Born in 1891, Sergei Prokofiev began writing music at the age of five and soon started taking lessons with Glière. He eventually attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory, studying with some of the most famous Russian composers of the time, including Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. It was at the Conservatory where Prokofiev found his impetus for his first symphony, the “Classical.” Though students at St. Petersburg were not necessarily encouraged to study Mozart and Haydn, Prokofiev's conducting professor, Nikolai Tcherepnin, urged his students to get to know the music of the Classical-era composers. As Prokofiev later explained, Haydn provided the impetus for the Classical Symphony—not just his music, but also the innovative spirit with which Haydn approached his compositions. As Prokofiev later wrote in his autobiography,  

It seemed to me that if Haydn had lived into this era, he would have kept his own style while absorbing things from what was new in music. That’s the kind of symphony I wanted to write: a symphony in the Classical style. And when I saw that my idea was beginning to work, I called it the Classical Symphony: in the first place because it was simpler, and secondly, for the fun of it, to “tease the geese,” and in the secret hope that I would prove to be right if the symphony really did turn out to be a piece of classical music.  

Prokofiev began the Classical Symphony in 1916, finishing it less than a month before the October Revolution of 1917. A few days after the work’s premiere on April 21, 1918, Prokofiev asked the People’s Commissar of Education, A. V. Lunarchsky, for permission to travel abroad. The commissar is said to have responded, “You are a revolutionary in music, and we are revolutionaries in life. We ought to work together. But if you want to go to America, I shall not stand in your way.” Audiences responded positively to its New York premiere later that year. A Musical America article in December 1918 foreshadows the difficulty Prokofiev later had in the United States: “In these days when peace is heralded and the world is turning from dissonance to harmony, it comes as a shock to listen to such a program. Those who do not believe that genius is evident in superabundance of noise looked in vain for a new musical message in Mr. Prokofiev's work. Nor in the Classical Symphony, which the composer conducted, was there any cessation from the orgy of discordant sounds.”  

Perhaps the Classical Symphony sounded like an “orgy of discordant sounds” to its 1918 listeners, but its nostalgic look at music history has made it a favorite of audiences ever since. The work's lighthearted tone stands in sharp contrast to its inception's major political events. While Prokofiev follows classical procedure throughout, he girds the musical architecture with thoroughly modern sounds. Prokofiev uses eighteenth-century scoring, writing the piece for strings, pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, and timpani. How he uses these instrumental resources is audibly different, however. In the opening movement—a lively Allegro in traditional sonata form—the first and second themes are suitably “classical.” The way they unfold, coupled with the movement's nuanced dynamics and rich orchestration, is less than Haydnesque. In the Larghetto that follows, the graceful, elegant opening melody sounds almost nostalgic, while the strings’ extreme register creates a sound characteristic of Prokofiev’s music. The gallant Gavotte is peppered with striking harmonies, while the brilliant Finale, marked Molto vivace, possesses an exhilarating drive.