Sergei Prokofiev

Prokofiev began composing his First Violin Concerto in 1915. He was very fond of the opening theme, but was busy working on his opera, The Gambler. He regretted not having more time to work on the Concerto's "pensive opening." When he got back to it, he intended to compose a "concertino" for violin and orchestra, but the piece grew into a three-movement concerto. As musicologist and Prokofiev scholar Israel Nestyev has noted, Prokofiev consulted Polish violinist Paul Kochanski while writing the violin part. Kochanski advised him on bow markings and other technical details, and was supposed to have been the soloist at the premiere, planned for November of 1917. The piano score of the work was completed in the summer of 1917, but because of the revolution in Russia, the Concerto did not receive its first performance until 1922, in Paris.

Instead of the usual fast-slow-fast concerto structure, Prokofiev's outer movements are slow, while the middle movement is a fast scherzo. The order of the Concerto's movements is not the only unusual aspect of this violin concerto: the role of the solo violin is also atypical. While the violin dominates the piece, it is not set dramatically against the orchestra; instead, as Russian music critic I. Yampolsky wrote, the violin is "the first among equals," dominant but integrated into the orchestral texture.

The opening theme of the piece is simple and lyrical. The first movement is in sonata form, with the lyricism and simple sincerity of the first theme contrasted with a chromatic, angular second theme. The two themes are rigorously developed after the exposition, almost unrecognizably transformed. Prokofiev's love for the first theme is reinforced in the recapitulation, where only this theme is heard: the second theme and bridge material are eliminated. The second movement is typical Prokofiev, a virtuosic, "grotesque" Scherzo. It is cast in rondo form, and is full of numerous and sudden shifts of articulation and accent. It is, says Nestyev, music in which "images of sneering sarcasm and sinister forces predominate." In the final movement, Prokofiev returns to the calm, lyrical character of the opening movement, but with added harmonic color. This final movement is a work of ingenious thematic integration, realized in the large coda: the lyrical theme of the finale is played in the orchestra, against the "pensive," lyrical first theme from the opening movement, played by the solo violin.

While Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto is an important piece in the contemporary concerto repertoire, it was not well received earlier. Critics condemned the work for its non-traditional formal arrangement and treatment of the soloist and tutti. By this time in his career, Prokofiev was certainly growing accustomed to this kind of criticism of his innovations, particularly from Russian critics. The Concerto is a pivotal work, one which displays a maturation of the composer. If one compares the First Violin Concerto to Prokofiev's earlier piano concertos, it is easy to see that the former is decidedly more natural in its thematic unfolding, and formally less academic.

-- Alexander Carpenter