Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099427326
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: PROKOFIEV
Description
Sergey Prokofiev(1891 - 1953)Romeo and Juliet, Ballet (Highlights) Cinderella Suite No.1, Op. 107Sergey Prokofiev was born in 1891 at Sontsovka in the Ukraine,the son of a prosperous estate manager. An only child, his musical talents were fosteredby his mother, a cultured amateur pianist, and he tried his hand at composition at the ageof five, later being tutored at home by the composer Gli?¿re. In 1904, on the advice ofGlazunov, his parents allowed him to enter the St Petersburg Conservatory, where hecontinued his studies as a pianist and as a composer until 1914, owing more to theinfluence of senior fellow-students Asafyev and Myaskovsky than to the older generation ofteachers, represented by Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov.Even as a student Prokofiev had begun to make his mark as acomposer, arousing enthusiasm and hostility in equal measure, and inducing Glazunov, nowdirector of the Conservatory, to walk out of a performance of The Scythian Suite, fearing for his sense of hearing.During the war he gained exemption from military service by enrolling as an organ studentand after the Revolution was given permission to travel abroad, at first to America,taking with him the scores of The Scythian Suite, arrangedfrom a ballet originally commissioned by Dyagilev, the Classicalsymphony and his first Violin Concerto.Unlike Stravinsky and Rachmaninov, Prokofiev had left Russiawith official permission and with the idea of returning home sooner or later. His stay inthe United States of America was at first successful. He appeared as a solo pianist andwrote the opera The Love for Three Oranges forthe Chicago Opera. By 1920, however, he had begun to find life more difficult and moved toParis, where he re-established contact with Dyagilev, for whom he revised The Tale of the Buffoon, a ballet successfullymounted in 1921. He spent much of the next sixteen years in France, returning from time totime to Russia, where his music was still acceptable.In 1936 Prokofiev decided to settle once more in his nativecountry, taking up residence in Moscow in time for the first official onslaught on musicthat did not sort well with the political and social aims of the government, aimed inparticular at the hitherto successful opera A LadyMacbeth of the Mtsensk Districtby Shostakovich. Twelve years later the name ofProkofiev was to be openly joined with that of Shostakovich in an even more explicitcondemnation of formalism, with particular reference now to Prokofiev's opera War and Peace. He died in 1953 on the same day asJoseph Stalin, and thus never benefited from the subsequent relaxation in official policyto the arts. As a composer Prokofiev was prolific. His operas include theremarkable Fiery Angel, first performed inits entirety in Paris the year after his death, with ballet-scores in Russia for Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella. The last of his seven symphonies wascompleted in 1952, the year of his unfinished sixth piano concerto. His piano sonatas forman important addition t
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Zenz:Cathariou:Iacovidou
Zahir Ensemble
Yun-Yi Qin
