Classical Hour
Vasily Petrenko
Nobuyuki Tsujii Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) quickly gained a reputation in St. Petersburg’s musical circles as a rebellious yet immensely talented figure. After the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1913, one critic wrote that the audience was paralyzed with fear, their hair standing on end as they booed—yet predicted that within ten years, everyone would have to applaud a composer already gaining recognition across Europe.

Prokofiev left Russia during the 1917 Revolution, and the manuscript of Piano Concerto No. 2 was later lost in a fire. In 1923, he reconstructed the concerto from memory, significantly altering it in the process. The version we know today, premiered in Paris in 1924, stands as one of the 20th century’s most intense and technically formidable piano concertos.