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Jenny Farrell<\/strong> introduces Sergei Prokofiev\u2019s \u201cPeter and the Wolf\u201d, one of the most famous pieces of music for children ever written<\/em><\/p>\n Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev is among the great composers of the 20th century. He was born 130 years ago, on 23rd April 1891 in Sontsovka in the Ukraine, into a rural family. Village life, with its peasant songs, left a permanent impression on him. His musical mother arranged trips to the opera in Moscow when he was a child. Prokofiev\u2019s subsequent ten years of study (1904-1914) at the Petersburg Conservatory, under Rimsky-Korsakov among others, were a time of great artistic growth.<\/p>\n When the Tsar was overthrown in 1917, Prokofiev understood a new dawn had broken and he wrote a vast quantity of new music. In the summer of 1917, he joined the Council of Workers in the Arts, a significant organisation in Russia\u2019s left-wing artistic struggle. Stranded for nine months in the Caucasus due to the civil war, he could only return to Petrograd in early 1918. Believing that music was not to the forefront of the Council\u2019s activities, Prokofiev obtained official sanction to undertake a concert tour abroad.<\/p>\n From 1918, he began touring the USA and Europe as a pianist and conductor and stayed out of the country longer than originally intended, largely due to the blockade of the USSR. He stayed in\u00a0 the US for almost two years and returned there on several occasions for concert tours. In France, Prokofiev came into close contact with avant-garde musical developments, an interest he had had from early on. He had already performed pieces by Sch\u00f6nberg in Russia. Prokofiev\u2019s musical talent developed rapidly. He studied the works of Stravinsky, particularly the early ballets, but maintained a critical attitude toward his countryman\u2019s innovations, with whom he had a strained personal relationship. From 1922, Prokofiev spent over a year and a half in Ettal, Bavaria, before returning to Paris. In Germany, Prokofiev married the Spanish-born singer Carolina Codina, whom he had met in the US and with whom he went on to have two sons.<\/p>\n Prokofiev toured the USSR several times in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1936 he finally returned to his homeland with his family, where he became active in the Composers\u2019 Union. Having met writer and translator Mira Mendelson in 1938, he left Carolina in 1941 and married Mira in 1948. Carolina Codina was arrested for \u2018espionage\u2019 shortly after this, sentenced to 20 years in labour camps and released in 1956. Yuri Andropov facilitated her departure from the Soviet Union in 1974.<\/p>\n Prokofiev was attracted by the work of modernist Russian poets, by the paintings of the Russian followers of C\u00e9zanne and Picasso, the theatrical ideas of Meyerhold. In 1914, Prokofiev had met the great ballet impresario Diaghilev, who became his mentor for the next decade and a half. All these influences impacted on Prokofiev\u2019s compositions while he lived abroad. Yet, Prokofiev had not lost touch with the music of his homeland and his ties to it had never been severed. This return home resulted his composing in numerous masterpieces.<\/p>\n Peter and the Wolf<\/strong><\/p>\n One of these, the most famous of all, is Peter and the Wolf<\/em>. Natalya Sats, then director of the Moscow Musical Theatre for Children, had commissioned this piece to introduce children to some of the instruments of the orchestra, and classical music. Prokofiev had met Sats while taking his sons to her theatre in 1936. Prokofiev wrote a draft for the piano in a few days, finishing the orchestration 9 days later, on 24 April. The piece was performed to great acclaim, with Sats narrating, at the Pioneer Palace in Moscow. Prokofiev later said: \u201cIn Russia today there is a great emphasis on the musical education of children. One of my orchestral pieces (Peter and the Wolf<\/em>) was an experiment. Children get an impression of several instruments of the orchestra just by hearing the piece performed.\u201d<\/p>\n