THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSICIANS OF ALL TIME

7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7

Prize in piano for a brilliant performance of his own first
large-scale work—the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major.
Contacts with the then new currents in theatre, poetry,
and painting played an important role in Prokofiev’s devel-
opment. He was attracted by the work of modernist
Russian poets; by the paintings of the Russian followers of
Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso; and by the theatrical
ideas of Vsevolod Meyerhold. In 1914 Prokofiev became
acquainted with the ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev,
who became one of his most influential advisers for the
next decade and a half.
The prerevolutionary period of Prokofiev’s work was
marked by intense exploration. The harmonic thought
and design of his work grew more and more complicated.
Prokofiev wrote the ballet Ala and Lolli (1914), on themes
of ancient Slav mythology, for Diaghilev, who rejected it.
Thereupon, Prokofiev reworked the music into the
Scythian Suite for orchestra. Its premiere, in 1916, caused a
scandal but was the culmination of his career in Petrograd
(St. Petersburg). The ballet The Tale of the Buffoon Who
Outjested Seven Buffoons (1915; reworked as The Buffoon,
1915–20), also commissioned by Diaghilev, was based on a
folktale; it served as a stimulus for Prokofiev’s searching
experiments in the renewal of Russian music. Prokofiev also
was active in the field of opera. In 1915–16 he composed
The Gambler, a brilliant adaptation of the novella by Fyodor
Dostoyevsky. Continuing the operatic tradition of Modest
Mussorgsky, Prokofiev skillfully combined subtle lyricism,
satiric malice, narrative precision, and dramatic impact.
During this period, Prokofiev achieved great recognition
for his first two piano concerti—the first the one-movement
Concerto in D-flat Major (1911) and the second the dramatic
four-movement Concerto in G Minor (1913).
The year 1917—during which there were two Russian
revolutions—was astonishingly productive for Prokofiev.