PROKOFIEV PICTURES

"It is the duty of the composer

to serve his fellow man,

to beautify human life and point

the way to a radiant future.

Such is the immutable code

of the artist as I see it."

http://www.hinydesign.com/category/graphics-illustration/

"There are still so many beautiful

things to be said in C Major"

http://kenfallinartist.com/kf/musique/

http://www.faux.lt/print/prokofiev-sonatas/

http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/11/11/live-alternative-
classical-piano-in-berlin-prokofiev-with-pianist-
evgenia-rubinova-this-evening-sunday-november-
11th-at-2030-hrs-piano-salon-christophori/

“I played rather well - in any case, jauntily.

My success was rather great and,

I should say, no doubt unexpected.”

"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."

"Formalism is music that people

don’t understand at first hearing."

http://yifanyang.com/shilling/prodigal-son-george-balanchine-sergei-prokofiev.html

"I strenuously object to 
the very word 'grotesque'
which has become hackneyed
to the point of nausea…
I would prefer my music to be described
as "Scherzo-ish" in quality,
or else by three words describing the

various degrees of the Scherzo –
whimsicality, laughter, mockery.” 

http://harrisburgsymphonyblog.blogspot.com/2015_03_01_archive.html

"The time is past when music was

written for a handful of aesthetes.

Today vast crowds of people have come

face to face with serious music

and are waiting with eager impatience.

Composers, take heed of this…

But this does not mean that you

must pander to this audience.

Pandering always has an

element of insincerity about it

and nothing good ever came of that."

"My chief virtue (or if you like, defect)

has been a tireless lifelong search

for an original, individual musical idiom.

I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices."

http://www.museum.ru/N38372

 

 

 

 

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/
listingJan-april2003.htm

Prokofiev by Matisse

“Of course I have used
dissonance in my time,

but there has been
too much dissonance.

Bach used dissonance as
good salt for his music.

Others applied pepper, seasoned
the dishes more and more highly,

till all healthy appetites were sick and

until the music was nothing but pepper.”

"It seemed to me that
had Haydn lived to our
day he would have retained
his own style while
accepting something of

the new at the same time.
That was the kind of symphony
I wanted to write:
a symphony in the classical style.
And when I saw that my idea

was beginning to work,
I called it the Classical Symphony."

http://www.classical-music.com/topic/sergey-prokofiev

“I thought with fury of the

wonderful American orchestras

that cared nothing for my music;

of the critics who repeated

for the hundredth time,

'Beethoven is a great composer,'

while balking violently at new works;

of the managers who arranged

long tours for artists 

playing the same hackneyed

programs fifty times over.”

http://www.classicalconnect.com/node/9136

“When the Second World War broke out,

I felt that everyone must do his share,

and began composing songs

and marches for the front.

But soon events assumed such

gigantic and far-reaching scope

as to demand larger canvasses.”

http://www.norwichdfas.co.uk/

programme_lectures11.php

“The Soviets made me change

Romeo and Juliet so that

it would have a happy ending,

a barbarism, because living people can dance,

but the dead cannot dance lying down.”

“I want nothing better,
more flexible or more
complete than the sonata form,
which contains everything necessary
for my structural purposes.”

http://ianpollock.co.uk/portraits/prokofiev.html

"In my view, the composer,
just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter,
is in duty bound to serve Man, the people.
He must beautify life and defend it.
He must be a citizen first and foremost,
so that his art might consciously
extol human life and
lead man to a radiant future."

 

PROKOFIEV PLAYS AND

TALKS ABOUT HIS MUSIC

(In Russian)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVgwaFUfBu8

PEODIGAL SON,

DOCUMENTARY ON

PROKOFIEV'S LIFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWAkNidQCo8