From Publishers Weekly
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) made his first return visit to the Soviet Union in 1927, having left nine years earlier to live in Western Europe. Written in chiseled, spare prose of distinctive beauty and emotive power, this diary of his two-month whirlwind tour provides an unusually detailed glimpse of the pressured world of a frantically busy composer-pianist. It reveals the deep pull that his native culture exerted despite his stance of detachment and despite his wariness of communist bureaucracy and repression. Smoothly translated by painter-sculptor Oleg Prokofiev, the composer's son, this volume offers three complete short stories and two story fragments published here for the first time, including a Chekhovian tale with an ironic touch and a symbolist-surrealist dream strongly echoing his music. A candid 1941 autobiographical sketch throws light on his precocious development and creative process. Illustrated.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Reading a diary is a potentially dreary experience. It can be self-referring, repetitive, and mundane. But this colorful and informative example by the great Russian composer (1891-1953) is an exception, its author being blessed with a considerable literary gift. A secret document that surfaced in 1989, it covers a concert tour of the Soviet Union which Prokofiev undertook several years before his repatriation in 1934. Mixed in with discussions about daily events are assessments about Soviet music and critical observations about the fledgling Communist state, although the latter are carefully and obliquely expressed. Other writings in the volume include five short stories (some incomplete) and an autobiography. The stories are written with keen psychological insight and reveal a lively and occasionally surreal imagination. The autobiography, first published in 1956 and "extensively revised" here, complements the much longer Prokofiev by Prokofiev ( LJ 4/15/79), which dealt with his early life to 1909.
-Daniel Fermon, Museum of Modern Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-Daniel Fermon, Museum of Modern Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
