Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev was born in April 1891 on a country estate in what is now eastern Ukraine. His father managed the estate, and his mother played the piano and gave him his first lessons. He wrote his first opera at nine, and at 13 he entered the St Petersburg Conservatory as the youngest student in his class. At his final exam in 1914 he played his own first piano concerto instead of a classic. He won the first prize, and the prize was a grand piano. He was also a strong chess player. In 1914 he won a game against José Raúl Capablanca, who later became world champion.

Young Prokofiev loved to shock. His music was loud and fast, full of wrong notes, and the newspapers called him a bad boy. In 1918, after the Russian Revolution, he decided to go to America for a while. The minister of education gave him permission and let him go with the words, "You are a revolutionary in music, we are revolutionaries in life." He travelled across Siberia and Japan, where he gave concerts, and reached San Francisco. In America the critics compared him with Rachmaninoff, who was 18 years older and had arrived the same year, and they preferred the older man's romantic music. Prokofiev spent the next 18 years in America and Paris. In Paris he wrote ballets for Diaghilev, the great ballet producer, who called him "my second son." He dressed elegantly, wore perfume, loved fast cars, and said exactly what he thought. In 1936 he moved back to the Soviet Union. He was homesick, and the government promised to pay him well for new works. That year he wrote Peter and the Wolf for a children's theatre in Moscow, in less than a week. Each character is played by a different instrument, so children learn the sounds of the orchestra. He wrote the words himself. The piece is performed with a narrator, and it has been translated into many languages. In English recordings the narrator has been, among others, Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of the American president, Sean Connery and David Bowie. In the same years he wrote the ballet Romeo and Juliet, whose "Dance of the Knights" is known to millions, and the music for the film Alexander Nevsky.

Life under Stalin was dangerous even for him. He had written a cantata for Stalin's 60th birthday, and many people still ask why he went back at all. In 1948 the government condemned his music as too difficult for the people, and his first wife Lina was arrested and sent to a labour camp for eight years. He died in Moscow on 5 March 1953, at 61. Stalin died the same day. The streets were full of crowds mourning Stalin, and only about thirty people came to Prokofiev's funeral. Today he is one of the most performed composers of the 20th century. Peter and the Wolf has introduced millions of children to the orchestra.