Sergei Prokofiev
CD 1
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D flat major, op.10
1. Allegro brioso
2. Andante assai
3. Allegro scherzando
Piano Concerto No. 4 in B flat major for the left hand, op. 53
1. Vivace
2. Andante
3. Moderato
4. Vivace
Piano Concerto No. 5 in G major, op. 53
1. Allegro con brio
2. Moderato ben accentuato
3. Toccata, Allegro con fuoco
4. Larghetto
5. Vivo
CD 2
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 16
1. Andantino
2. Scherzo. Vivace
3. Intermezzo. Allegro moderato
4. Finale. Allegro tempestoso
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, op. 26
1. Andante – Allegro
2. Tema con variazioni
3. Allegro, ma non troppo
Oleg Marshev – piano
South Jutland Symphony Orchestra
Niklas Willén – conductor
5 Piano Concertos ©
ln many senses these corcertos were Prokofiev’s public calling cards. Not only did he make his early career as a composer-pianist but also, crucially, his first three conccrtos were composed well before sound recording was a feasible means of promoting his music. Obvious points, maybe, but they underline an important dimension of his works often overlooked today, accustomed as many listeners are to hearing disembodied performances in their living room: that is, Prokofiev composcd for audienccs who wcrc coming to see as well as hear him play his conccrtos.
Further, audiences in St Petersburg, Moscow, Ncw York, Chicago, London, Paris and Berlin were presentcd not only with a stunning display of thc virtuoso soloist’s extreme hand-crossings
and wide leaps across the keyboard (virtually unseen since the days of Scarlatti in the eighteenth century) but were treated to the spectacle of orchestral players tackling some of Prokofiev’s more outlandish or simply downright prankish demands.
Growing up on an isolated rural estate in the Ukraine, the son of wcll-to-do parents, Prokofiev initially had no conception of what an orchestra was. His introduction to music was through his mother, Maria, a keen amateur pianist: he would lie awake in bed every evening to hear her practising Bcethoven, Chopin and Rubinstein. His first compositions, written at the age of five, were inevitably for the piano. Then in 1900 his family travelled to Moscow to celebrate the new century and visited the opera. The impact on the young Prokofiev of his first encounter with an orchestra can be imagined. His evident delight in its bright and fantastical sounds remained undimmed by the time he composed his early ‘mature’ works, including his uncompleted opera Maddalena and his First Piano Concerto. Often, too, his music for orchestra reveals an ironically detached outsider’s view of its potential and character, undoubtedly a result of his relatively
late introduction to this medium.
From 1904, aged 13, Prokofiev attended the St Pctcrsburg Conservatory where he studied piano and composition. He also, from the spring of 1907, took lessons in conducting under Nikolay Tcherepnin. It was in that year that Prokofiev ‘discovcred’ the piano concerto as a genre: he heard student performances of several, particularly relishing those by Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov. As part of his training he himself conducted student performances of at least two concertos – Tchaikovsky’s First and one by Saint-Saëns (either No. 2 or No. 4, both of which he studied undcr Tcherepnin) This practical experiencel was invaluable to a budding composer Prokofiev himself confessed that he learned more from Tcherepnin’s lessons than from Rimsky-Korsakov’s formal classes in orchrestration.
RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 2005
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 584-585
EAN: 5709499584859
