7 Sergey Prokofiev 7As if inspired by feelings of social and national renewal, he
wrote within one year an immense quantity of new music:
he composed two sonatas, the Violin Concerto No. 1 in D
Major, the Classical Symphony, and the choral work Seven,
They Are Seven; he began the magnificent Piano Concerto
No. 3 in C Major; and he planned a new opera, The Love for
Three Oranges, after a comedy tale by the 18th-century
Italian dramatist Carlo Gozzi, as translated and adapted
by Meyerhold. In the summer of 1917 Prokofiev was
included in the Council of Workers in the Arts, which led
Russia’s left wing of artistic activity. He later concluded
that music had no place in the council’s activities and
decided to leave Russia temporarily to undertake a concert
tour abroad.
Foreign Period
The next decade and a half are commonly called the foreign
period of Prokofiev’s work. For a number of reasons,
chiefly the continued blockade of the Soviet Union, he
could not return at once to his homeland. The first five
years of Prokofiev’s life abroad are usually characterized as
the “years of wandering.” In the summer of 1918, he gave
several concerts in Japan, and in the United States his
piano recitals in New York City evoked both delight and
denunciation. In Chicago he was given a commission for a
comic opera; The Love for Three Oranges was completed in
1919, though it was not produced until 1921.
In America, Prokofiev met a young singer of Spanish
descent. Born Carlina Codina in Madrid and raised in
New York, Lina Llubera eventually became his wife and the
mother of two of his sons, Svyatoslav and Oleg. Not finding
continuing support in the United States, the composer set
out in the spring of 1920 for Paris for meetings with
Diaghilev and the conductor Serge Koussevitzky. They