A child of modernity, Sergei Prokofiev dared to shine in every genre except religious music. A virtuoso pianist and Russian composer at heart, he left his homeland after the 1917 Revolution and embraced Western exile before returning to his roots, where his innovative works had to conform to Soviet musical conformities. Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, on April 11, 1891. The son of an agricultural engineer and an amateur pianist, he showed great talent for the piano from an early age, when he apprenticed with his mother. He composed his first pieces at the age of five and, after discovering opera in Moscow, wrote a children's opera, The Giant, at the age of nine. In 1902, his mother accompanied him to Moscow for composition lessons with Reinhold Glière, before he continued his studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where the young Prokofiev was taught by Anna Esipova (piano), Anatoli Liadov (composition), Nicolas Tcherepnine (conducting) and master Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (orchestration). A pianist with an impressive technique and the author of avant-garde early works such as Suggestion diabolique (1908), the formidable Toccata (1912) and Sarcasmes (1914), his taste for modern scores was as disliked as his non-conformist attitude, which he cultivated in the Soirées de musique contemporaine. In 1910, his Piano Sonata no. 1 was published by Jurgenson and premiered in Moscow. After trips to Paris, London and Switzerland, Prokofiev graduated from the Conservatory in 1914 and was awarded the Anton Rubinstein Prize, performing his disconcerting Piano Concerto No. 1, first performed in Moscow in 1912. In 1913, his Piano Concerto No. 2 had already caused a scandal with the public and the press for its percussive style and harmonic combinations. The composer, as adept at grotesque, ironic humor as he was at lyrical beauty, continued in this vein with the Suite scythe (1914), an orchestral work originally intended for the ballet Ala and Lolli, which was rejected by Diaghilev, whom he met in London, and the twenty Visions fugitives for piano (1917). After writing a Violin Concerto No. 1, Prokofiev took the opposite tack and surprised everyone with his so-called "Classical" Symphony No. 1, which he conducted in Petrograd on April 21, 1918, a tribute to 18th-century style tinged with modernism. He also completed a first version of the opera The Player, based on Dostoyevsky, which was only premiered after revision, on April 29, 1929, in Brussels. While Europe was the scene of the First World War, and the October Revolution had struck Russia in 1917, Sergei Prokofiev decided to emigrate in May 1918, via Japan, where he gave piano recitals, to the United States. Poorly received by music critics, notably at his first recital in New York on October 29, 1918, Prokofiev returned to Paris and reunited with Diaghilev, to whom he submitted his revised ballet, Chout(The Jester), premiered on May 17, 1921. Two others followed, Le Pas d'acier constructiviste (1927) and Le Fils prodigue (1929), choreographed by George Balanchine. Meanwhile, he fulfilled a commission from the Chicago Opera to create the French-language farceur opera L'Amour des trois oranges, based on Carlo Gozzi (December 30, 1921), which became a hit in Europe with its famous Marche. During a stay in Ettal, Germany, at Serge Koussevitsky's request, he completed the opera L'Ange de feu, of which a partial concert version was performed in 1928, before its posthumous stage premiere in Venice in 1955. In 1923, Prokofiev married the Spanish-born soprano Carlina Codina, known by her stage name Lina Llubera, who gave birth to two sons, Sviatoslav and Oleg. From this American and European period date his Piano Concerto No. 3, premiered in Chicago in 1921, and Symphony No. 2, premiered in Paris in 1925, as did the next in 1929. As Stravinsky's rival in Paris, Prokofiev felt homesick. In 1927, invited to give a series of concerts in the USSR, he was welcomed as a hero for two months and reunited with his youthful friend-turned-composer Nikolai Miaskovsky. On his return, he set to work on Symphony no. 3 and no. 4 (premiered in Paris in 1929 and Boston in 1930 respectively), Piano Concerto no. 4 for the left hand, at the request of Paul Wittgenstein, who found it unplayable, and then no. 5, which the composer performed in Berlin in 1932. After further trips to the USSR, Prokofiev decided to return for good in 1936. Pampered by the Soviet regime, he composed the music for the film Lieutenant Kijé (1933), from which he drew a much-appreciated orchestral suite, followed by others for director Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1945). His most popular works include the fairytale musical Peter and the Wolf for the Academic Theatre of Youth (1936) and the ballets Romeo and Juliet (premiered in Brno in 1938) and Cinderella (1945), among other compositions such as the Violin Concerto No. 2 (1935), Cello Concerto No. 1 (1938), Symphony No. 5 (1945) and No. 6 (1947). Prokofiev, trying to comply with the rules laid down by the Union of Soviet Composers, also honored official commissions for patriotic celebrations, but sometimes suffered setbacks with scores that were rejected. In 1940, his opera Semyon Kotko was premiered in Moscow, while its author, Vsevolod Meyerhold, was arrested and executed. Composed between 1940 and 1944, the Piano Sonatas n° 6, n° 7 and n° 8 form the triptych of "war sonatas", premiered by Sviatoslav Richter for the first two and Emil Guilels for the third. Sonata No. 9 was completed in 1947, while No. 10 remained in the sketch stage. From 1940 onwards, Prokofiev left his wife and shared his life with Mira Mendelssohn, a young writer who became his librettist for the comic opera Les Fiançailles au couvent (or La Duègne, 1946), based on the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and for War and Peace, based on Tolstoy. Begun in 1941, this penultimate opera underwent several partial creations and revisions until its performance at Leningrad's Maly Theatre on June 12, 1946, followed by more complete ones. In 1943, the composer was awarded the Stalin Prize. He married Mira Mendelssohn in 1948, while the former, Lina, was sentenced to the Gulag on false espionage charges, until her release in 1956. Proclaimed People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1947, Prokofiev was soon accused of antiformalism and cosmopolitanism in a campaign led by Andrei Zhdanov. Despite his self-criticism, he lived out his final years in poverty and illness, while his last opera, The Story of a Real Man, was censored and his Symphony No. 7 denigrated. Subjected to several heart attacks, Sergei Prokofiev died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 5, 1953, at the age of 61. His death, an hour before Joseph Stalin's, went unnoticed.
