Approximately 31 minutes

Composer: born April 27, 1891, Sontsovka, Bakhmutsk region, Yekaterinoslav district, Ukraine; died March 5, 1953, Moscow

Work composed: original version 1913; reconstructed/rewritten in 1923. Dedicated to the memory of Maximilian Schmidthof, a classmate and close friend of Prokofiev’s at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Schmidthof committed suicide in the spring of 1913, just as Prokofiev completed Op. 16.

World premiere: First version: at the Vauxhall in Pavlosk, outside Moscow, on September 5, 1913, with Prokofiev at the piano. Second/revised version: Serge Koussevitzky conducted, with Prokofiev again at the piano, in Paris on May 8, 1924.

Instrumentation: solo piano, 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, tambourine, and strings.

In December 1912, a group of Russian Futurist poets, led by 19-year-old Vladimir Mayakovsky, issued a manifesto entitled “Slap to the Public’s Taste.” This pamphlet repudiated all traditional forms of art and artists, and expressed an “invincible hate for the language that existed before.” Mayakovsky and his associates advocated radical change in all forms of art and literature while encouraging individualism and nonconformity. 

Sergei Prokofiev admired Mayakovsky’s poetry and respected his provocative artistic aesthetic. The two met at the Poets’ Café in Moscow, and Mayakovsky inscribed a copy of his poem, “War and the World” for Prokofiev: “To the World President of Music from the World President of Poetry.” Like Mayakovsky’s poetry, young Prokofiev’s music was intended to shock, and his Op. 16 did not disappoint.

The 1913 premiere of the original version generated intensely negative audience reaction, of which the following account is typical: “Seats emptied one by one. At last the Concerto came to an end … most of the audience were hissing and shouting angrily. ‘To hell with this futurist music!’ people were heard to exclaim. ‘The cats on the roof make better music!’ 

Most Russian critics savaged the young composer, but the more open-minded Vyacheslav Karatygin presciently remarked that the audience’s hisses were of no consequence. “Ten years from now it [the public] will atone for last night’s jeering by unanimously applauding a new composer with a European reputation.” In his diary, Prokofiev described the audience’s reaction: “I came out twice to acknowledge the reception, hearing cries of approval and boos coming from the hall. I was pleased that the concerto provoked such strong feelings in the audience.”

The solo piano begins the Andantino with a romantic, mysterious melody; the winds dialogue with the piano as the theme repeats. A bouncier, agitated counter-melody is unveiled by the piano; however, it is the primary theme that dominates the majority of the first movement, which is developed and rearticulated in an extended solo section for the piano. The Scherzo’s 2.5 minutes of dazzling scale passages and eye- and ear-popping virtuosic tricks for the soloist is juxtaposed with the Intermezzo’s elephantine ostinato in the low strings, punctuated by dissonant blats from the brasses. The piano music’s weight and power has a raw, primitive edge; this section may have sparked the 1913 audience’s reaction. In the closing Allegro tempestoso, Prokofiev unleashes fire and energy, and gives the pianist an extended solo. The concerto ends with a return to the fourth movement’s opening brilliance and irrepressible energy.

© Elizabeth Schwartz