An evening with Prokofiev

An evening with Prokofiev

Grieghallen

 

Tett på i foajeen
6.45pm: Pre-concert talk by Gunnar Danbolt (in Norwegian).

Prokofiev made his name with his Piano Concerto No. 3, and it’s easy to hear why. The Russian composer’s most popular concerto is a wickedly entertaining blend of virtuosity and savagery, a piece whose edgy nervousness and haunting lyricism tests pianists as much as it entrances audiences.

Nearly three decades later, back in the Soviet Union, Prokofiev was forced to play the unavoidable game of creative cat-and-mouse with Stalin’s government. The Sixth Symphony of 1947 is a cryptic work that holds its cards close to its chest – bubbling and optimistic one moment, austere and melancholic the next – and with a degree of hysteria between the two.

The composer once claimed the symphony told of ‘wounds that cannot be healed.’ Whatever the music’s message, expect a performance of forensic clarity and emotional nuance from Thomas Søndergård who is joined by Francesco Piemontesi whose ‘stunning technique’ (The New Statesman) will not disappoint.