Read by: Gerard Schwarz
Language: English
Length: 1 hour and 14 minutes
Publisher: Musically Speaking, Inc.
Release date: 2006-06-19
Platform | Country | Chart | Last Rank | Last Ranked At |
---|---|---|---|---|
Apple | Top Audiobooks - Arts & Entertainment | 199 | September 19, 2024 | |
Apple | Top Audiobooks - Arts & Entertainment | 111 | September 19, 2024 | |
Apple | Top Audiobooks - Arts & Entertainment | 98 | September 19, 2024 |
According to Aaron Copland, who met Prokofiev several times in the 1920s, "He was boyish, easily bored, and even impolite at times... He was very bright and outspoken, and I can't imagine that he would ever hide how he felt about anything." Once, when accompanying a singer in a performance of his songs, he reduced her to tears by berating her effort in front of the audience.
Schwarz uses musical excerpts from Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony, Piano Concerto No. 3, and Romeo and Juliet to demonstrate how Prokofiev avoided the large scale and sweeping gestures of late-Romantic orchestral music in favor of lean sonorities, textural clarity, and concise architecture.