Among major 20th-century composers whose music is poorly understood, Sergei Prokofiev stands out conspicuously. The turbulent times in which Prokofiev lived and the chronology of his travels-he left Russia in the wake of Revolution, and returned at the height of the Stalinist purges-have caused unusually polarized appraisals of his music. While individual, distinctive, and instantly recognizable, Prokofiev's music was also idiosyncratically tonal in an age when tonality was largely passe. Prokofiev's output therefore has been largely elusive and difficult to assess against contemporary trends. More than sixty years after the composer's death, editors Rita McAllister and Christina Guillaumier offer Rethinking Prokofiev as an assessment that redresses this enigmatic composer's legacy. Often more political than artistic, these appraisals have depended not only upon the date of publication but also the geographical location of the writer. Commissioned from some of the most distinguished and rising scholars in the field, this collection highlights the background and context of Prokofiev's work. Contributors delve into the composer's relationship to nineteenth-century Russian traditions, Silver-Age and Symbolist composers and poets, the culture of Paris in the 1920s and '30s, and to his later Soviet colleagues and younger contemporaries. They also investigate his reception in the West, his return to Russia, and the effect of his music on contemporary popular culture. Still, the main focus of the book is on the music itself: his early, experimental piano and vocal works, as well as his piano concertos, operas, film scores, early ballets, and late symphonies. Through an empirical examination of his characteristic harmonies, melodies, cadences, and musical gestures-and through an analysis of the newly uncovered contents of his sketch-books-contributors reveal much of what makes Prokofiev an idiosyncratic genius and his music intriguing, often dramatic, and almost always beguiling.

About the Author
Rita McAllister is a composer, pianist, educationalist, and writer on music. She holds a Research Chair at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She was educated at the Universities of Glasgow and Cambridge: her doctoral thesis was on the operas of Sergei Prokofiev. She has published extensively on Prokofiev and on many other aspects of Russian and Soviet music in journals, magazines, and music encyclopedias, and recently re-constructed the first version of Prokofiev's War and Peace, which was premiered in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Rostov-on-Don. Christina Guillaumier is a musicologist, pianist, and writer on music. She is Head of Undergraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music (London) and is a member of the Centre for Russian Music at Goldsmiths, University of London. A graduate of the Universities of St Andrews, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and Oxford, her research has been awarded several grants and fellowships. She is a published author on Russian music, including Prokofiev's childhood compositions, his operas, and his early orchestral music.

Reviews
the reader is left with a thorough illustration of the vibrant world of Prokofiev research at the start of the third decade in the twenty-first century * Daniel Elphick, Transposition *
This book is an important contribution to the literature on Prokofiev...Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. * D. Arnold, University of North Texas, CHOICE *
It deserves a place in all serious libraries and on the shelves of music lovers everywhere. * Arnold McMillin, Slavonic and East European Review *
the editors set out to complicate and contextualize a general perception of the composer as an ambition-compromised victim of Soviet power. The volume's list of contributors ranges in terms of both geography and professional focus; a refreshing number of the authors are practicing musicians ... There's a useful glossary of fundamental cultural and musical terms, but biographical identifications are in the texts. A foreword points readers to a website, on which more musical examples, illustrations and substantial appendices will appear -- a responsible, realistic scholarly model. * David Shengold, Opera News *
This rich and insightful collection is essential reading for anyone interested in Prokofiev and the world in which he lived. The essays in Rethinking Prokofiev offer new insight into unfamiliar aspects of Prokofiev's work and fresh and compelling looks at some more familiar ones. * Kevin Bartig, Professor of Music, Michigan State University *
A compelling reassessment of Prokofiev's career from start to finish that raises a poignant question: When we hear his music, do we hear what he heard? The answers here, derived from painstaking archival research, make plain a stark truth: Prokofiev was the most harrowed composer of the 20th century, and his music bears the marks of compromise, resistance, and resilience. * Simon Morrison, Professor Music and Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190670771
Author Rita McAllister
Format Paperback
Page Count 544
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 728g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 154mm * 31mm