Prokofiev, Sergey (Sergeyevich)

(born April 23, 1891, Sontsovka, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died March 5, 1953, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Russian composer and pianist. Son of a pianist, he began writing piano pieces at age five and wrote an opera at nine. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory (1904–14) with Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and others. Prolific and arrogant, from 1910 he made a living by performing as a virtuoso. He played his own first concerto at his graduation recital. During World War I he wrote his Scythian Suite (1915) and First (“Classical”) Symphony (1917). His opera The Love for Three Oranges premiered in 1921 in Chicago. Paris was his base from 1922, and during the 1920s he produced three new symphonies and the operas The Fiery Angel (1927) and The Gambler (1928). In the 1930s he was drawn back to his homeland; there he wrote the score for the ballet Romeo and Juliet (1936), the symphonic children's tale Peter and the Wolf (1936), and striking national music for Sergey Eisenstein's film Alexander Nevsky (1938). World War II inspired the score to Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (1942–45) and the opera War and Peace (1943). The government's denunciation of his work in 1948 was a harsh blow; his health failed, and he died on the same day as Joseph Stalin.