Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26

Freddy Kempf’s 2003 Prokofiev solo recital was described as ‘a superb disc’ in Gramophone, whose critic went on to write: ‘Kempf is joyfully exuberant, flashing through every savage challenge with the assurance and instinct of a born virtuoso.’

Kempf, Litton and the Bergen PO now join forces in an all-Prokofiev programme that includes the most popular of his five piano concertos, namely the Third, a spontaneous work, vigorous and melodic in turns and full of striking material presented in a typical Prokofiev manner. This is coupled with the Second Piano Concerto, which Prokofiev himself premièred in 1913, shocking the audience with its modernistic sounds and jagged rhythms.

For his third EMI Classics release, Evgeny Kissin has turned to repertoire from his native Russia, Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3. The performances were recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in January 2008 with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. This is his first recording of Prokofiev’s Concerto No 2.

Evgeny Kissin made his concerto debut in Russia at the age of ten and caused an international sensation three years later with the release of his recording of Chopin’s 2 Piano Concertos. Kissin proceeded to record the major concerto repertoire whilst still in his teenage years. In 2006 he recorded the Schumann A minor and Mozart C minor concertos for EMI Classics followed by the Beethoven Piano Concertos cycle with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra, released in 2008 to popular and critical acclaim. These Prokofiev Concertos follow and there are plans to release Mozart Concertos no.20 K466 in d minor and no. 27 K595 in B flat major with the Kremerata Baltica, directed by Kissin.

The collaboration between Evgeny Kissin and Vladimir Ashkenazy is an inspired choice. In addition to his renown as a conductor, Russian-born Vladimir Ashkenazy is one of the finest pianists of his generation and a champion of the Russian piano repertoire. He has performed all five of Prokofiev’s piano concertos on many occasions. In 2000, he was named Conductor Laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra.

In 1912-13, when Sergei Prokofiev composed his second piano concerto, he was still a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, yet he already had a reputation in St. Petersburg and Moscow as a brilliant pianist and composer. He had begun playing the piano and composing before he was six and had composed an opera by the age of nine. Glière was one of his early composition teachers. At 13, Prokofiev enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, where he studied under Rimsky-Korsakov, Liadov and Tcherepnin.

Another of his teachers, the composer Nicolas Miaskovsky, described Prokofiev’s second piano concerto as, “very fresh and interesting, and in a more intimate vein than the First, but also more difficult. … There are wonderful bits, quite novel and most intriguing.” But at its debut in 1913, performed by the composer at Pavlovsk, a resort town near St. Petersburg, the audience appeared startled and reacted strongly. Some walked out of the hall. The original score was subsequently lost. When the composer reconstructed the concerto ten years later and performed it at the Koussevitzky Concerts in Paris in 1924, he had toned it down somewhat.

Prokofiev completed his third piano concerto in France in 1921. He had begun work on it in Russia in 1911 but had taken time out for extensive concert tours of the United States before resuming composition in 1916-17. The thematic material includes ideas for a large virtuoso concerto jotted down as early as 1911 and a theme for variations composed in 1913, as well additional themes sketched independently. In 1921, Prokofiev reviewed the material, chose some themes for his concerto and saved others for subsequent compositions. He was the soloist in the world premiere of the concerto with the Chicago Symphony in December 1921 and reprised the work the following month in New York. A highly praised performance by the composer under Serge Koussevitzky in Paris in 1922 confirmed the concerto’s status in the 20th century repertoire. Today No. 3 is the most popular of Prokofiev’s five piano concertos.

"Kissin reaches new peaks …The second concerto, with its jagged rhythms and spiky brilliance, can easily become a showcase for empty virtuosity but Kissin found in it beauty, poetry and hidden depths. …The fluency of his passagework was as breathtaking as ever. … The Philharmonia under Vladimir Ashkenazy was on top form, matching Kissin in tenacity, agility and dynamism.” London Evening Standard

“As a package, their claims are strong, both artistically and in terms of recording quality,” awarded three stars by Penguin Guide. The Guardian wrote, “No one is more warmly dramatic in Prokofiev than Jarvi, making his issues consistently recommendable.”

As part of our on-going re-issue of Neeme Jarvi’s famous Prokofiev Chandos now re-releases The Piano Concertos performed by Boris Berman and Horacio Gutiérrez with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

This has proved to be a very popular set in the past, and is now priced at one full price CD.