The 20th-century master who crossed revolution, emigration, and return, a giant of Soviet music
"The composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify human life and defend it." — from the essay 'Music and Life,' 1951
A composer who returned to the USSR in 1936 after 18 years in the West. With Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the Wolf, and Alexander Nevsky, he built a distinctive Soviet modernism and continued composing despite the 1948 formalism attack.
Career Timeline
- 1904–1914St. Petersburg Conservatory: studied under Rimsky-Korsakov and Lyadov; graduated in composition and piano
- 1914–1918Scythian Suite, Classical Symphony, First Violin Concerto — emerged as a leading Russian modernist
- 1918–1936Exile in the US, Germany, and France — collaborated with Diaghilev; wrote The Love for Three Oranges, Third Piano Concerto, The Prodigal Son
- 1936Permanent return to the USSR — premiere of Peter and the Wolf and full-length Romeo and Juliet
- 1938–1945Scored Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible; composed opera War and Peace and Fifth Symphony
- 1948Zhdanov decree: denounced as a 'formalist,' numerous works banned from performance; ban later quietly rescinded
- 1949–1953Completed late masterworks including Seventh Symphony, The Stone Flower, and Symphony-Concerto; died on same day as Stalin
Related historical events
The Eisenstein Collaboration: A Landmark in Film Music
Prokofiev and Sergei Eisenstein forged one of the most intimate director-composer collaborations in film-music history. Their first work together, Alexander Nevsky (1938), was Eisenstein's first completed sound film, and Prokofiev did not merely supply accompaniment but engaged musically with the film's very structure. Some scenes were composed to the shot footage; others were edited by Eisenstein to Prokofiev's pre-recorded score. Eisenstein recalled: 'We would always bargain for a long time before it was decided who should be first.' The half-hour 'Battle on the Ice' sequence became a template for epic cinematic battles ever since. Conductor Valery Gergiev called the score 'the best ever composed for the cinema.'
Their second collaboration, Ivan the Terrible (1944–46), deepened the partnership. Prokofiev could watch a scene two or three times and deliver a fully orchestrated sketch the next day, while Eisenstein let the music determine the rhythm of his montage. The score remained unpublished in Prokofiev's lifetime but later took on an independent stage life in oratorio and ballet arrangements.