Sergei Prokofiev

Born: April 23, 1891, Sontsovka, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire)
Died: March 5, 1953, Moscow

Concerto No. 3 in C Major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 26

• Composed: 1921
  
• Premiere: December 16, 1921 in Chicago, conducted by Frederick Stock with the composer as soloist
• CSO Notable Performances:
  • First: February 1936, Eugene Goossens conducting; pianist Robert Schmitz, piano
  • Most Recent: November 2018, Kirill Karabits conducting; Alexander Gavrylyuk, piano
• Instrumentation: solo piano, 2 flutes (incl. piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, castanets, suspended cymbals, tambour de Basque, strings
• Duration: approx. 27 minutes

In a 1962 interview, Madame Lina Llubera Prokofiev, the composer’s first wife, recalled her husband’s working method at the time he wrote the C Major Piano Concerto: “Prokofiev toiled at his music. His capacity for work was phenomenal. He would sit down to work in the morning ‘with a clear head,’ as he said, either at the piano or at his writing desk. He usually composed his major works in the summer, in the mountains or at the seaside, away from the turmoil of city life. Always he sought places where the rhythm of work was not interrupted, where he could rest and take long walks. So it was with the Third Piano Concerto, which he completed during the summer of 1921 while staying at St. Brévin-les-Pins, a small village on the Atlantic coast of Brittany in France.”

The composition of this concerto was not a sudden inspiration for Prokofiev. The plan for a large virtuoso work to follow the first two piano concertos emerged in 1911, but he made little progress on it except for one passage he eventually placed at the end of the first movement. By 1913, he recalled in his memoirs, “I had composed a theme for variations, which I kept for a long time for subsequent use. In 1916–1917, I had tried several times to return to the Third Concerto. I wrote a beginning for it (two themes) and two variations on the theme for the second movement.” At that time, he was also working on what he called a “white” quartet (i.e., in a diatonic style, playable on the white keys of the piano) but abandoned it because he thought the result would be monotonous. He shuttled two themes from this aborted quartet into the concerto. “Thus,” he continued in his autobiography, “when I began [in 1921] working on the Third Concerto, I already had the entire thematic material with the exception of the subordinate theme of the first movement and the third theme of the finale.”

Prokofiev provided the following description of the score: “The first movement opens quietly with a short introduction. The theme is announced by an unaccompanied clarinet and is continued by the violins for a few bars. Soon the tempo changes to Allegro, and the strings lead to the statement of the principal subject by the piano. Discussion of this theme is carried on in a lively manner, both the piano and the orchestra having a good deal to say on the matter. A passage in chords for the piano alone leads to the more expressive second subject, which is heard in the oboe with a pizzicato accompaniment. The second movement consists of a theme with five variations. The finale begins with a staccato theme for bassoons and pizzicato strings, which is interrupted by the blustering entry of the piano. The orchestra holds its own with the opening theme, however, and there is a good deal of argument, with frequent differences of opinion as regards key. Eventually the piano takes up the first theme and develops it to a climax. With a reduction of tone and a slackening of tempo, an alternative theme is introduced in the woodwinds. The piano replies with a theme that is more in keeping with the caustic humor of the work. This material is developed, and there is a brilliant coda.”

—Dr. Richard E. Rodda