Ludwig Chamber Players

since 2013

A Man of Contradictions

However hard you try, it is impossible to form a clear picture of Sergei Prokofiev and the same applies to his work. The trends and styles of the various creative periods are too comple x and diver se. Furthermore, there seems to be an unbridgeable gulf between the self-confident innovator, (who, during his studies in Russia and later in avant-garde influenced Europe, wrote music to provoke the establishment) and the national composer, who (apparently) dutifully placed himself in the service of Stalinism. Whilst his biography cannot altogether solve this inconsistency, it can shed some light on it.

Prokofiev composed very little chamber music, but did so throughout his work. So these pieces – as well as the great symphonic works and solo concertos – display the inexhaustible variety of his compositional output on the one hand, and on the other, are an eloquent mirror on the different stages of the composer’s eventful life.

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