Biography of Sergei Prokofiev. Sergei Prokofiev: biography, interesting facts, creativity. The composer's unique style

Prokofiev Sergei Sergeevich - (1891-1953), Russian composer, pianist and conductor. Born on April 11 (23), 1891 in Sontsovka, Ekaterinoslav province. At the age of six he composed cycles of small piano pieces, and at nine he became the author of a children's opera.

Having completed a preparatory course with R.M. Glier, Prokofiev entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 13 (graduated in composition in 1909, piano in 1914). His teachers were A.K. Lyadov, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, N.N. Cherepnin, A.N. Esipova and others. After graduating from the conservatory in piano, he played his First Piano Concerto with the orchestra and received the honorary A.G. Rubinstein Prize.

Prokofiev's music has become the subject of fierce debate in musical circles. His early works are characterized by grotesqueness, satirical motives; This music is fundamentally anti-romantic, often harsh-sounding, riddled with dissonances, and very rhythmically energetic.

The most notable in this period are the ballet Jester (The Tale of the Jester, who played tricks on seven jesters, 1915), the opera Player based on the novel of the same name by Dostoevsky (1915-1916), several instrumental concerts and sonatas, the Scythian Suite (1915) and the cantata The Seven of Them (1917). One of the masterpieces of early Prokofiev is his Classical Symphony (1917), an example of “new simplicity”: with it the composer seemed to demonstrate to critics his brilliant mastery of the neoclassical style.

In 1918 he went on tour to the USA, where in 1919 he completed comic opera The Love for Three Oranges (produced in 1921 by the Chicago opera house). The magnificent Third Piano Concerto also dates back to this time. In 1922, Prokofiev moved to Germany, and in 1923 he moved to Paris, where he spent the next decade, going on long concert tours throughout Europe and America (he performed as a pianist and as a conductor).

In Paris, Sergei Diaghilev's enterprise "Russian Ballet", which back in 1921 showed Prokofiev's Jester, staged his next ballets - Leap of Steel (1927) and Prodigal son(1928). In 1925-1931 the Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies and the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos appeared, in which Prokofiev's style reached the peak of tension and poignancy.

In 1933 Prokofiev returned to Russia. In subsequent years, he worked a lot in different genres; Among the works of this period are the ballets Romeo and Juliet (1935) and Cinderella (1944); children's fairy tale for reader and orchestra Peter and the Wolf (1936); music for the films Lieutenant Kizhe (1934), Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1945). During the Great Patriotic War and after it, he created a number of patriotic works, as well as the opera Betrothal in a Monastery based on the comedy by Sheridan (1940-1941) and War and Peace based on the novel by Tolstoy (1941-1942), several chamber instrumental ensembles, many piano music different genres. After the war, the premieres of the Fifth (1945), Sixth (1947) and Seventh (1952) symphonies took place.

In 1948, Prokofiev came under attack for his “formalistic” style of music and sympathy for the “degenerating” art of the West (which did not prevent him from receiving the Stalin Prize in 1951, his sixth).

Prokofiev Sergei Sergeevich was born on April 11 (23), 1891 in the village of Sontsovka, Ekaterinoslav province. A love of music was instilled in the boy by his mother, who was a good pianist and often played Chopin and Beethoven for her son. Primary education Prokofiev received it at home.

From an early age, Sergei Sergeevich became interested in music and already at the age of five he composed his first work - a small piece “Indian Gallop” for piano. In 1902, composer S. Taneyev heard Prokofiev’s works. He was so impressed by the boy’s abilities that he himself asked R. Gliere to give Sergei lessons in composition theory.

Studying at the conservatory. World tour

In 1903 Prokofiev entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Among Sergei Sergeevich’s teachers there were the following: famous musicians like N. Rimsky-Korsakov, Y. Vitola, A. Lyadova, A. Esipova, N. Cherepnina. In 1909, Prokofiev graduated from the conservatory as a composer, in 1914 as a pianist, in 1917 as an organist. During this period, Sergei Sergeevich created the operas “Maddalena” and “The Gambler”.

For the first time, Prokofiev, whose biography was already known in the musical environment of St. Petersburg, performed his works in 1908. After graduating from the conservatory, since 1918, Sergei Sergeevich toured a lot, visited Japan, the USA, London and Paris. In 1927, Prokofiev created the opera " Fire Angel» In 1932, he recorded his Third Concert in London.

Mature creativity

In 1936, Sergei Sergeevich moved to Moscow and began teaching at the conservatory. In 1938 he completed work on the ballet Romeo and Juliet. During the Great Patriotic War, he created the ballet Cinderella, the opera War and Peace, and music for the films Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky.

In 1944, the composer received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR. In 1947 – title people's artist RSFSR.

In 1948, Prokofiev completed work on the opera The Tale of a Real Man.

Recent years

In 1948, a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was issued, in which Prokofiev was sharply criticized for “formalism.” In 1949, at the First Congress of the Union of Composers of the USSR, Asafiev, Khrennikov and Yarustovsky spoke out with condemnation about the opera “The Tale of a Real Man.”

Since 1949, Prokofiev practically never left his dacha, continuing to actively create. The composer created the ballet “The Tale of the Stone Flower” and the symphony-concert “Guardian of the World.”

The life of composer Prokofiev was cut short on March 5, 1953. The great musician died of a hypertensive crisis in a communal apartment in Moscow. Prokofiev was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Personal life

In 1919, Prokofiev met his first wife, the Spanish singer Lina Codina. They got married in 1923 and soon had two sons.

In 1948, Prokofiev married Mira Mendelson, a student at the Literary Institute, whom he met in 1938. Sergei Sergeevich did not file for divorce from Lina Kodina, since in the USSR marriages concluded abroad were considered invalid.

Other biography options

• The future composer created his first operas at the age of nine.
• One of Prokofiev's hobbies was playing chess. Great composer said that playing chess helps him create music.
• The last work that Prokofiev was able to hear in concert hall, was his Seventh Symphony (1952).
• Prokofiev died on the day of his death

In 1918, Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev started himself an album in which all his friends were supposed to leave notes on the same topic: “What do you think about the sun?” It was not by chance that the composer chose it, because the sun is the source of life, and he himself has always, in all his works, been the singer of life.

We know what kind of composer Prokofiev was from his works, but we can best learn about what kind of person he was, what he loved, what he strove for, from his “Autobiography.”

“I have had a penchant for recording since childhood, and it was encouraged by my parents,” says Sergei Prokofiev on the first pages of “Autobiography.” “At the age of six I was already writing music. At seven, having learned to play chess, I started a notebook and began writing down games; the first of them is the “shepherd’s” checkmate I received in three moves. In nine years, stories of fighting tin soldiers were written, taking into account losses and diagrams of movements. At twelve I spied my music professor writing a diary. It seemed absolutely wonderful, and I began to run my own, under a terrible secret from everyone.”

Prokofiev was born and spent his childhood on the Sontsovka estate (in the current Donetsk region), where his father, a learned agronomist, was the manager. Already as a mature man, Prokofiev recalled with pleasure the Sontsovo steppe freedom, games in the garden with friends - village children, the beginning of music lessons under the guidance of his mother, Maria Grigorievna.

Not yet knowing the notes, according to his ears, the boy was trying to play something of his own on the piano. And he learned notes, mainly in order to write down “his own”. And at the age of nine, after a trip to Moscow and under the impression of the first opera he heard (it was “Faust” by Gounod), Seryozha decided to compose his own opera, the plot of which he also came up with himself. It was an opera “The Giant” in three acts with adventures, fights and so on.

Prokofiev's parents were educated people and themselves took on the boy's initial education in all school subjects. But, of course, they could not teach the rules of composing music. Therefore, taking her son on one of her usual winter trips to Moscow, Maria Grigorievna brought him to the famous composer and teacher Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev, who advised him to invite the young composer Reinhold Moritsevich Gliere, who had just graduated from the conservatory, to Sontsovka for the summer to study with Seryozha.

Gliere spent two summers in a row in Sontsovka, hanging out with Seryozha, and also playing chess and croquet with him - in the role of no longer a teacher, but an older comrade. And when in the fall of 1904, thirteen-year-old Sergei Prokofiev came to St. Petersburg to take an exam at the conservatory, he brought with him an unusually substantial baggage of works. The thick folder contained two operas, a sonata, a symphony and many small piano pieces - “Songs” - written under the direction of Gliere. Some of the “Songs” were so original and sharp in sound that one of Seryozha’s friends advised calling them not “Songs”, but “Dogs”, because they “bite”.

Years of study at the conservatory

At the conservatory, Seryozha was the youngest among his classmates. And, of course, it was difficult for him to make friends with them, especially since he sometimes, out of mischief, counted the number of errors in the musical problems of each of the students, calculated the average figure for a certain period - and the results for many were disappointing...

But then another student appeared at the conservatory, in the uniform of a lieutenant of a sapper battalion, always very restrained, strict, smart. It was Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky, in the future famous composer, who became in Soviet era head of the Moscow composer school. Despite the difference in years (Myaskovsky was twenty-five, and Prokofiev was fifteen), a lifelong friendship began between them. They always showed each other their works and discussed them - personally and in letters.

In classes of composition theory and free composition Prokofiev, in general, did not suit the court - his unique talent was too disrespectful to the conservatory tradition. Prokofiev did not even dare show his most daring works to his teachers, knowing that this would cause bewilderment or irritation. The attitude of the teachers was reflected in very average grades in Prokofiev’s composer’s diploma. But young musician There was one more specialty in stock - piano - for which he graduated from the conservatory again in the spring of 1914.

"If to poor quality“I was indifferent to the composer’s diploma,” Prokofiev later recalled, “this time my ambition got to me, and I decided to finish first in piano.”

Prokofiev took a risk: instead of a classical piano concerto, he decided to play his own First Concerto, which had just been published, handing over the notes to the examiners in advance. The jubilant music of the concert, full of youthful enthusiasm, captivated the audience, Prokofiev’s performance was triumphant, and he received a diploma with honors and the Anton Rubinstein Prize.

Results of creative activity

Creative energy young composer Prokofiev was truly volcanic. He worked quickly, boldly, tirelessly, striving to cover a wide variety of genres and forms. The first piano concerto was followed by the second, and after that the first violin concerto, opera, ballet, romances.

One of the works of S.S. Prokofiev is especially characteristic of the early period. This is the “Scythian Suite”, created on the basis of the music of a failed ballet. The worship of pagan gods, the frantic “Dance of the Evil Ones”, the quiet and mysterious picture of the sleeping Scythian steppe and, finally, the dazzling finale - “Sunrise” - all this is conveyed in stunningly bright orchestral colors, spontaneous increases in sonority, and energetic rhythms. The inspired optimism of the suite, the light that permeates it, is all the more remarkable because it was created during the difficult years of the First World War.

Sergei Prokofiev very quickly entered the first rank of composers known not only at home, but also abroad, although his music has always caused controversy, and some works, especially stage ones, have been waiting for performance for years. But it was the stage that especially attracted the composer. I was attracted by the opportunity, following the path of Mussorgsky, to express in musical intonations the most subtle, secret shades of feeling, to create living human characters.

True, he did this in chamber music, for example, in the vocal fairy tale " Ugly duckling"(according to Andersen). Each of the inhabitants of the poultry yard is endowed with its own unique character: a sedate mother duck, small enthusiastic ducklings and himself main character, before turning into beautiful swan unhappy and despised by everyone. Having heard this fairy tale by Prokofiev, A. M. Gorky exclaimed: “But he wrote this about himself, about himself!”

The works of the young Prokofiev are surprisingly varied and sometimes sharply contrasting. In 1918, his “Classical Symphony” was performed for the first time - an elegant composition sparkling with fun and subtle humor. Its name, as if emphasizing the deliberate stylization - imitation of the manner of Haydn and Mozart - is now perceived by us without quotation marks: this is a true classic of music of the Soviet period. In the composer's work, the symphony began a bright and clear line, which is drawn right up to his later works - the ballet “Cinderella”, the Seventh Symphony.

And almost simultaneously with the “Classical Symphony”, a grandiose vocal-symphonic work “The Seven of Them” arose, again, like the “Scythian Suite”, reviving images of the deepest antiquity, but at the same time with some complex and unclear associations associated with revolutionary events, which shocked Russia and the whole world in 1917. The “strange turn” of creative thought later surprised Prokofiev himself.

Abroad

An even stranger twist occurred in the composer’s biography itself. In the spring of 1918, having received a foreign passport, he left for America, not listening to the advice of friends who warned him: “When you return, you will not be understood.” Indeed, a long stay abroad (until 1933) had a negative impact on the composer’s contact with the audience, especially since its composition has changed and expanded greatly over the years.

But the years spent abroad did not mean a complete separation from the homeland. Three concert trips to Soviet Union were a reason to communicate with both old friends and new audiences. In 1926, the opera “The Love for Three Oranges,” conceived in his homeland but written abroad, was staged in Leningrad. A year earlier, Prokofiev wrote the ballet "Leap of Steel" - a series of scenes from the life of a young Soviet republic. Colorful everyday sketches and musical and choreographic portraits of the Commissioner, the Orator, the Worker, and the Sailor are adjacent to industrial paintings (“Factory”, “Hammers”).

This work found life only on the concert stage in the form symphonic suite. In 1933, Prokofiev finally returned to his homeland, traveling outside its borders only for a short time. The years following his return turned out to be perhaps the most fruitful in his life and generally very productive. One after another, works are created, and each of them marks a new, high stage in a particular genre. The opera “Semyon Kotko”, the ballet “Romeo and Juliet”, the music for the film “Alexander Nevsky”, on the basis of which the composer created the oratorio - all this was included in the golden fund of music of the Soviet period.

Convey the plot of Shakespearean tragedy through dance and dance music- such a task seemed impossible and even unnatural to many. Prokofiev approached her as if no ballet conventions existed.

In particular, he abandoned constructing the ballet as a series of complete numbers, in the pauses between which the dancers bow and thank the audience for the applause. In Prokofiev, both music and choreographic action develop continuously, following the laws of drama. This ballet, first staged in Leningrad, turned out to be an outstanding artistic event, especially since Galina Ulanova became the unsurpassed Juliet.

And a completely unprecedented task was solved by the composer in “Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of October”. The music is written to a documentary text: it uses articles, speeches and letters of K. Marx and V. I. Lenin. The work was so unheard of new that the cantata had to wait for 20 years to be performed...

Different stories, different genres...

Works of the mature period

But, taking a general look at the works of the mature period and comparing them with the early ones, one can clearly see the general trend: the irrepressible ebullience of creative thought is replaced by wise balance, interest in the incredible, fabulous, legendary is replaced by interest in the real human destinies(“Semyon Kotko” - an opera about a young soldier), to the heroic past home country(“Alexander Nevsky”, opera “War and Peace”), to eternal theme love and death (Romeo and Juliet).

At the same time, the humor that was always characteristic of Prokofiev did not disappear. In a fairy tale (for the reader and symphony orchestra), addressed to the youngest listeners, a lot is given in a humorous manner interesting information. Each character is characterized by some kind of instrument. The result was a kind of guide to the orchestra and at the same time cheerful, funny music. - one of the works in which the composer achieved “new simplicity,” as he himself called it, that is, such a manner of presenting thoughts that easily reaches the listener without reducing or impoverishing the thought itself.

The pinnacle of Prokofiev's work is his opera War and Peace. The plot of L. Tolstoy’s great work, recreating the heroic pages of Russian history, was perceived in an unusually poignant and modern way during the years of the Patriotic War (and it was then that the opera was created).

This work combines the best, most typical features of his work. Prokofiev is here both a master of a characteristic intonation portrait, and a monumentalist who freely composes mass folk scenes, and, finally, a lyricist who created an unusually poetic and feminine image of Natasha.

Prokofiev once compared creativity to shooting at moving targets: “Only by taking aim ahead, at tomorrow, will you not be left behind, at the level of yesterday’s requirements.”

And all his life he took “an eye forward”, and, probably, that is why all his works - both written in the years of creative growth and in the years of his last serious illness - have remained with us and continue to bring joy to listeners.

Major works:

Operas:

"The Gambler" (1916)
"The Love for Three Oranges" (1919).
"Fire Angel" (1927),
"Semyon Kotko" (1939)
"Betrothal in a Monastery" (1940)
"War and Peace" (1943)
"The Tale of a Real Man" (1948)

Ballets:

“The Tale of a Jester Who Tricked Seven Jesters” (1915)
"Steel Leap" (1925)
"Prodigal Son" (1928)
"Romeo and Juliet" (1936)
"Cinderella" (1944)
"The Tale of the Stone Flower" (1950)

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“I adhere to the conviction that a composer, like a poet, sculptor, painter, is called upon to serve man and the people. He must decorate human life and protect her. He must first of all be a citizen in his art, glorify human life and lead man to a brighter future."
This is what Sergei Prokofiev wrote in his article “Music and Life,” and he followed this code of art, proclaimed shortly before his death, throughout his life.
For Prokofiev, living meant composing music. And composing always meant coming up with something new. “The cardinal advantage (or, if you like, disadvantage) of my life,” the composer wrote, “has always been the search for my original musical language. I hate imitation, I hate hackneyed tricks."
Prokofiev believed that in art only that which is valuable is what arises as a result of the artist’s sensitive listening to the rhythms and intonations of the surrounding life. This is the basis of Prokofiev’s innovation.
An inexhaustible melodic gift, a limitless ability for artistic transformation, and the ability to recreate the very spirit of the life depicted allowed Prokofiev to embrace the large, complex world of our reality. It is enough to name such works of his as the operas “Semyon Kotko” (based on the story by Valentin Kataev) and “The Tale of a Real Man” (based on the work of the same name by Boris Polevoy), the oratorio “Guardian of the World” and the suite “Winter Fire” based on the verses of S. Ya Marshak or the epic Fifth Symphony performed in 1945, the idea and concept of which Prokofiev himself defined as “The Symphony of the Greatness of the Human Spirit.” “He knew how to listen to time,” Ilya Ehrenburg said about him. But even when the composer turned to distant history, he remained deeply modern. That’s why Prokofiev’s patriotic lyrics and undaunted power sound as exciting as today. folk scenes in the music for the film "Ivan the Terrible", the painting "Borodino" in the opera "War and Peace" based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy, the appealing "Rise up, Russian people" and the captivating, Glinka-like sing-song "There will be no enemy in our native Rus'" in the cantata " Alexander Nevsky."
Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev was born in the village of Sontsovka, Ekaterinoslav province (now the village of Krasnoye, Donetsk region) in the family of an agronomist. In 1914 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where his teachers were A. Lyadov, N. Rimsky-Korsakov and other outstanding composers and musicians. Before that musical education Prokofiev was led by the later famous Soviet composer R. M. Glier. According to Prokofiev himself, he heard music at home from birth. The composer's mother played the piano. In addition, she turned out to be a born teacher. She was the first to introduce her son to the world of Beethoven's sonatas and awakened in him a love of classical music.
Prokofiev's keen observation and love for living nature were happily combined with a rich creative imagination. He was a composer not because he composed music, but because he could not help but compose it. Prokofiev traveled all over Europe and America with his concerts, playing in front of audiences in Carthage. But a cozy chair and desk, a modest view of the Oka River in Polenov, near Moscow, where the music of the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” (one of the composer’s best works) was created, or a quiet corner of French Brittany on the shore Atlantic Ocean, where the Third Piano Concerto with wonderful lyrics of Russian themes was written, he preferred it to the applause and noise of concert halls.
He was an amazing worker. Two hours before his death, he was still sitting at his desk and finishing the last pages of his ballet “The Tale of the Stone Flower” (according to Ural tales P. Bazhov), in which, in his own words, he set as his task to glorify “the joy of creative work for the benefit of the people”, to tell “about the spiritual beauty of the Russian person, about the power and innumerable riches of our nature, revealed only to the man of labor.”
The scale and significance of Prokofiev's work are exceptionally great. He wrote 11 operas, 7 symphonies, 7 ballets, about 30 romances and many other works.
A discoverer of new paths in art, Prokofiev went down in the history of Russian and world music as one of the most outstanding artists of the 20th century.

Sergei Sergeevich was born on April 11, 1891, in the village of Krasnoe. Today this village is part of the Donetsk region.

His father, Sergei Alekseevich, was a learned agronomist. Mother - Maria Grigorievna was from the serfdom of Sheremetev. She played the piano well.

Sergei Prokofiev began studying music with early childhood. He even composed works: plays, waltzes, songs. And at the age of 10 he wrote two operas: “On the Deserted Islands” and “The Giant”. Prokofiev's parents began taking private music lessons for their son.

As a thirteen-year-old boy, Prokofiev entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Sergei Prokofiev's teachers in the capital were such famous musical figures, like Rimsky-Korsakov, Esipova, Lyadov.

In 1909, Prokofiev graduated from the conservatory as a composer, and after studying for another five years, he received training as a pianist. gold medal and the Rubenstein Prize.

In 1908, Prokofiev began performing as a pianist, three years later his first sheet music publications appeared, and two years later Prokofiev went on tour abroad.

Music critics called Sergei Sergeevich a musical futurist. The fact is that he was a supporter of shocking means of expression.

The music of Sergei Prokofiev, at an early stage of his work, has an overwhelming, joyful energy. However, simple, shy lyrics are not alien to this work.

In many of his works, Sergei Prokofiev tries to display the so-called sociability of musical language, to show the wealth of contrasts.

The composer's work is a symbiosis of lyricism, humor, and irony. Prokofiev writes music for the ballet “The Tale of the Jester Who Tricked Seven Jesters,” as well as several romances based on the words of Anna Akhmatova.

At the beginning of 1918, Sergei Prokofiev left his homeland. The composer lived in America for four years, then went to Paris. In exile, the composer worked fruitfully and painstakingly. The fruits of his labors were the opera “The Love for Three Oranges”, concerto number 3 for piano and orchestra, sonata number five for piano and many others.

In 1927, Prokofiev gave a tour to the USSR. Concerts in Moscow, Kyiv, Kharkov and Odessa were a huge success. After this, Prokofiev's tour in " former homeland" have become more frequent.

In 1936, Sergei Sergeevich returned to Russia, the composer remained to live in Moscow. In the same year he finished work on the ballet Romeo and Juliet. In 1939, Prokofiev presented the cantata “Alexander Nevsky” to the public. On Stalin's 60th birthday, he wrote a cantata - "Zdravitsa".

During the Great Patriotic War, the composer wrote the ballet Cinderella, as well as several stunning symphonies. The opera based on L. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" occupies a special place.

The Great Russian composer Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev passed away on March 5, 1953. The famous cultural figure died on the same day as Comrade Stalin, so his death was almost unnoticeable to society. In 1957, Prokofiev was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize.