Movements
The symphony is in four movements, lasting 30–35 minutes:
- Moderato
- Allegretto
- Andante espressivo
- Vivace
The first movement, in sonata form, opens with a melancholic first theme on violins, which contrasts with the warm and lyrical second theme on winds. After a brief development section, the recapitulation of the two themes follows, and the movement ends in a reflective mood with the clock-ticking sounds on glockenspiel and xylophone.
The second movement is an autumnal waltz, reminiscent of Prokofiev's ballet Cinderella, while the third movement is an expressive and singing slow movement.
The finale, in D-flat major (C-sharp major enharmonic), contains an innocent cheerfulness. There is a slowing of pace and the return of the warm wind theme from the first movement, and the symphony ends with the same tinkling sounds from the tuned percussion as the first movement.
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.
The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff for piano and orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto, all in a single movement. Rachmaninoff wrote the work at his summer home, the Villa Senar in Switzerland, according to the score, from 3 July to 18 August 1934. Rachmaninoff himself, a noted performer of his own works, played the piano part at the piece's premiere on 7 November 1934, at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore, Maryland, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
The Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in the summer of 1943, and first performed on 4 November of that year by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, to whom the work is dedicated. It briefly was nicknamed the "Stalingrad Symphony" following the first performance outside the Soviet Union in 1944.
The Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107, was composed in 1959 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich wrote the work for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who committed it to memory in four days. He premiered it on October 4, 1959, at the Large Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky. The first recording was made in two days following the premiere by Rostropovich and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Aleksandr Gauk.
Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126, in 1966 in the Crimea. Like the first concerto, it was written for Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere in Moscow under Yevgeny Svetlanov on 25 September 1966 at the composer's 60th birthday concert. The concerto is sometimes listed as in the key of G, but the score gives no such indication.
Sergei Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40, in Paris in 1924-25, during what he called "nine months of frenzied toil". He characterized this symphony as a work of "iron and steel".
Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4 is actually two works, both using material created for The Prodigal Son ballet. The first, Op. 47, was completed in 1930 and premiered that November; it lasts about 22 minutes. The second, Op. 112, is too different to be termed a "revision"; made in 1947, it is about 37 minutes long, differs stylistically from the earlier work, reflecting a new context, and differs formally as well in its grander instrumentation.
Sergei Prokofiev began his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19, as a concertino in 1915 but soon abandoned it to work on his opera The Gambler. He returned to the concerto in the summer of 1917. It was premiered on October 18, 1923 at the Paris Opera with Marcel Darrieux playing the violin part and the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Igor Stravinsky made his debut as conductor at the same concert, conducting the first performance of his own Octet for Wind Instruments.
The Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27, is a four-movement composition for orchestra written from October 1906 to April 1907 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. The premiere was performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg on 26 January 1908, with the composer conducting. Its duration is approximately 60 minutes when performed uncut; cut performances can be as short as 35 minutes. The score is dedicated to Sergei Taneyev, a Russian composer, teacher, theorist, author, and pupil of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece remains one of the composer's most popular and best known compositions.
War and Peace is a 1946 230-minute opera in 13 scenes, plus an overture and an epigraph, by Sergei Prokofiev. Based on the 1869 novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, its Russian libretto was prepared by the composer and Mira Mendelson. The first seven scenes are devoted to peace, the latter six, after the epigraph, to war.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, is a piano concerto by Sergei Prokofiev. It was completed in 1921 using sketches first started in 1913.
Sergei Prokofiev set to work on his Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16, in 1912 and completed it the next year. However, that version of the concerto is lost; the score was destroyed in a fire following the Russian Revolution. Prokofiev reconstructed the work in 1923, two years after finishing his Piano Concerto No. 3, and declared it to be "so completely rewritten that it might almost be considered [Piano Concerto] No. 4." Indeed, its orchestration has features that clearly postdate the 1921 concerto. Performing as soloist, Prokofiev premiered this "No. 2" in Paris on 8 May 1924 with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. It is dedicated to the memory of Maximilian Schmidthof, a friend of Prokofiev's at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, who had committed suicide in April 1913 after having written a farewell letter to Prokofiev.
Alexander Nevsky is the score composed by Sergei Prokofiev for Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film Alexander Nevsky. The subject of the film is the 13th century incursion of the knights of the Livonian Order into the territory of the Novgorod Republic, their capture of the city of Pskov, the summoning of Prince Alexander Nevsky to the defense of Rus', and his subsequent victory over the crusaders in 1242. The majority of the score's song texts were written by the poet Vladimir Lugovskoy.
Ivan the Terrible, Op. 116, is the score composed by Sergei Prokofiev for Sergei Eisenstein's film Ivan the Terrible (1945) and its sequel (1958), the first two parts of an incomplete trilogy. The project was Prokofiev's second collaboration with Eisenstein, the first being the popular Alexander Nevsky (1938). The majority of the non-liturgical song texts were written by Vladimir Lugovskoy, who collaborated with Prokofiev on the texts for Alexander Nevsky.
The Symphony No. 6 in E-flat minor, Op. 111, by Sergei Prokofiev was completed and premiered in 1947. Sketches for the symphony exist as early as from June 1945; Prokofiev had reportedly begun work on it prior to composing his Fifth Symphony. He later remarked that the Sixth memorialized the victims of the Great Patriotic War.
Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 4 in B-flat major for the left hand, Op. 53, was commissioned by the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein and completed in 1931.
Zdravitsa, Op. 85, is a cantata written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1939 to celebrate Stalin's 60th birthday. Its title is sometimes translated as Hail to Stalin in English. A performance lasts around thirteen minutes.
The Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44, is a three-movement composition for orchestra written from 1935 to 1936 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. The Third Symphony is considered a transitional work in Rachmaninoff's output. In melodic outline and rhythm it is his most expressively Russian symphony, particularly in the dance rhythms of the finale. What was groundbreaking in this symphony was its greater economy of utterance compared to its two predecessors. This sparer style, first apparent in the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, enhances the emotional power of the work.
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, is an orchestral suite in three movements completed in October 1940 by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is his final major composition, and his only piece written in its entirety while living in the United States.
Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé music was originally written to accompany the film of the same name, produced by the Belgoskino film studios in Leningrad in 1933–34 and released in March 1934. It was Prokofiev's first attempt at film music, and his first commission.
