Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 4 (Russian: Четыре пьесы для фортепиано) is the third set of short pieces for piano by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Notably, this set includes the Suggestion diabolique, one of the composer's best-known works.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (27 April [O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas. A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915, Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev—Chout, Le pas d'acier and The Prodigal Son—which, at the time of their original production, all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. But Prokofiev's greatest interest was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel. Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime was The Love for Three Oranges, composed for the Chicago Opera and performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia. After the Revolution of 1917, Prokofiev left Russia with the approval of Soviet People's Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, and resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist and conductor. In 1923 he married a Spanish singer, Carolina (Lina) Codina, with whom he had two sons; they divorced in 1947. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev's ballets and operas to be staged in America and Western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as a composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, and increasingly turned to the Soviet Union for commissions of new music; in 1936, he finally returned to his homeland with his family. His greatest Soviet successes included Lieutenant Kijé, Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Alexander Nevsky, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, On Guard for Peace, and the Piano Sonatas Nos. 6–8. The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred Prokofiev to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace; he co-wrote the libretto with Mira Mendelson, his longtime companion and later second wife. In 1948, Prokofiev was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism". Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich: he wrote his Ninth Piano Sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter.

This is a list of musical compositions by the 20th-century Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

This is a list of musical compositions by the 20th-century Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (27 April [O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas. A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915, Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev—Chout, Le pas d'acier and The Prodigal Son—which, at the time of their original production, all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. But Prokofiev's greatest interest was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel. Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime was The Love for Three Oranges, composed for the Chicago Opera and performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia. After the Revolution of 1917, Prokofiev left Russia with the approval of Soviet People's Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, and resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist and conductor. In 1923 he married a Spanish singer, Carolina (Lina) Codina, with whom he had two sons; they divorced in 1947. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev's ballets and operas to be staged in America and Western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as a composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, and increasingly turned to the Soviet Union for commissions of new music; in 1936, he finally returned to his homeland with his family. His greatest Soviet successes included Lieutenant Kijé, Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Alexander Nevsky, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, On Guard for Peace, and the Piano Sonatas Nos. 6–8. The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred Prokofiev to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace; he co-wrote the libretto with Mira Mendelson, his longtime companion and later second wife. In 1948, Prokofiev was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism". Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich: he wrote his Ninth Piano Sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (27 April [O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas. A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915, Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev—Chout, Le pas d'acier and The Prodigal Son—which, at the time of their original production, all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. But Prokofiev's greatest interest was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel. Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime was The Love for Three Oranges, composed for the Chicago Opera and performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia. After the Revolution of 1917, Prokofiev left Russia with the approval of Soviet People's Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, and resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist and conductor. In 1923 he married a Spanish singer, Carolina (Lina) Codina, with whom he had two sons; they divorced in 1947. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev's ballets and operas to be staged in America and Western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as a composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, and increasingly turned to the Soviet Union for commissions of new music; in 1936, he finally returned to his homeland with his family. His greatest Soviet successes included Lieutenant Kijé, Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Alexander Nevsky, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, On Guard for Peace, and the Piano Sonatas Nos. 6–8. The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred Prokofiev to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace; he co-wrote the libretto with Mira Mendelson, his longtime companion and later second wife. In 1948, Prokofiev was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism". Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich: he wrote his Ninth Piano Sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter.

This is a list of musical compositions by the 20th-century Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

The Études by Frédéric Chopin are three sets of études (solo studies) for the piano published during the 1830s. There are 27 études overall, comprising two separate collections of 12, numbered Op. 10 and Op. 25, and a set of three without opus numbers.

Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 4 (Russian: Четыре пьесы для фортепиано) is the third set of short pieces for piano by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Notably, this set includes the Suggestion diabolique, one of the composer's best-known works.

Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 4 (Russian: Четыре пьесы для фортепиано) is the third set of short pieces for piano by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Notably, this set includes the Suggestion diabolique, one of the composer's best-known works.

Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 4 (Russian: Четыре пьесы для фортепиано) is the third set of short pieces for piano by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Notably, this set includes the Suggestion diabolique, one of the composer's best-known works.

Sarcasms, Op. 17 (Russian: Сарказмы, pronounced sarkazmy), initially alternatively entitled Sarcastic Pieces, is a 1914 solo piano composition by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

Romeo and Juliet (Russian: Ромео и Джульетта, romanized: Romeo i Dzhulyetta), Op. 64, is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. First composed in 1935, it was substantially revised for its Soviet premiere in early 1940. Prokofiev made from the ballet three orchestral suites and a suite for solo piano.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (27 April [O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas. A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915, Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral Scythian Suite, compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev—Chout, Le pas d'acier and The Prodigal Son—which, at the time of their original production, all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. But Prokofiev's greatest interest was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel. Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime was The Love for Three Oranges, composed for the Chicago Opera and performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia. After the Revolution of 1917, Prokofiev left Russia with the approval of Soviet People's Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, and resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist and conductor. In 1923 he married a Spanish singer, Carolina (Lina) Codina, with whom he had two sons; they divorced in 1947. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev's ballets and operas to be staged in America and Western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as a composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, and increasingly turned to the Soviet Union for commissions of new music; in 1936, he finally returned to his homeland with his family. His greatest Soviet successes included Lieutenant Kijé, Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Alexander Nevsky, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, On Guard for Peace, and the Piano Sonatas Nos. 6–8. The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred Prokofiev to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace; he co-wrote the libretto with Mira Mendelson, his longtime companion and later second wife. In 1948, Prokofiev was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism". Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich: he wrote his Ninth Piano Sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter.

Music for Children, Op. 65 (Russian: Музыка для детей, Muzyka dlya detey), is a cycle of twelve character pieces for piano by Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953). Composed in 1935, it is – beside its compositors qualities – considered one of the most popular collections of pedagogical piano music of the 20th century.

Sergei Prokofiev set about composing his Piano Concerto No. 1 in D♭ major, Op. 10, in 1911, and finished it the next year. The shortest of all his concertos, it is in one movement, about 15 minutes in duration, and dedicated to the “dreaded Tcherepnin.”

Sergei Prokofiev set to work on his Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16, in 1912 and completed it the next year. However, that version of the concerto is lost; the score was destroyed in a fire following the Russian Revolution. Prokofiev reconstructed the work in 1923, two years after finishing his Piano Concerto No. 3, and declared it to be "so completely rewritten that it might almost be considered [Piano Concerto] No. 4." Indeed, its orchestration has features that clearly postdate the 1921 concerto. Performing as soloist, Prokofiev premiered this "No. 2" in Paris on 8 May 1924 with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. It is dedicated to the memory of Maximilian Schmidthof, a friend of Prokofiev's at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, who had committed suicide in April 1913 after having written a farewell letter to Prokofiev.

Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28 (1917) is a sonata composed for solo piano, using sketches dating from 1907. Prokofiev gave the première of this in Saint Petersburg on 15 April 1918, during a week-long festival of his music sponsored by the Conservatory.

Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 4 in C minor, Op. 29, subtitled D’après des vieux cahiers, or After Old Notebooks, was composed in 1917 and premiered on April 17 the next year by the composer himself in Petrograd. The work was dedicated to Prokofiev's late friend Maximilian Schmidthof, whose suicide in 1913 had shocked and saddened the composer.

Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 6 in A major, Op. 82 is a sonata for solo piano, the first of the "War Sonatas". It was composed in 1940 and first performed on 8 April of that year in Moscow, with the composer at the piano.

Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7 in B♭ major, Op. 83 (occasionally called the "Stalingrad") is a sonata for solo piano, the second of the three "War Sonatas", composed in 1942. The sonata was first performed on 18 January 1943 in Moscow by Sviatoslav Richter. Performances of this sonata can last anywhere from 17 to about 20 minutes.

Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 8 in B♭ major, Op. 84 is a sonata for solo piano, the third and longest of the three "war sonatas", with performances typically lasting around 30 minutes. He completed it in 1944 and dedicated it to his partner Mira Mendelson, who later became his second wife. The sonata was first performed on 30 December 1944, in Moscow, by Emil Gilels.

The Piano Sonata No. 9 in C major, Op. 103 by Sergei Prokofiev is his final completed piano sonata. It is dedicated to pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B♭, and C. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative major is F major and its parallel major is D major. The D natural minor scale is: Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary. The D harmonic minor and melodic minor scales are:

Tales of an Old Grandmother, Op. 31 (Russian: Сказки старой бабушки, romanized: Skazki staroy babushki) is a set of four piano pieces by Sergei Prokofiev. It was composed in 1918 and premiered by the composer himself on January 7 the following year in New York City, probably at Aeolian Hall. It has an approximate duration of ten minutes and it was first published by Gutheil in Moscow in 1922. It was composed during Prokofiev's exile in the United States after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. An arrangement for orchestra also exists.

This is a list of musical compositions by the 20th-century Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

The Toccata in D minor, Op. 11 is a piece for solo piano, written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1912 and debuted by the composer on December 10, 1916, in Petrograd. It is a further development of the toccata form, which has been used by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Robert Schumann. Other composers of well-known toccatas include Maurice Ravel, Dmitri Kabalevsky and Aram Khachaturian. Prokofiev's Toccata starts off with persistent repetition of the D, interchanged between the right hand (which plays one note at a time) and the left hand (which also plays the note an octave lower). After a brief development, the left hand alternates between two chromatic scale patterns, one ascending and one descending, between which a repeating figuration in the right hand outlines the D minor triad. These patterns repeat a fourth higher and continue in various iterations. A series of split chromatic thirds leads upwards to a descending melody (in C), with the left hand simultaneously traveling up the chromatic scale. Prokofiev repeats and develops the chromatic-thirds theme before leading back to the initial repeated-note theme. After some augmentation and a short pause, both hands play the triad figuration, which now descends asynchronously in steps of a major third in each hand. This pattern underpins the right hand as it tackles leaps and later contrary-motion chromatic figures, while the left hand incorporates multiple of its own layers of chromatic movement. After a crescendo to fortissimo—during which the right hand outlines a C major triad while the left hand plays a four-note, black-key figure above it—the split chromatic thirds pattern reappears. This leads to several violent statements of the descending-thirds melody, this time in D, via chromatically ascending first-inversion minor triads in the right hand and descending chromatic octaves in the left hand. The repetition of D comes back one more, this time in alternating octaves in both hands. Then the Toccata slows down and halts temporarily; when it resumes, the repeated notes transition into a rising chromatic scale, which leads to octave exhortations. A glissando sweep up the keyboard brings the piece to its conclusion—two sforzando D octaves at each end of the keyboard. The Toccata, an extremely difficult showpiece, has proven popular with virtuoso pianists, many of whom have recorded it. According to the biography of the composer by David Gutman, Prokofiev himself had trouble playing it because his technique, while good, was not quite enough to master the piece. This fact is not universally accepted, however, and his performance as reproduced in 1997 for the Nimbus Records series The Composer Plays is certainly virtuosic. Additionally, none of the leading biographies of Prokofiev—those written by Harlow Robinson, Victor Seroff, and even Israel Nestyev—mention him having any technical problems beyond poor performance techniques in childhood, which were later rectified through years of study after his graduation from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Among the notable recordings of the piece, interpretations by Idil Biret, Vladimir Horowitz and Emil Gilels can be heard.

Visions fugitives, Op. 22, is a cycle of twenty piano miniatures by Sergei Prokofiev. The seventh piece was also published for harp. They were written between 1915 and 1917, individually, many for specific friends of the composer, and premiered by him as a cycle on April 15, 1918, in Petrograd. Gutheil published both the piano set and the one piece for harp in 1917 in Moscow. The cycle brings dissonant harmonies akin to music by Prokofiev contemporaries Schoenberg and Scriabin but retains original concepts of tonality and rhythm. The miniatures are vignette-like, whimsical, effervescent and bright. The overall effect is in the Impressionist style, not unlike work by Debussy. Because of the almost uniformly mellow style, performers must be willing to work on the relatively difficult technique required to capture its essence. In 1935 Prokofiev made recordings of ten pieces from the set, and his playing is notable for its wistfulness, subtle shadings and — in places — rhythmic freedom. Even the clowning of the Ridicolosamente is rather shy in Prokofiev’s hands, and the delicacy he brings to the following piece brings out its affinities with Debussy’s Préludes

Sergei Prokofiev wrote the two Pushkin Waltzes (Op. 120) in 1949.