Prokofiev left Vladivostock in May 1918 and stopped for a brief visit in Japan. Although generally unfamiliar with Western Music, the Japanese knew enough of Prokofiev to ask him to play several recitals in Tokyo and Yokohama. These completed, he boarded a ship for the United States, stopping briefly in Hawaii. He arrived in San Francisco in August 1918. He was broke. He borrowed $300 to travel to New York, where he arrived in September. His name more renowned than in Japan, he was soon asked to play a recital. This he did on 20-November-1918. The reception was both sensational yet inauspicious -- critics railed against his "savage" music and "steely, mechanistic" playing, while many in the listening public were delighted. Also impressed were music producers -- at their request he made several piano roll recordings and wrote the Tales of an Old Grandmother and Four Pieces for Piano Op. 32.

Unfortunately, the stodgy American musical press and the novelty of being a product of the emerging Bolshevik state cast a shadow on his new music. He was billed as the "Bolshevik Pianist" in promotional posters, and his playing was often described as "barbaric." The negative reviews and close-mindedness of many musicians took their toll on Prokofiev. He quickly grew bitter about America:

At times, as I roamed New York's Central Park and looked up at the skyscrapers facing it, I would think with cold fury of all the wonderful orchestras in America that cared nothing about my music; of the critics who never tired of uttering platitudes such as 'Beethoven is a great composer' and who balked violently at anything new; of the managers who arranged long tours for artists playing the same old hackneyed programme fifty times over. I had come here too soon: the child was not old enough to appreciate new music.

Despite meeting Lina, these were difficult times for Prokofiev. He was stricken with diphtheria and scarlet fever and his performances in New York were now regularly reviled in the press:

In these days when peace is heralded and the world is turning from dissonance to harmony, it comes as a shock to listen to such a program. Those who do not believe that genius is evident in superabundance of noise looked in vain for a new musical message in Mr. Prokofiev's work. Nor in the Classical Symphony, which the composer conducted, was there any cessation from the orgy of discordant sounds.

Musical America, New York, 21-December-1918

It is ironic that Prokofiev left American shores on such bitter terms. When The Love for Three Oranges finally did premiere in Chicago in December 1920, it was an immediate hit. So successful was the reception in fact, that it was staged in opera houses throughout Europe.

Upon arriving in Paris, Prokofiev sought out Diaghilev. Diaghilev asked Prokofiev to stage his ballet The Buffoon for the Ballet Russes. So Prokofiev took up residence in a rented house in Mantes-La-Jolie and began revising the score for The Buffoon. Having avoided returning to Russia, Prokofiev asked his mother, who was in poor health, to join him in Paris. That she did in spite of the tremendous difficulties entailed by the move. They were also joined by Lina, who visited them in Paris for a short period. Prokofiev spent the better part of 1920 reworking The Buffoon. The Buffoon premiered in Paris on 17-May-1921 and in London on 09-June-1921. The public praised the work and the critics tore into it. The British musical press was particularly harsh. It is generally agreed that the critical disapproval of The Buffoon had more to do with its bizarre storyline than Prokofiev's music. Whatever the reason, the work had a short life on the stage. More impressed were Prokofiev's adoring fans. He also won over new listeners, among them Henri Matisse, who liked The Buffoon so much he sketched a portrait of Prokofiev. Around the same time, Prokofiev also met Pablo Picasso and Maurice Ravel. The Scythian Suite also received its Paris premiere in 1921.

Prokofiev took a detour back to America in the autumn of 1921 to oversee the premiere of his Love for Three Oranges and the Third Piano Concerto. Both premiered in Chicago in December of 1921. The Chicago Opera gave the premiere of The Love for Three Oranges and the composer performed his Third Piano Concerto. While the response in Chicago was enthusiastic for both works, premieres in New York a few months later provoked hostility. Prokofiev was bewildered by the opposite reactions: "The American season, which had begun so brilliantly, completely fizzled out." Again the idiosyncratic American response to his music prompted a return to the comfort of Europe.

Rather than return to the bustle of Paris, Prokofiev sought instead the quiet of the Bavarian Alps. He settled in a rented home in the town of Ettal, where he would spend most of 1922-23. While the prolific Prokofiev cleaned up a number of works for publication, he devoted most of his energies during this time to his new opera The Fiery Angel. Based on a mystical novel by Valery Bryusov, the Fiery Angel was a purely Prokofiev-inspired endeavor. The work languished in various incarnations, never to be performed while the composer was alive.

During this Ettal period, Lina studied opera in nearby Milan. The quiet of the Bavarian Alps also nurtured Prokofiev's budding romance with Lina. They were married in September of 1923. Prokofiev also devoted much time to caring for his mother, whose sight had finally failed her. His recent marriage and continued devotion to the care of his mother probably weighed heavily in Prokofiev's decision to turn down an official invitation to return to Russia to perform with the Leningrad Philharmonic. Now part of the Soviet Union, Russia was enduring harsh times -- the civil war had recently ended and the harsh economic policies of Lenin and Stalin were taking their toll. Prokofiev's friends who had stayed in the Soviet Union, including Miaskovsky, had remained in touch during his American and European travels. They urged Prokofiev to return, letting him know that his music was being performed in Soviet concert halls.

Although Prokofiev decided to stay in Europe, he left his options open for an eventual return to his homeland. Thus he returned to Paris in the autumn of 1923, with Lina and his mother in tow. The move was accompanied with both happiness and tragedy. Lina gave birth to their first son, Sviatoslav, on 27-February-1924. But Prokofiev's joy at becoming a father was tempered by the loss of his mother in December 1924. The events proved distracting to his composing. The only major work to emerge in 1924 was the development of a Symphonic Suite from his opera Love of Three Oranges. Although written initially to satisfy conductors eager to play his music without having to stage extravagant, multi-hour productions, the Symphonic Suite became one of Prokofiev's strongest musical forms. He would eventually write no less than twenty-five Symphonic Suites derived from various stage and film works.

Neither I nor the audience understood anything in it. It was too thickly woven. There were too many layers of counterpoint which degenerated into mere figuration... This was perhaps the first time it appeared to me that I might be destined to be a second-rate composer.

For whatever reason, Diaghilev made amends and asked Prokofiev to compose a new ballet, Le Pas d'Acier (The Steel Step). Much of the scoring was done while he and Lina gave a concert tour of the United States in 1925. Half of the American tour was with Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. They returned to Paris, toured Italy in 1926, and Prokofiev completed writing Le Pas d'Acier. The premieres in Paris and London in 1927 were both wildly successful with the public -- thanks in part to the bold stage and costume designs of the artist Georgy Yakulov.

While his notoriety grew in Europe, Prokofiev longed to return to his homeland. He had maintained correspondence with friends inside the Soviet Union and towards the end of 1926, he began negotiations in earnest with Soviet authorities on the terms of a return tour. To the Soviet music authorities, Prokofiev's return presented a dilemma. On the one hand he was an unquestioned leader of the new music movement and could bring legitimacy to their fledgling state, at least on a musical level. On the other hand, Prokofiev's modernism was still foreign to much of the Soviet public and a highly publicized return might promote unrest. The Soviet leadership was still smarting over Stravinsky's departure and vow never to return. His unimpeachable stardom in the west and Prokofiev's similarity in style also foreshadowed trouble. Thus it was at great risk that the Soviet music apparatchiks approved Prokofiev's return.

Prokofiev returned to his homeland in January of 1927. He toured for two-and-a-half months. Everywhere he played, eager crowds packed music halls. The return tour was a resounding success. He was celebrated as a Russian hero whose revolutionary music had conquered the West. While the accolades were perhaps out of proportion to his real stature in Western music, the experience etched in Prokofiev's mind the notion that perhaps a return to the Soviet Union some day could afford him the chance to escape Stravinsky's shadow once and for all. While Prokofiev returned to Paris following the tour, the genesis for a permanent return "home" had been made.

Prokofiev's second son Oleg was born in 14-December-1928.

The failure of his epic Second Symphony weighed on Prokofiev's mind when he returned to Paris. Koussevitzky, now one of Prokofiev's strongest champions, had recently conducted orchestral performances of part of the opera The Fiery Angel. Encouraged by the strength of the material, Prokofiev set about to make a Symphonic Suite based on the opera. However, he turned that thought into the development of a full symphony, the Third (Opus 44). Based on thematic material from The Fiery Angel, the Third Symphony also afforded Prokofiev a chance to redeem himself for the failure of the Second Symphony. Pierre Monteux premiered the Third Symphony on 17-May-1929 in Paris. Prokofiev (and the critics) were much happier with the results. Prokofiev later remarked, "I have succeeded in deepening my musical language."

Before the Third Symphony was completed, Diaghilev commissioned Prokofiev to create another ballet. The work, entitled The Prodigal Son, was completed fairly quickly, although its production was another story. The designer, George Rouault, did not deliver his sketches as promised, thus prompting Diaghilev to break into his apartment and take them. The leading dancer, Serge Lifar, disliked his role so much that on opening night he refused to go to the theater, until pangs of guilt at abandoning Diaghilev prompted him to reconsider. Meanwhile, Prokofiev patiently waited at the podium for Lifar to arrive. The work was well received by audiences, critics, and even Prokofiev himself. But the behind-the-scenes shenanigans continued: shortly after the premiere, Prokofiev was sued by the scenarist for publishing The Prodigal Son without his permission. Nothing much came of the lawsuit. More importantly, and tragically, Diaghilev died two months later in Venice. The loss was another important factor that weighed in Prokofiev's impending decision to return to the Soviet Union.

After the drama surrounding The Prodigal Son, Prokofiev turned his attention next to the Fourth Symphony. Koussevitzky had commissioned several contemporary composers, Stravinsky and Prokofiev foremost among them, to write new works to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony. Prokofiev borrowed heavily from The Prodigal Son for the new Symphony, so much so that he would later write at length in his memoirs justifying the similarities:

...in some passages of the Symphony I have used the same musical material which is introduced in the ballet The Prodigal Son. This does not lead to the conclusion that the Symphony is written on the material extracted from The Prodigal Son or that The Prodigal Son on the material from the Symphony. Merely, in the Symphony I had the possibility to develop symphonically what a ballet-form did not enable me to do. A precedent may be recalled with Beethoven's Ballet The Creatures of Prometheus and his Symphony No. 3.

Prokofiev had also returned to the United States in 1930 for a tour which extended into Canada and Cuba. The tour was enormously successful, even prompting a commission for a new String Quartet from the Library of Congress. The work, the String Quartet No. 1 Opus 50, contains a profoundly sweeping Finale. Prokofiev liked it so much, he re-scored the fourth movement (Andante) for string orchestra as Opus 50bis.

The period 1930-32 were to be Prokofiev's last in the West. He had made a brief return to the Soviet Union in 1929, but it was clouded in controversy. The polarization between East and West was growing and Stalin had recently taken over the reigns of power. The result was a much greater conflict of vision between free Europe and America, and the communist Soviet Union. This conflict extended well into cultural and social avenues as well as economic and political. Prokofiev's works were viewed as too bourgeois, some Soviets descending to label him an 'enemy of Soviet culture.' The criticism from his homeland troubled Prokofiev deeply. A string of compositions followed which were mostly disliked by the public.

The first of these poorly-received works was a ballet newly commissioned by the Paris Opera. Started in the summer of 1930, Sur le Borysthene (On the Dneiper) premiered in Paris in December of 1932. It was harshly received, and closed shortly after it opened. Thereupon followed another failure -- the Fourth Piano Concerto. Commissioned in 1931 by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm in World War I, the Fourth Piano Concerto was one in a number of piano works Wittgenstein had commissioned from major composers including Strauss and Ravel. Wittgenstein disliked all the works he commissioned, including Prokofiev's. When Prokofiev sent him the completed score, Wittgenstein promptly returned it with a note attached: "I thank you for your concerto, but I do not understand a single note and I shall not play it." The work was sadly shelved, never to be performed while Prokofiev was alive. It eventually premiered on 05-September-1956 by pianist Siegfried Rapp.

Ten years had elapsed between the Third and Fourth Piano Concertos and Prokofiev found a renewed interest in his favorite instrument, the piano. Shortly after completing the Fourth Piano Concerto in 1931, he began composing the Fifth. Smarting from accusations of recycling his music in the Fourth Symphony, Prokofiev strove for new musical ideas in his Piano Concertos.

More than ten years had passed since I had written a piano concerto. Since then my conceptions of the treatment of this form had changed somewhat, some new ideas had occurred to me, and finally I had accumulated a good number of vigorous major themes in my notebook. I had not intended the concerto to be difficult...but in the end it turned out to be complicated, as indeed was the case with a good many other compositions of this period. What was the explanation? In my desire for simplicity I was hampered by the fear of repeating old formulas, of reverting to 'old simplicity', which is something all modern composers seek to avoid.

His latest piano concertos poorly received, Prokofiev thus embarked to the Soviet Union on his third concert tour in 1932. His second return in 1929 had been marked with controversy, the Bolshoi having refused to stage Le Pas d'Acier after pressure from the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM). The third Soviet concert tour in 1932 was less tumultuous. The RAPM had dissolved and thus open criticism of his "anti-Soviet" ideas had died down. As in the past, the Soviet public greeted their hero with loving adoration. Prokofiev had become recognized as one of Russia's greatest living composers. In the Soviet Union, he did not have to contend with fickle crowds and a consistently hostile musical press. Most importantly, Prokofiev was at his core a Russian. His best friends were Russian and he longed to be back among his people. Some historians speculate that Prokofiev was creatively tired with the direction of his music in Europe and America. Whatever the root causes, the third Soviet tour in 1932 further convinced Prokofiev that he should return for good. The Soviet government employed some good old-fashioned capitalist incentives to further persuade Prokofiev to stay -- they promised him an apartment in Moscow and a new car. In his memoirs, Prokofiev explained his decision to return thusly:

Here is how I feel about it: I care nothing for politics -- I'm a composer first and last. Any government that lets me write my music in peace, publishes everything I composed before the ink is dry, and performs every note that comes from my pen is all right with me. In Europe, we all have to fish for performances, cajole conductors and theatre directors; in Russian they come to me -- I can hardly keep up with the demand...