Prokofiev: Piano Sonatas Nos. 2, 7 And 8

Bernd Gl

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Cat No: 8553021

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099402125

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: PROKOFIEV

Description
Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953)Piano Sonatas Vol. 1 Sonata No.2 in D Minor, Op. 14 Sonata No.7 in B Flat Major, Op. 83 Sonata No.8 in B Flat Major, Op. 84Sergei 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 Miaskovsky than to the older generation ofteachers, represented by Liadov 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 Orangesfor the Chicago Opera. By 1920, however, he had begun to find life more difficult andmoved to Paris, where he re-established contact with Dyagilev, for whom he revised TheTale of the Buffoon, a ballet successfully mounted in 1921. He spent much of the nextsixteen years in France, returning from time to time to Russia, where his music was stillacceptable.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 Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District byShostakovich. Twelve years later the name of Prokofiev was to be openly joined with thatof Shostakovich in an even more explicit condemnation of formalism, with particularreference now to Prokofiev's opera War and Peace.He died in 1953 on the same day as Joseph Stalin, and thus never benefited from thesubsequent relaxation in official policy to the arts.As a composer Prokofiev was prolific. His operas include theremarkable FieryAngel, first performed in its entirety in Paris the year after his death, withballet-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
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