PROKOFIEV Notes on the composers and the pieces
Saint-Saëns |
Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 “Classical”
Sergei Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, Ukraine in 1891, to an agronomist father and a pianist mother. A precocious musician, he wrote his first piece at age five and first opera at nine, when he was able to play Beethoven sonatas. At eleven, he began harmony and orchestration study with Glière. Two years later Glazunov helped him to enroll at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he encountered some difficulties which arose from his young age and arrogance; his criticism of fellow students earned him a reputation as an “enfant terrible.” He studied composition with Lyadov, piano under Anna Yesipova, and conducting with Tcherepnin. After studying the scores of Glazunov and Scriabin, he wrote a symphony that he described in a letter to his friend, Nicolai Miaskovsky, as running “for twenty, maximum thirty minutes…crossing out…anything that seems…pompous.” By 1910, the young man had established himself as composer and pianist. Performing several of his pieces and completing two piano concertos fortified his reputation among modernists. —Roger Hecht Roger Hecht plays trombone in the Mercury Orchestra, Lowell House Opera, and Bay Colony Brass (where he is the Operations/Personnel Manager). He is a former member of the Syracuse Symphony, Lake George Opera, New Bedford Symphony, and Cape Ann Symphony. He is a regular reviewer for American Record Guide, contributed to Classical Music: Listener’s Companion, and has written articles on music for the Elgar Society Journal and Positive Feedback magazine. His latest fiction collection, The Audition and Other Stories, includes a novella about a trombonist preparing for and taking a major orchestra audition (English Hill Press, 2013).
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