Sergei Prokofiev

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1891 age 0

   Born

2. 1925 age 34

   CreditStrikecomposer

3. 1938 age 47

   CreditAlexander Nevskycomposer

4. 1953 age 61

   Died

5. 1975 age 61

   CreditLove and Deathcomposer

6. 1979 age 61

   CreditCaligulacomposer

7. 1997 age 61

   CreditAnna Kareninacomposer

• SESergei Eisenstein2 titles
• ETEduard Tisse2 titles
• SBSean Bean1 title
• CSChris Sanders1 title
• DKDiane Keaton1 title
• DSDavid Schofield1 title
• JTJames Tolkan1 title
• FSFiona Shaw1 title
• NBNino Baragli1 title
• SMSophie Marceau1 title

• Formalism is music that people don’t understand at first hearing.

  Sergei Prokofiev, CC BY-SA 4.0

• This is my best work, but only because The Flaming Angel is my greatest.

  Sergei Prokofiev, CC BY-SA 4.0

• 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.

  Sergei Prokofiev, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The first was the classical line, which could be traced back to my early childhood and the Beethoven sonatas I heard my mother play. This line takes sometimes a neo-classical form (sonatas, concertos), sometimes imitates the 18th century classics (gavottes, the Classical symphony, partly the Sinfonietta). The second line, the modern trend, begins with that meeting with Taneyev when he reproached me for the “crudeness” of my harmonies. At first this took the form of a search for my own harmonic language, developing later into a search for a language in which to express powerful emotions (The Phantom, Despair, Diabolical Suggestion, Sarcasms, Scythian Suite, a few of the songs, op. 23, The Gambler, Seven, They Were Seven, the Quintet and the Second Symphony). Although this line covers harmonic language mainly, it also includes new departures in melody, orchestration and drama. The third line is toccata or the “motor” line traceable perhaps to Schumann’s Toccata which made such a powerful

  Sergei Prokofiev, CC BY-SA 4.0

• 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.

  Sergei Prokofiev, CC BY-SA 4.0

• 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.

  Sergei Prokofiev, CC BY-SA 4.0

Nationalities

Russian Empire, Soviet Union

Cause of death

cerebral hemorrhage

Languages

Russian

Instruments

piano

Genres

opera, symphony, ballet, classical music

Notable works

Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 2, The Love for Three Oranges, Peter and the Wolf

Education

Saint Petersburg Conservatory