Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099405522
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: PROKOFIEV
Description
Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953) The Prodigal Son, Op. 46 Symphony No.4, Op.112 (revised version) Sergey Prokofiev was born in 1891 at Sontsovka in Ukraine, the son of a prosperous estate manager. An only child, his musical talents were fostered by his mother, a cultured amateur pianist, and he tried his hand at composition at the age of five, later being tutored at home by the composer Glière. In 1904, on the advice of Glazunov, his parents allowed him to enter the St Petersburg Conservatory, where he continued his studies as a pianist and composer until 1914, owing more to the influence of senior fellow-students Asafyev and Myaskovsky than to the older generation of teachers, represented by Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. Even as a student Prokofiev had begun to make his mark as a composer, arousing enthusiasm and hostility in equal measure, and inducing Glazunov, now director 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 student and after the Revolution was given permission to travel abroad, at first to America, taking with him the scores of The Scythian Suite, arranged from a ballet originally commissioned by the impresario Dyagilev, the Classical Symphony and his first Violin Concerto. Unlike Stravinsky and Rachmaninov, Prokofiev had left Russia with official permission and with the idea of returning home sooner or later. By 1920, when life in America was proving less immediately rewarding, he moved to Paris, where he-re-established contact with Dyagilev, for whom he revised The Tale of the Buffoon, a ballet successfully staged in 1921. He spent much of the next sixteen years in France, returning from time to time to Russia, where his music was still acceptable. In 1936 Prokofiev decided to settle once more in his native country, taking up residence in Moscow in time for the first onslaught on music that did not suit the political and social aims of the government, falling, as Shostakovich is said to have remarked, 'like a chicken into the soup', Twelve years later, after the difficult war years, his name was joined with that of Shostakovich and others in explicit official condemnation, now with particular reference to Prokofiev's opera War and Peace, He died in 1953 on the same day as Stalin and thus never benefited from the subsequent partial relaxation of official policy on the arts. The Prodigal Son was the fourth and last ballet-score that Prokofiev wrote for Dyagilev. The commission, offered in the autumn of 1928, was eventually accepted, after some hesitation, but once agreed was completed in a remarkably short time. Dyagilev's collaborator Boris Kochno provided a scenario based on the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son and the finished work, after rehearsal in Monte Carlo, opened on 21st May 1929 at the Théâitre Sarah-Bernhardt in Paris. Choreography, lacking the realism Prokofie
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
