Prokofievisms: A Practice Piece
Applying some of the pieces of Soviet musical vernacular discussed in earlier posts
This post is the culmination (for now) of the little series I’ve been doing on what makes Prokofiev’s music sound the way it does. Here are other parts of the that series:
Using my quick and dirty research into Prokofiev’s musical language (along with my decades of being a listener and score peruser of his music), I wanted to sketch something short that tries to apply bits and pieces of his musical language and see how well I’ve understood and applied them. I’m fairly pleased with what I came up with; a friend of mine upon hearing it said it sounded like “Prokofiev and Shostakovich had a baby”, which I take as a high compliment!
Without further ado, judge for yourself!
For those familiar with Prokofiev’s music, what do you think? What sounds like him to you, and what sounds less like him? There are a few moments in the music where I can’t place what I’m doing or why I think it sounds Prokofievian (?), but it felt/sounded right. What changes could I make to get closer to the real deal? Taking the pieces of his vernacular I’ve laid out in previous posts, what would you write?
Below is the score separately; I added color to highlight my annotations describing where I was applying various techniques, but my notation software wouldn’t allow me to export it to video. Feel free to listen to the audio and follow along with the annotated score:
I really liked your whole series on Prokofiev, Shane! Your piece definitely reminded me of Khachaturian's Gayane Suite. Seems like all those Russian composers were sharing notes with each other!
Love it. Definitely hear Prokofiev in those melodies. Well done. What are you using for playback? Sounds great.