The Best of Prokofiev

The Best of Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (23 April 1891 -- 5 March 1953) Prokofiev is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include five piano concertos, nine completed piano sonatas and seven symphonies, and such widely heard works as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet -- from which “Dance of the Knights“ is taken -- and Peter and the Wolf. A graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument and with his first two piano concertos. Prokofiev’s first major success breaking out of the composer-pianist mould was with his purely orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes; Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev -- Cho