SERGEI PROKOFIEV

A Child Prodigy With Opinions

I was born in 1891 in Sontsovka, in what is now Ukraine, and my mother Maria, a pianist, gave me my first music lessons. By about nine I had written an opera called The Giant, which tells you I was not a boy who did things by halves. At thirteen I entered the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1904, where Rimsky-Korsakov taught me how to handle an orchestra. Being the youngest in the room and fairly sure of my own ideas did not always make me the easiest student to teach.

Graduating, Then Leaving in a Hurry

I finished at the conservatory in 1914, and I was already writing music that sounded sharp, quick and a little cheeky. My opera The Gambler, four acts after Dostoevsky's novel, was meant to be staged in 1917, but the premiere was cancelled. Then came the Revolution, and in 1918 I left Russia for America. I didn't know it yet, but I would stay in the West for seventeen years.

Paris, Then Home Again

I settled in Paris, and in 1923 I married the singer Carolina Codina, who performed as Lina Llubera, and we had two sons. Paris was a lively place for a composer, but I never stopped feeling like a Russian who happened to live abroad. In 1936 I moved back to the Soviet Union and settled in Moscow for good. That same year I wrote Peter and the Wolf for a children's theatre there, which is a pleasant way to say hello to a city.

Two Families, One Very Long Argument

The work I'm best known for is the ballet Romeo & Juliet, which the Kirov Theatre first commissioned. Their production was postponed indefinitely, so the Kirov Ballet only staged it on 11 January 1940, with choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky. The music pictures the feuding families as heavy and threatening, and then it turns tender and almost shy when the two lovers meet. If you have ever heard a grand, stomping tune and wondered where it came from, there is a good chance you were listening to my ballet.

The Year Everything Went Wrong

In February 1948 the authorities, in a campaign known as the Zhdanovshchina, condemned me and other composers as "formalists". In plain terms, they said our music was too complicated and too far from what the Soviet state wanted to hear. On 20 February 1948 Lina was arrested and charged with espionage, simply because she had tried to send money to her mother in Spain. I have written plenty of dramatic scenes for the stage, but I would have happily skipped that one.

The Final Act, Quietly Written

In my last years I worked with Mira Mendelson, my second wife, on the opera War and Peace. My health was failing by then, but I kept writing as much as I could. I died in Moscow on 5 March 1953, aged 61, of a hypertensive crisis. It was the very same day as Joseph Stalin, so the newspapers had little room left for a composer.

What Stayed Behind

Despite everything, my music survived the arguments and the censors. Dancers still perform Romeo & Juliet, and orchestras still play it, and children still learn about the orchestra from Peter and the Wolf. Some people say my music is sharp-edged and others call it warm, and I think both are right. I'm happy to be remembered as someone who could be witty and sad within the same few bars.

My Gift to You

You don't need to know anything about classical music to listen to mine. All you need is a little curiosity, and maybe a comfortable chair. Listen for the moments when a melody surprises you, or when a quiet passage suddenly turns playful. If you walk away with one tune stuck in your head, then I've done my job.