Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891 – 1953) was born in Sontsovka, Russian Empire (now the village of Krasnoe in the Ukraine ) as an only child. His mother was a pianist and his father a relatively wealthy agricultural engineer.
Prokofiev displayed unusual musical abilities by the age of five, and by the age of seven had also learned to play chess. Like music, chess would remain a passion his entire life. He became accomplished enough to compete against a number of world champions in his day.
By 1902, when Prokofiev started taking private lessons in composition, he had already produced a number of innovative pieces. One early piano composition was written in F major, but without the customary B-flat. The young Prokofiev did not like to touch the black keys!
After a while, Prokofiev felt that the isolation in Sontsovka was restricting his further musical development. Although his parents were hesitant to force their son into a musical career at such an early age, in 1904 he moved to St Petersburg and entered the Academy of Music. Although several years younger than most of his classmates, he was viewed as eccentric and arrogant. He often expressed dissatisfaction with much of the education, which he found boring. During this period he studied under, among others, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Later, he would regret squandering his opportunity to learn more from Rimsky-Korsakov.
In the St Petersburg music scene, Sergei developed a reputation as an enfant terrible, while also getting praise for his original compositions which he would perform himself on the piano. In 1910 Prokofiev’s father died and Sergei’s economic support ceased. Luckily, at that time he had started making a name for himself as a composer, although he frequently caused scandals with his forward-looking works.
In 1914 Prokofiev left the Conservatory with the highest marks, which won him a grand piano. Soon afterwards he went to London where he made contact with Sergei Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky.
During World War I, Prokofiev returned again to the academy, now studying organ. He composed an opera based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Gambler, but the rehearsals were plagued by problems and the premiere scheduled for 1917 had to be cancelled because of the February Revolution. In summer the same year, Prokofiev composed his first symphony, The Classical. In May 1918, he saw no room for his experimental music in the current Russian state of unrest and left for San Francisco.
He was heralded in the US in an initially successful solo career. However, financial difficulties overcame him and in April 1920 he left for Paris , not wanting to return to Russia as a failure.
Paris was better prepared for Prokofiev’s musical style. He reaffirmed his contacts with the Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and with Stravinsky, and returned to some of his older unfinished works such as the Third Piano Concerto. Later, in 1921, his opera, The Love for Three Oranges finally premiered in Chicago, but the reception was cold, forcing Prokofiev to leave America again without triumph.
Next Prokofiev moved with his mother to the Bavarian Alps for cloistered composing. In 1923 he married the Spanish singer Lina Llubera, before moving back to Paris.
Around 1927 his prospects improved. He had some commissions from Diaghilev and made a number of concert tours in Russia . In 1929 his hands were slightly injured in a car accident in which, preventing him from touring in Moscow . After his hands healed he made a new attempt at touring in the USA , and this time he was received very warmly, propped up by his recent success in Europe . This, in turn, led him to do a large tour through Europe.
In 1936 Prokofiev and his family moved back to Russia permanently. At this time, the official Russian policy towards music changed. A special bureau, the “Composers’ Union ”, was established in order to keep track of the artists and their doings. Regulations were even drawn up outlining what kind of music was acceptable. These policies gradually isolated the Russian composers from the rest of the world. Mostly untouched by all of this, Prokofiev turned to composing music for children (Three Songs for Children, Peter and the Wolf, and others) as well as the gigantic Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution, which was, however, never performed. The premiere of the opera Semyon Kotko was postponed, this time because the producer Vsevolod Meyerhold was imprisoned and executed. Most of Prokofiev’s opera projects were plagued by such ill luck.
In 1941 Sergei suffered his first heart attack. It would be followed by others, resulting in a gradual decline in his health. Because of the war, he was periodically evacuated south together with a large number of other artists. This had consequences for his family life in Moscow , and his relationship with the 25-year-old Mira Mendelson finally led to his separation from his wife. It should also be mentioned that marriage with foreigners was made illegal at this time and that the breakup with his wife was probably forced.
The outbreak of war inspired Prokofiev to a new opera project, War and Peace, which he worked on for two years, along with more film music for Sergei Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible). However, the Union had many opinions about the opera that had to undergo numerous revisions and no premiere. In 1944, Prokofiev moved to an estate outside of Moscow , to compose his Fifth Symphony that would turn out to be his most successful. It was overwhelmingly received, but shortly afterwards, Sergei suffered a concussion from which he never really recovered, and which severely lowered his productivity in later years.
Prokofiev had time to write his postwar Sixth Symphony and a Ninth Piano Sonata before the Party suddenly changed its opinion about his music. The end of the war allowed the attention to turn inwards again and the Party saw fit to tighten its reins on domestic artists. Prokofiev’s music was now suddenly seen as a grave example of “formalism”, and generally dangerous to the Soviet people.
On February 20, 1948 his wife Lina was arrested for ‘espionage’. She tried to send money to her mother in Spain via an embassy. She was sentenced to 20 years. In that same year, Prokofiev married Mira.