Ex. 1-14: Солнце комнату наполнило

"Солнце комнату наполнило" (The Sun Has Filled My Room) is the first of Prokofiev's Five Poems of Anna Akhmatova (Op. 27). He wrote all five songs in just four days in November 1916, when he was 25.

The day before he began, he had heard the soprano Nina Koshetz sing Rachmaninoff's newest songs, and wrote in his diary that after a whole evening of songs he decided he must write some new ones himself. Koshetz was also the first to sing Scriabin's "Romance." (Ex. 13-8: Romance by Alexander Scriabin) Just then a friend, Pyotr Suvchinsky, turned up with a book of Akhmatova's poems. Prokofiev had long wanted to write simple, personal songs to her poems, and the work went quickly and happily. When he finished, he wrote that he was delighted with them.

Akhmatova wrote the poem in 1913, when she was 24. The sun fills the room with yellow dust, and the speaker wakes and remembers: "My dear, today is your day." That is why even the snowy view outside feels warm.

The songs were first sung in Moscow in February 1917, with Prokofiev at the piano, only weeks before the Russian Revolution began. Rachmaninoff was in the audience. Prokofiev wrote that the nervous singers spoiled his songs, but the Akhmatova set was still a success. Later that year, Koshetz asked him to dedicate the songs to her, since he had written them the day after her concert. He said no: Rachmaninoff's songs were already dedicated to her, and he did not want his to be compared with them.

Prokofiev, then known for loud, rough music, later said that after these songs many people believed for the first time that he could write lyrical music.

From the album Oriental Romances by Hibla Gerzmava and Ekaterina Ganelina (2004)
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