This Week in Classical Music: April 20, 2026. Prokofiev, Part I.Sergey Prokofiev, one of the most interesting composers of the 20th century (and a wonderful pianist as well), was born on April 23rd (new style) of 1891, in the village of Sontsovka near Donetsk in today’s Ukraine, then the Russian Empire. Let us note that in January of 2025, Sontsovka was again captured by Russia, as it is waging war against Ukraine. What happened to Prokofiev’s museum, we don’t know. The nearby towns Prokofiev mentions in his autobiography – Bakhmut, Konstantinovka – were all raised to the ground during this war.
Prokofiev lived through some of the most terrible and consequential events of the century, as did many Russian and European composers during those years. Those events, taken together with some questionable decisions he had made under often-challenging circumstances, affected him more than many others (of course, we remember and do not compare it to the tragic fate of the Jewish composers killed during the Holocaust). These events divided his life into several phases, all different, and all tied to particular places: Imperial Russia, the US, Europe, and then Stalin’s Soviet Union. The first thirteen (and for all we know, happy) years of Prokofiev’s life were spent in Sontsovka; his mother was a good pianist and became his first teacher. He started composing at the age of six, and at nine, after visiting Moscow and attending several performances of opera and Tchaikovsky’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” wrote his own opera, “The Giant.” Taneyev heard parts of it and was impressed; he even convinced his student, the young, gifted composer Reinhold Glière, to go to Sontsovka and teach the boy, which Glière did, for two summers. In 1904, Sergey was sent to St. Petersburg and entered the conservatory, where he studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov and Lyadov and the piano with Yesipova. While at the conservatory, he met Rakhmaninov and Stravinsky, both of whom he’d later consider his rivals. He graduated with a gold medal, performing his own First Piano Concerto at the examination.
Till 1918, Prokofiev lived in Russia, with some visits to Paris, where he met Diaghilev. During that period, he composed his Second Piano Concerto (technically challenging and considered controversial at the time), the First (“Classical”) Symphony, and the scandalous, though by now quite tame, Scythian Suite, inspired by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He also wrote two piano cycles, Sarcasms and Visions fugitives. In Russia, he became famous and was feted as one of the best pianists and a talented, if audacious, composer. In 1914, Russia entered the Great War, and in 1917, it sustained two revolutions, one in February and another, catastrophic, in October, which brought Lenin’s Bolsheviks to power. Prokofiev had considered emigration as early as the end of 1917, and in May of 1918, he boarded the Trans-Siberian train to the far East of Russia, took a boat to Japan, and from there made it to New York, arriving there in September of 1918.
Here, from the Russian period of Prokofiev’s life, is his Piano Concerto no. 1, from 1912. Prokofiev soloed at the premiere; he was then 21. In this recording, made live in September of 1993, the pianist is Evgeny Kissin, who was then also 21. Claudio Abbado conducts the Berlin Philharmonic.
We’ll continue with the American and European phases of Prokofiev’s life next week.
Sergey Prokofiev, Part I, 2026
This Week in Classical Music: April 20, 2026. Prokofiev, Part I. Sergey Prokofiev, one of the most interesting composers of the 20th century (and a wonderful pianist as well), was born on
April 23rd (new style) of 1891, in the village of Sontsovka near Donetsk in today’s Ukraine, then the Russian Empire. Let us note that in January of 2025, Sontsovka was again captured by Russia, as it is waging war against Ukraine. What happened to Prokofiev’s museum, we don’t know. The nearby towns Prokofiev mentions in his autobiography – Bakhmut, Konstantinovka – were all raised to the ground during this war.
Prokofiev lived through some of the most terrible and consequential events of the century, as did many Russian and European composers during those years. Those events, taken together with some questionable decisions he had made under often-challenging circumstances, affected him more than many others (of course, we remember and do not compare it to the tragic fate of the Jewish composers killed during the Holocaust). These events divided his life into several phases, all different, and all tied to particular places: Imperial Russia, the US, Europe, and then Stalin’s Soviet Union. The first thirteen (and for all we know, happy) years of Prokofiev’s life were spent in Sontsovka; his mother was a good pianist and became his first teacher. He started composing at the age of six, and at nine, after visiting Moscow and attending several performances of opera and Tchaikovsky’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” wrote his own opera, “The Giant.” Taneyev heard parts of it and was impressed; he even convinced his student, the young, gifted composer Reinhold Glière, to go to Sontsovka and teach the boy, which Glière did, for two summers. In 1904, Sergey was sent to St. Petersburg and entered the conservatory, where he studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov and Lyadov and the piano with Yesipova. While at the conservatory, he met Rakhmaninov and Stravinsky, both of whom he’d later consider his rivals. He graduated with a gold medal, performing his own First Piano Concerto at the examination.
Till 1918, Prokofiev lived in Russia, with some visits to Paris, where he met Diaghilev. During that period, he composed his Second Piano Concerto (technically challenging and considered controversial at the time), the First (“Classical”) Symphony, and the scandalous, though by now quite tame, Scythian Suite, inspired by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He also wrote two piano cycles, Sarcasms and Visions fugitives. In Russia, he became famous and was feted as one of the best pianists and a talented, if audacious, composer. In 1914, Russia entered the Great War, and in 1917, it sustained two revolutions, one in February and another, catastrophic, in October, which brought Lenin’s Bolsheviks to power. Prokofiev had considered emigration as early as the end of 1917, and in May of 1918, he boarded the Trans-Siberian train to the far East of Russia, took a boat to Japan, and from there made it to New York, arriving there in September of 1918.
Here, from the Russian period of Prokofiev’s life, is his Piano Concerto no. 1, from 1912. Prokofiev soloed at the premiere; he was then 21. In this recording, made live in September of 1993, the pianist is Evgeny Kissin, who was then also 21. Claudio Abbado conducts the Berlin Philharmonic.
We’ll continue with the American and European phases of Prokofiev’s life next week.