Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 44

Orchestral showpieces such as those grouped here were among the most obvious beneficiaries of the advances in recording technique pioneered by Decca from the late 1950s onwards. Works which may have seemed dauntingly complex to an earlier generation of gramophone collectors could now be captured with startling clarity, due in no small part to the improved acoustic spread, and it was at this time that the great twentieth-century classics began to win a larger audience.

When the young Claudio Abbado came to make these recordings in London in the 1960s (he was 32 at the time of his very first Decca session on 11 February 1966 at which the recordings of Prokofiev’s Chout and Romeo and Juliet were begun), he had already begun to demonstrate his commitment to contemporary Italian music, and so it is perhaps not too surprising that he should have been contracted to record these classic works from the twentieth-century orchestral repertoire. This release is also interesting as an early document of Abbado’s relationship with the LSO in 1966, eventually becoming its principal conductor in 1979.

Between 1917 and 1952, Prokofiev composed seven symphonies. These works were brilliantly performed and recorded for a legendary project of Firma Melodiya of 1965-1967 by the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra of the USSR conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky. The recording of Prokofiev’s last symphony was awarded the “Grand Prix du Disque” of the Academie Charles Cros.

The life of Sergey Prokofiev in seven symphonies – and in one of the first complete recordings.

Sergey Prokofiev’s seven symphonies reflect all the stylistic transformations along his artistic path – from a “modernist”, whose works echo the headlong development of music in the first two decades of the 20th century, to the mature creator of Symphony No. 7 (1951/52), characterised by melodiousness and freedom of expression.

While the Scythian Suite, with its harshly “barbarian” aggressiveness, is the work of a young innovator, the simple Haydn-like melody treatment and lucid texture of the First Symphony, which the twenty-five-year-old Prokofiev referred to as “Classical”, made it perhaps his most frequently performed work, one that anticipated the neo-Classical trend in modern music.

Despite Prokofiev’s endeavour to create new “great music” devoid of complexity and accessible to the people, his later compositions were constantly fiercely criticised for being “formalist”. Zdeněk Košler drew attention to his artistry by winning globally prestigious competitions (Besançon, New York), as well as by assisting Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic.

His Prokofiev with the Czech Philharmonic is one of the very first complete recordings of the composer’s symphonic works. The newly remastered sound confirms its timeless qualities.

Superb Decca recordings from the late 1970s. Critically acclaimed when first released, they are still state of the art.

‘This newcomer is by far the best recorded. It is every bit as impressive as earlier releases in the Weller/Prokofiev series. The LPO respond to the demands made on them with fine musicianship and good ensemble.’ Gramophone on the Fourth Symphony

‘This new Decca release is absolutely first-class and reveals this densely packed texture with realism and great transparency. Weller is sensitive to detail and dynamic nuance.’ Gramophone on the Second Symphony

New booklet essay by Prokofiev biographer David Gutman

Among 20th-century composers, Sergei Prokofiev has probably fared best when you consider the number of his works that are held in public affection – Peter and the Wolf, the Lieutenant Kijé Suite with its sleigh ride ‘Troika’(this motif from the suite was also used in the song I Believe in Father Christmas by the English rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer), The Love for Three Oranges, and the ballets Romeo and Juliet (who doesn’t know the ‘Dance of the Knights’?) and Cinderella. His opera War and Peace is a staple of the opera repertoire. Also firm favourites are the witty, deliberately Haydnesque First and Fifth Symphonies, both welcomed into the symphonic repertoire of the 20th century in a way only matched by Sibelius, and in the UK Vaughan Williams, in their popularity. The other five symphonies, however, remain relatively neglected. This highly acclaimed cycle conducted by Walter Weller was only the second recording of the elusive revised version of No.4. The greatest of the cycle, No.6 receives an extraordinary performance. It is a work full of huge,truly memorable tunes – epic, lyrical and highly personal. The ‘Classical’ Symphony, No.1, predates Stravinsky’s neo-Classical period, and is all the more remarkable for that. The iconoclastic Second Symphony is very much of its time, being contemporaneous with The Iron Foundry by Mosolov, Stravinky’s Rite of Spring and Honegger’s Pacific 231. Schoenberg commented that there is still ‘plenty to be said in C major’, and this certainly applies to the seven symphonies of Prokofiev.