually unique and universal, historically specific and eternal in art - an obligatory sign of true classicism, in the great philosophical and ethical meaning of this concept.
The ability to express the new, in its own way, boldly and freshly, without losing the indicated features of classicism (and, in any case, clearly expressing trend to it) is a striking property of a number of Prokofiev's piano works. In order to feel all this, one must not only analyze them, but also somewhat “move away” from them, as if to embrace these works with a “single eye” as an architectural structure.
Prokofiev created transcriptions from the ballets: "Cinderella" (10 pieces op. 97, 6 pieces op. 102, 3 pieces op. 95.), "The Love for Three Oranges" (2 fragments March and Scherzo op. stone flower" (4 pieces for piano op. 3.), "Romeo and Juliet" (10 pieces op. 75), three arrangements from op. 96 (Waltz from the fourth scene of the opera "War and Peace", from the film "Lermontov" - 1942), three pieces from six pieces op. 52 (representing edited excerpts from the ballet "The Prodigal Son"), gavotte (op 77 from the music for the play "Hamlet") 25 . The piano transcription of "Romeo and Juliet" is very famous and is very popular with both performers and listeners.
Despite the fact that the ballet, from which the themes of these pieces were taken, has already been studied inside and out, nevertheless, Ten Pieces Op. 75 are of no less importance and deserve great attention, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
Born on April 23, 1891, Sontsovka estate, Bakhmut district, Yekaterinoslav province (now the village of Krasnoye, Krasnoarmeisky district, Donetsk region, Ukraine).
In 1909 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the composition class of A. Lyadov, in the class of instrumentation - N. Rimsky-Korsakov and J. Vitol, in 1914 - in the piano class of A. Esipova, in the class of conducting - N. Cherepnin. He worked in creative collaboration with Sergei Eisenstein.
Since 1908 he began his concert activity as a pianist and conductor - a performer of his own works.
In May 1918, he went on tour abroad, which dragged on for eighteen years. Prokofiev toured America, Europe, Japan, and Cuba. In 1927, 1929 and 1932 he made concert trips to the USSR. In 1936 he returned to the USSR with his Spanish wife Lina Kodina, who became Prokofieva (actually Carolina Kodina-Lubera, 1897-1989). Prokofiev and his family - his wife Lina and sons Svyatoslav and Oleg finally settled in Moscow. In the future, he traveled abroad (to Europe and the USA) only twice: in the 1936/37 and 1938/39 seasons.
Since 1941, he had already lived separately from his family, a few years later the Soviet government declared his marriage invalid, and without filing a divorce on January 15, 1948, the composer officially married a second time, Mira Mendelssohn became his wife. And the first wife was arrested in 1948 and exiled - first to Abez (Komi ASSR), then to the Mordovian camps, from where she returned in 1956; later she managed to leave the USSR, died at the age of 91 in England in 1989.
In 1948 he was subjected to devastating criticism for formalism. His 6th Symphony (1946) and the opera The Tale of a Real Man were sharply criticized as not corresponding to the concept of socialist realism.
Since 1949, Prokofiev has hardly left his dacha, but even under the strictest medical regime, he writes the ballet The Stone Flower, the Ninth Piano Sonata, the oratorio On Guard for Peace, and much more. The last composition that the composer had a chance to hear in the concert hall was the Seventh Symphony (1952).
Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1944).
People's Artist of the RSFSR (1947).
Prokofiev died in Moscow in a communal apartment in Kamergersky Lane from a hypertensive crisis on March 5, 1953. Since he died on the day of Stalin's death, his death went almost unnoticed, and relatives and colleagues of the composer faced great difficulties in organizing the funeral. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (site No. 3).
Author of the operas Maddalena (1913), The Gambler (1916), Love for Three Oranges (1919), Semyon Kotko (1939), Betrothal in a Monastery (1940), War and Peace (2 -I ed. - 1952); ballets "The Tale of the Jester Who Outwitted Seven Jesters" (1915-1920), "Steel Jump" (1925), "The Prodigal Son" (1928), "On the Dnieper" (1930), "Romeo and Juliet" (1936), " Cinderella" (1944), "The Tale of the Stone Flower" (1950); cantata "Alexander Nevsky", symphonic fairy tale "Peter and the Wolf", 2 concertos for piano and orchestra (1912, 1913, 2nd edition 1923).
prizes and awards
Six Stalin Prizes:
(1943) 2nd degree - for the 7th sonata
(1946) 1st class - for the 5th symphony and 8th sonata
(1946) 1st degree - for the music for the film "Ivan the Terrible", 1st series
(1946) 1st class - for the ballet "Cinderella" (1944)
(1947) 1st class - for sonata for violin and piano
(1951) 2nd degree - for the vocal and symphonic suite "The Winter Fire" and the oratorio "On Guard of the World" to the verses of S. Ya. Marshak
Lenin Prize (1957 - posthumously) - for the 7th symphony
Order of the Red Banner of Labor
April 23 marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding composer, pianist and conductor Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev.
Russian composer, pianist and conductor, People's Artist of the RSFSR Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev was born on April 23 (April 11 according to the old style), 1891, in the Sontsovka estate in the Yekaterinoslav province (now the village of Krasnoye, Donetsk region of Ukraine).
His father was an agronomist managing the estate, his mother took care of the house and the upbringing of her son. She was a good pianist and, under her guidance, music lessons began when the boy was not yet five years old. It was then that he made his first attempts at composing music.
The range of the composer's interests was wide - painting, literature, philosophy, cinema, chess. Sergei Prokofiev was a very talented chess player, he invented a new chess system in which square boards were replaced by hexagonal ones. As a result of the experiments, the so-called "Prokofiev's nine-chess chess" appeared.
Possessing an innate literary and poetic talent, Prokofiev wrote almost the entire libretto for his operas; wrote stories that were published in 2003. In the same year, a presentation of the complete edition of Sergei Prokofiev's Diaries took place in Moscow, which were published in Paris in 2002 by the composer's heirs. The publication consists of three volumes, bringing together the composer's notes from 1907 to 1933. Prokofiev's Autobiography, written by him after his final return to his homeland, was repeatedly republished in the USSR and Russia; it was last reissued in 2007.
The "Diaries" of Sergei Prokofiev formed the basis of the documentary film "Prokofiev: An Unfinished Diary", filmed by Canadian director Iosif Feiginberg.
Museum. Glinka released three Prokofiev collections (2004, 2006, 2007).
In November 2009, at the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin in Moscow, a presentation of a unique artifact created by Sergei Prokofiev in the period from 1916 to 1921 took place. - "Wooden book by Sergei Prokofiev - a symphony of kindred spirits." This is a collection of quotes from prominent people. Deciding to make an original book of autographs, Prokofiev asked his respondents the same question: "What do you think about the sun?". In a small album, bound from two wooden boards with a metal clasp and a leather spine, 48 people left their autographs: famous artists, musicians, writers, close friends and just acquaintances of Sergei Prokofiev.
In 1947, Prokofiev was awarded the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR; was a laureate of the State Prizes of the USSR (1943, 1946 - three times, 1947, 1951), laureate of the Lenin Prize (1957, posthumously).
According to the composer's will, in the year of the centenary of his death, that is, in 2053, the last archives of Sergei Prokofiev will be opened.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
Prokofiev Sergey Sergeevich (1891-1953), composer, pianist, conductor.
Born April 23, 1891 in the Solntsevka estate (now the village of Krasnoye) in the Donetsk region, where his father served as a manager. In 1904, Prokofiev entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory; studied composition with A. K. Lyadov, and instrumentation with N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov.
He graduated from the conservatory in 1909 as a composer, after which he again entered it already in the piano class. If the composer’s diploma, in Prokofiev’s own words, was of “poor quality” (he did not have good relations with teachers), then graduating from the conservatory in 1914 as a pianist turned out to be brilliant - he was awarded the Anton Rubinstein Prize and issued a diploma with honors.
While still studying at the conservatory, Prokofiev wrote his First Piano Concerto, which he performed with triumph at the final exam. He has a total of five piano concertos, two for violin and one for cello. In 1917, Prokofiev wrote the First Symphony, calling it "Classical". Until 1952, when the last, Seventh Symphony was created, the composer constantly turned to this genre. Nevertheless, the main genres in his work are opera and ballet. Opera "Maddalena" Prokofiev composed in 1911, and the ballet "The Tale of the Jester Who Outwitted Seven Jesters" - in 1915. The opera "The Gambler" (1916) based on the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky was a real success.
From 1918 to 1933 Prokofiev lived in America. Abroad, he successfully gave concerts and wrote music. In 1919, his famous opera "Love for Three Oranges" by C. Gozzi appeared, in 1925 - the ballet "Steel Lope", in 1928 - the ballet "Prodigal Son". The peaks of his ballet creativity are Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Cinderella (1944). In the operatic genre, War and Peace (1943) based on Leo Tolstoy and Betrothal in a Monastery (1940) based on the plot of R. Sheridan's Duenna are considered to be Prokofiev's greatest achievements.
Prokofiev's outstanding talent was highly appreciated both at home and abroad. In 1934, the composer was elected a member of the National Academy "Santa Cecilia" in Rome, in 1946 - an honorary member of the Prague "Handy Conversation", in 1947 - a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
He was repeatedly a laureate of the State Prize of the USSR, and posthumously (1957) Prokofiev was awarded the Lenin Prize.
Prokofiev died in Moscow in a communal apartment in Kamergersky Lane from a hypertensive crisis on March 5, 1953. Since he died on the day of Stalin's death, his death went almost unnoticed, and relatives and colleagues of the composer faced great difficulties in organizing the funeral. S. S. Prokofiev was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery. In memory of the composer, a memorial plaque was erected on the house in Kamergersky Lane.
Sergei Sergeevich was born on April 11, 1891, in the village of Krasnoe. Today this village is part of the Donetsk region.
His father - Sergey Alekseevich was a scientific agronomist. Mother - Maria Grigorievna was from Sheremetev's serfs. She played the piano well.
Sergei Prokofiev began to study music from early childhood. He even composed works: plays, waltzes, songs. And at the age of 10 he wrote two operas: "On the Deserted Islands" and "The Giant". Prokofiev's parents began to take private music lessons for their son.
As a thirteen-year-old boy, Prokofiev entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Sergei Prokofiev's teachers in the capital were such famous musical figures as Esipova, Lyadov.
In 1909, Prokofiev graduated from the conservatory as a composer, and after studying for another five years, he received the education of a pianist, a gold medal and the Rubenstein Prize.
In 1908, Prokofiev began to perform as a pianist, three years later his first musical publications appeared, and two years later Prokofiev went on tour abroad.
Music critics called Sergei Sergeevich a musical futurist. The fact is that he was a supporter of shocking means of expression.
The music of Sergei Prokofiev, at an early stage of his work, has an all-destroying joyful energy. However, simple, shy lyrics are not alien to this work.
In many of his works, Sergei Prokofiev tries to display the so-called sociability of the musical language, to show the richness of contrasts.
The composer's work is a symbiosis of lyrics, humor, irony. Prokofiev writes music for the ballet "The Tale of the Jester Who Cheated on Seven Jesters", as well as several romances for words.
At the beginning of 1918, Sergei Prokofiev left his. For four years the composer lived in America, then went to Paris. In exile, the composer worked fruitfully and painstakingly. The fruits of his labors were the opera "Love for Three Oranges", concerto number 3 for piano and orchestra, sonata number five for piano and many others.
In 1927, Prokofiev gives a tour of the USSR. Concerts in Moscow, Kyiv, Kharkov and Odessa were a huge success. After that, Prokofiev's tours in the "former Motherland" became more frequent.
In 1936, Sergei Sergeevich returned to Russia, the composer remained to live in Moscow. In the same year he completed work on the ballet Romeo and Juliet. In 1939, Prokofiev presented the cantata Alexander Nevsky to the public. On Stalin's 60th birthday, he wrote a cantata - "Toast".
During the years, the composer wrote the ballet "Cinderella", as well as several stunning symphonies. A special place is occupied by the opera based on the novel by L. Tolstoy "War and Peace".
The great Russian composer Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev died on March 5, 1953. The famous cultural figure died on the same day as his comrade, so his death was almost unnoticeable for society. In 1957, Prokofiev was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize.
