Sergei Prokofiev

Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, in what is now Ukraine, and graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He first made his name as a composer-pianist of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic piano music. After the 1917 Revolution he left Russia for the United States, then Germany and Paris, and in 1936 he settled in Moscow. Richard Taruskin praised his melodic gift as almost unparalleled among 20th-century composers.

The early piano works come from that first period. Concerto No. 1 (1911 to 1912) is a single movement in eleven tempo sections, opening and closing with a broad D-flat theme. Concerto No. 2 was first played at Pavlovsk in September 1913; its score was destroyed in a fire after the Revolution and he rewrote it in 1923. A very long cadenza fills most of the second half of its first movement, and the scherzo is a relentless motor. Concerto No. 3 was finished in 1921 and opens with a lyrical clarinet melody, and the slow movement is a theme with five variations.

The Sonatas Nos. 6, 7 and 8 (Opp. 82 to 84) are the War Sonatas. No. 6 opens with a motto in minor and parallel major thirds, so A major and A minor sound together. No. 7 ends with a Precipitato toccata in septuple time with repeated B-flat major triads. No. 8 is the longest, about 30 minutes. Peter and the Wolf (1936, for Natalya Sats' Central Children's Theatre) gives each character an instrument and a theme. The Flute Sonata was finished in 1943 and Prokofiev made the violin version in 1944 with the help of David Oistrakh.