| |
 |
|
|
|
| |
Memories of Early Childhood:
"I was a disagreeable baby. I would hit my mother in the face when her pince-nez bothered me, and piercingly shout, "Makaka!" -- meaning moloka (milk)."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1937)
from Prokofiev by Prokofiev, p.12.
|
 |
About His First Composition:
"My mother had to explain that one couldn't compose a Liszt rhapsody because it was a piece of music that Liszt himself had composed. Also, one could not write music on nine lines without bars, because music was, in fact, written on five lines with bars. All of this prompted Mother to give me a more systematic explanation of the principles of musical notation."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1937)
Reminiscing about his first composition, a 'Liszt Rhapsody,' written at age five
from Prokofiev by Prokofiev
|
|
On His Entrance Exam to the St. Petersburg Conservatory:
"The exam was over so quickly Mama was amazed when I came out... He gave me a 'B' and we went to the inspector to return the sheet to him, as we were supposed to. The inspector congratulated me upon my admission to the Conservatory, and shook Mama's hand. I bowed to him, and he shook my hand, too."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1904)
From a letter by Prokofiev to his father (08-Sep-1904)
from Prokofiev by Prokofiev, p.102.
|
|
About His First Public Recital:
"I played rather well -- in any case, jauntily. My success was rather great and, I should say, no doubt unexpected. After the concert lots of people came to the green room to shake my hand."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1938)
Commenting on his first public performance on 18-Dec-1908 in St. Petersburg
from Prokofiev by Prokofiev, p.281.
|
|
About His Musical Style:
"We want a simpler and more melodic style for music, a simple, less complicated emotional state, and dissonance again relegated to its proper place as one element of music...I think we have gone as far as we are likely to go in the direction of size, or dissonance, or complexity of music. Music, in other words, has definitely reached and passed the greatest degree of discord and complexity that can be attained in practice. I want nothing better, more flexible or more complete than the sonata form, which contains everything necessary for my structural purposes."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1930)
from an interview with critic Olin Downes in the New York Times
from Sergey Prokofiev, p.119.
New York Times
|
|
About Rachmaninov:
"It seemed to me that in Rachmaninov's music there were certain melodic turns typical of him that were extraordinarily beautiful. But all in all there weren't many of them and once they had been found, they were repeated in other works. As compared to Scriabin, he struck me as a composer who strove less for novelty and harmonic invention. Someone once said (rather venomously) of his melodies that they were mostly written for a voice with a very small range. And yet sometimes he managed to fit amazingly beautiful themes into that small range; for example, in his Second Concerto."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1945)
from Prokofiev by Prokofiev, p.274.
|
|
About Ravel:
"A little man with sharp, distinctive features and a mane of hair beginning to turn grey entered the room. It was Ravel. Someone introduced me to him. When I expressed my pleasure at the opportunity of shaking hands with as distinguished a composer as himself and called him maître, Ravel snatched away his hand as if I had been about to kiss it and exclaimed, 'Oh, please do not call me maître.' He was an extremely modest person. I do not doubt for a moment that Ravel was perfectly aware of his great talent, but he hated any sort of homage and did whatever he could to avoid all attempts to honour him."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1920)
from The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers: Prokofiev
|
|
About Stravinsky:
"Stravinsky has been delivered of his Oedipus Rex, a scenically static opera-oratorio in two scenes, which will be presented in concert by Diaghilev on May 30 in Paris. The librettist is French, the text is Latin, the subject is Greek, the music is Anglo-German (in imitation of Handel), and it will be produced with American money -- the height of internationalism! ...I heard Stravinsky's Oedipus three times; there is much that is interesting about it, but overall it's long and boring."
|
| |
Sergei Prokofiev, (1927, Paris)
from letters to Nikolai Miaskovsky
from Selected Letters of Sergei Prokofiev, p.268.
|
|
|
|
|
On Prokofiev:
"In addition to being a composer of genius who exercised a tremendous influence on twentieth-century music, and an outstanding pianist and conductor, Prokofiev had an inimitable literary flair."
|
| |
Dmitri Kabalevsky, (1978)
From the Preface to Prokofiev's Autobiography
from Prokofiev by Prokofiev
|
|
On Prokofiev, the Man:
"Prokofiev was someone interesting and dangerous! He was capable to do you in: brutal, healthy, someone with no principles, who wrote on commission."
|
| |
Sviatoslav Richter, (1981)
from Richter the Enigma
|
|
On Prokofiev, the Pianist:
"(Prokofiev) played on a level with the keyboard, with an extraordinary sureness of wrist, a marvellous staccato. He rarely attacked from on high; he wasn't at all the sort of pianist who throws himself from the fifth floor to produce the sound. He had a nervous power like steel, so that on a level with the keys he was capable of producing sonority of fantastic strength and intensity, and in addition, the tempo never, never varied."
|
| |
Francis Poulenc, (1978)
from My Friends and Myself
|
|
On Prokofiev, the Performer:
"The concert was a resounding success...The impression made on me, not so much by the music, which by that time I had learned to understand and appreciate, as by the performance, was unlike anything I had ever experienced. What struck me about Prokofiev's playing was its striking simplicity. Not a single superfluous gesture, not a single exaggerated expression of emotion, no striving for effect."
|
| |
David Oistrakh
On a recital Prokofiev gave in Odessa in 1927
|
|
On Prokofiev, the Conductor:
"As conductor, Prokofiev also made a remarkable impression. Prokofiev is a pianist; he felt much less at ease at the conducting stand than at the piano. And yet his conducting (of his own works) reminded one of a speaker who does not possess 'the art of eloquence' but is convincing through the sheer power of logic and by what he has to say."
|
| |
Heinrich Neuhaus
from Prokofiev: His Life and Times
|
|
On Prokofiev's View of Rachmaninov:
"There's a composer he loathed. He spoke outrageously about Rachmaninov's works. Why? Because he was influenced by them."
|
| |
Sviatoslav Richter, (1981)
Commenting on a recital Richter played in the summer of 1942.
from Richter the Enigma
|
|
On Prokofiev's Boorishness:
"Another time after a concert (Prokofiev) told a famous singer, who had just performed a few of his songs, that she did not understand anything about his music and had better stop singing it. He said it in the presence of a large group of startled onlookers and in such a boorish way that he brought the poor fat lady to tears. 'You see,' he continued reprimanding her, 'all of you women take refuge in tears instead of listening to what one has to say and learning how to correct your faults.'"
|
| |
Nicolas Nabokov, (1951)
from Old Friends and New Music
|
|
On Prokofiev's Legacy:
"Prokofiev has made an immense, priceless contribution to the musical culture of Russia. A composer of genius, he has expanded the artistic heritage left to us by the great classical masters of Russian music -- Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov."
|
| |
Dmitri Shostakovich
from Prokofiev: His Life and Times
|
|
|
|
|
On Performing the Piano Concerto No. 5:
"(Prokofiev) asked me if I would agree to play his 5th concerto. 'This work has no success. Maybe it would if you played it?' He was joking of course. Two months later I performed it. This was a memorable occasion! The concerto did have success with the audience. Prokofiev was astonished and said to me, 'I know why: they expect you to do a Chopin nocturne as an encore!'"
|
| |
Sviatoslav Richter, (1981)
from Richter the Enigma
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
