Sergei Prokofiev facts for kids
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (Ukrainian: Сергій Сергійович Прокоф'єв) was a famous Russian composer and pianist. He was born in Sontsovka, which is now part of Ukraine, on April 23, 1891. He passed away in Moscow on March 5, 1953. During his life, Ukraine was part of Russia.
Many people consider him one of the greatest Russian composers of the 20th century, alongside Dmitri Shostakovich. Children worldwide love his musical story Peter and the Wolf. He also wrote the music for Lieutenant Kije. Besides these, he created many other amazing works. These include symphonies, concertos, piano sonatas, ballets, and operas.
Contents
Early Life and Musical Beginnings
Sergei Prokofiev grew up in an educated family. His mother quickly noticed his special talent for music. His father was a college-educated man who managed a farm. Sergei's mother played the piano quite well, and he started composing music at a very young age.
By the time he was eleven, he had already written two operas. He also created a series of short piano pieces. He later called these pieces his "little puppies." Soon, he was writing music with unusual rhythms and key changes. This showed his unique style.
Learning Music
Prokofiev's formal music lessons began when he was a young boy. He started taking classes from Reinhold Glière. In 1904, he went to study at the Conservatory in St Petersburg. He was a very bright student. However, he often disagreed with his professors' teaching methods.
He found lessons in orchestration from Rimsky-Korsakov boring. He also felt bored during counterpoint lessons from Liadov. Even so, these were very important teachers. His closest friends were the composers Nikolai Myaskovsky and Boris Asafiev. He often shared his new piano pieces with them. These pieces sounded very modern for their time. Some newspaper critics in St. Petersburg did not like his music. But others saw great promise in him. They believed he would be a "futurist," meaning someone who creates new and exciting art.
Developing His Style
In the summer of 1909, Prokofiev returned home. He went to Sontsovka, the farming village in Ukraine where his father worked. He developed habits that would last his whole life. He kept a detailed diary until the mid-1930s. He was also an excellent chess player and a good writer. He often revised his earlier works. He would sometimes use music from one piece in another. He also used unfinished ideas in new compositions.
When he went back to St. Petersburg, he took piano lessons. His teacher, Anna Esipova, worked hard to make his playing more disciplined. He didn't always appreciate her efforts. He also took conducting lessons from Nikolai Tcherepnin. Tcherepnin taught him to enjoy late-Romantic composers. These included Scriabin and Debussy. Prokofiev wrote some music in this style. But most of his music from this time sounded very sharp and dissonant. Even though he was becoming famous, many people disliked his sound.
When he finished his studies, he won the top prize. This was the Rubinstein Prize. He won it with his First Piano Concerto. The examiners had a hard time agreeing on his talent. Rimsky-Korsakov said Prokofiev was "gifted but immature."
Early Successes
Prokofiev traveled to London. There, he met many famous people. One was Diaghilev, who ran a very talented ballet group called Ballets Russes. The composer Igor Stravinsky had written ballet music for Diaghilev’s dancers. Prokofiev especially loved Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. This piece greatly influenced his own music.
He wrote an opera called The Gambler. It was based on a novel by Brusilov. However, the singers and orchestra found his music too difficult. They refused to perform it. One of Prokofiev's first works to become famous worldwide was his First Symphony. It is known as the Classical Symphony. He made the music sound like composers from the Classical period, such as Haydn. This symphony is still very popular today.
Life in America and Europe (1918-1936)
In 1917, the Russian Revolution happened. Russia was in a very unsettled state. So, Prokofiev decided to go to the United States. His journey took four months. He traveled by the Transsiberian railway, then through Tokyo and San Francisco. Finally, he arrived in New York.
His first real success came from his connections in Chicago. His first big project was the opera The Love for Three Oranges. He wrote it for the Chicago Lyric Opera. It was popular in Chicago. But he really wanted to make a name for himself in New York City, where it was not as popular.
Travels and Ballets
He soon traveled to Paris to meet Diaghilev again. He had met him earlier in London. Prokofiev's first ballet for Diaghilev was Ala and Lolly. Diaghilev did not like it and would not perform it. This ballet later became Prokofiev's Scythian Suite. His next ballet was more successful. It was called The Tale of the Buffoon. He also wrote his Third Piano Concerto, which is his most famous piano concerto.
Prokofiev lived on and off in Paris for fourteen years. But he often went on tour, playing his own works on the piano. In 1928, his Third Symphony was first performed. Much of this symphony used music from his opera The Fiery Angel. This opera was never fully performed during his lifetime.
Return to Russia
In the late 1920s, Prokofiev was invited back to Russia. Many Soviet people tried to convince him to stay there. But he decided to remain in the West. He was starting to have a very successful career there. It wasn't until 1936 that he finally decided to move back to Russia.
Life in the Soviet Union was not easy for artists. This included musicians, poets, writers, and film makers. Composers were expected to write music that would make ordinary people happy. This music also had to make them proud of their country and the communist revolution. Any music that did not do this was called “decadent” or “formalist”. Many artists were criticized if their work did not meet these political expectations. Prokofiev had never been interested in politics. He thought the politicians would leave him alone to write the music he loved.
Life in the USSR (1936-1953)
Back in Russia, Prokofiev settled in Moscow. He wrote several pieces for children. One of these was Peter and the Wolf. He was asked to write music for two important events. These were the 20th anniversary of the Revolution and the centenary of Pushkin’s death. He put great care into this music.
Much of what he wrote was meant to be directed by Meyerhold. However, Meyerhold was arrested and later died. So, the whole project never happened. Some of the music for the Pushkin centenary was later used in his opera War and Peace. It also appeared in the Stone Flower ballet and Symphonic Waltzes.
He also wrote a very large piece called Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution. It used words by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. It was written for 500 performers. The music included realistic sounds like gun shots, machine-gun fire, and sirens. However, many critics said the music was not good. It was not performed until 1966, long after Prokofiev’s death. He tried to please the Soviet authorities. He wrote a "safe" opera called I am the Son of the Working People. But politicians stopped it during its early tryouts. This opera was also going to be produced by Meyerhold. But again, it never happened because Meyerhold was arrested and executed.
Difficult Times
World War II brought many changes for Prokofiev. In 1941, his marriage to Lina Llubera ended. His new companion, Mira Mendelsohn, later became his wife. She supported him through his final years. Lina was a foreigner. At that time, marriage to foreigners was made illegal (forbidden). In 1948, she was arrested and sent to a labour camp. On the other hand, Mira had lived her whole life in the Soviet system. She understood much better how to get by in those politically difficult times.
In 1945, soon after his Fifth Symphony was first performed, he had a stroke. This was the start of a period of poor health. He spent a lot of time away from Moscow, where it was not safe. The first signs of his health problems appeared in Alma-Ata in 1943. He had a fainting spell there. He was a workaholic. This, along with the pressure from the Soviet system, made him withdraw from social life in Moscow. Prokofiev lived with Mira for the rest of his life. Lina was freed from the labour camp after Stalin’s death. Later, she left the Soviet Union and died in London in 1989.
Later Works and Challenges
During the war, Prokofiev composed much of his best music. He wrote his last piano sonatas. He also worked on his operas Betrothal in a Monestary and War and Peace (based on the novel by Tolstoy). He also wrote film music for Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. He composed his Fifth Symphony during this time. The first performance of this symphony, on January 13, 1945, was the last time he conducted in public.
He spent the rest of his life in a country house west of Moscow. However, during his last winters, he lived in Moscow near his doctors. Even in these final years, he did not find peace. Stalin’s strict rule affected all Soviet artists. In 1948, a committee of the Communist Party criticized several Soviet composers, including Prokofiev. They said his music was “formalist” and “alien” to the Soviet people. His opera “War and Peace” was not allowed to be performed. They said it was not lyrical or patriotic enough. The works he wrote in his last years were mostly ones that politicians officially approved. His last great work from this period is the Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra. It used a lot of music from his earlier, less successful Cello Sonata. He revised it greatly with the help of the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
Prokofiev died from a brain haemorrhage on March 5, 1953. His death was barely mentioned in the newspapers. This was because the dictator Josef Stalin died on the very same day.
Images for kids
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Sergei Prokofiev in New York, 1918
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Composer Reinhold Glière, Prokofiev's first composition teacher
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Prokofiev, as drawn by Henri Matisse for the premiere of Chout (1921)
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Sergei Prokofiev (c. 1918)
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Sergei and Lina Prokofiev with their two sons, Sviatoslav and Oleg in 1936
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Prokofiev and his second wife, Mira Mendelson
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Prokofiev with colleagues Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian, 1946
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Prokofiev's grave in Novodevichy Cemetery. His wife Mira's gravestone is at the bottom.
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A Soviet stamp marking Prokofiev's centenary in 1991
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See also
In Spanish: Serguéi Prokófiev para niños
