Sergey Prokofiev - Ten Pieces

Published a year after the Toccata op.11 (1912), celebrated for its fearsome difficulties and its motoric style, prefiguring a machinist and futurist aesthetic, the Ten Pieces op.12 (1913) might look like a dramatic turn-around, returning to the past and its strict forms, explicitly evoked by eight of the ten titles: Gavotte, Rigaudon, Prelude in C, Allemande and so on. But in fact Prokofiev had been working on these pieces over a period of nearly eight years.

They anticipate the Classical Symphony op.25 (1917), his last work to be played in public (21 April 1918) before he went into exile. After the Moscow premiere of his First Concerto, in March 1912, Prokofiev played the Gavotte as an encore, as he was frequently to do in subsequent recitals or concerts. The Prelude also enjoyed a successful separate existence in its version for harp. Only the last two numbers bring us back to the irony and turbulence that were increasingly to characterise his style.