Sergei Prokofiev was a child prodigy who became a concert pianist, a conductor, and an enormously versatile, productive, and popular composer.

Born in present-day Ukraine, he spent many years at the St. Petersburg Conservatory (like Debussy and Ravel in Paris). His early reputation was as a radical, and one ambitious work was written under the direct influence of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. But he made an about-face a year later with his Classical Symphony, a gentle parody of a Haydn symphony. Easy to hear in Prokofiev’s music is a sound that’s hard to describe — within a clear (“Haydnish”) tonal framework, the use of very simple chords placed in an unexpected way. The Classical Symphony was a forerunner of Neoclassicism, which Stravinsky also embraced after World War I, when both Russian composers lived in Paris (keeping their distance from each other).

Prokofiev moved away from modernist extremes and toward clear tonality, tunefulness, and the use of Russian folk themes. But the good-humored parody of Classical Symphony turned into a sharper satirical style that could become positively grotesque in scherzos — another Prokofiev characteristic (“scherzo,” remember, means joke).

By the 1930s Prokofiev was a recognized star worldwide, but his thoughts turned back to his Soviet homeland, which had been tempting him with many commissions. He returned to live in Russia in 1936, to much acclaim. He must have known that his freedom of expression would be limited, but he could not have anticipated how much. Even pieces he wrote to exalt Stalin and the Soviet Union ran into trouble, increasingly so with the approach of World War II. Time and again the ever-fluent Prokofiev rewrote his works, but only too often they were never approved or performed. Twelve years after his welcome back to Russia, his music was publicly denounced by a Soviet arts commissar and performances were banned.

After years of ill health, Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin — within the hour. His impressive opera based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace, begun with official support in 1941, was still in limbo at his death.

A slight but much-loved work by Prokofiev is Peter and the Wolf, a narrated children’s story with orchestral interludes; each of the characters is represented by his or her own instrument and leitmotiv. The hero, needless to say, is a sturdy little Russian boy.

Chief Works: Operas The Love of Three Oranges and War and Peace ◼ Ballet scores Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella ◼ Film scores for Alexander Nevsky, Lieutenant Kije, and others ◼ Seven symphonies, including the Classical Symphony; piano sonatas and concertos; a beautiful violin concerto (No. 2) ◼ Peter and the Wolf for children (of all ages)

Encore: Listen to Lieutenant Kije and Classical Symphony.

Image credit: Lebrecht/The Image Works.