May's composer focus: Prokofiev

The composer we'll be focusing on this month will be Prokofiev, since Maestro has been practicing a new piece on his violin this week written by him: "Troika". As soon as his teacher began playing the piece through for him, I started humming along and Maestro's eyes lit up: "We've heard this piece before!" Then we began a discussion on what Troika meant. We guessed it may be a kind of dance, but upon returning home and finding it on our CDs, we've learnt that is actually a three horse Russian sleigh.

Here's the performance done on 2 pianos (8 hands) as arranged by Dr Walden Hughes:

As a side note, I'm so glad I invested in this collection of Classical music CDs, called In Classical Mood. They've been extremely useful and fun with their snippets of information about the composer and piece in each book. It's because I often put a couple in the car for the long trips that we've 'absorbed' a lot of classical music, thus my recognition of the piece.

Prokofiev's list of works is quite extensive, and having heard a few of them already, I know that there a many that the children will really enjoy.

A few other works we'll focus on are:

Winter Bonfire: a symphonic suite for children, based on verses written by Samuel Marshak, a popular children's author. It tells of an outing by a group of Young Pioneers to the winter countryside one Sunday afternoon. "Departure" (1st mvt) is the train journey; "Snow Outside the Window" being quite peaceful then becoming comical as we head to the 3rd mvt, "Waltz on Ice" which is swinging and lyrical. There are further movements (8 in total) but I don't have recordings of these at this stage.

"March" from The Love for Three Oranges: a march which occurs several times in the course of the opera. (This reminds me so much of the Ewok theme from Star Wars!!) The story is about a king who is concerned his son will die if he isn't made to laugh. The king brings in a lavish amount of comical entertainment, one of whom is an enemy who causes the prince to fall in love with three oranges.

Peter and the Wolf: this is a MUST when looking at Prokofiev. There are so many versions out there, with books to follow as well. Here is a site which uses the story to integrate all subject areas: Phil Tulga, Music Through Curriculum. Now, I'm always open for the children to see comical, or in this case, upbeated versions of a piece, showing how a tune can be modified to incorporate other styles. SOOoooo - here is a talented flautist playing the bird's theme, then becoming less traditional with a beatbox version. (Please don't be afraid to have a look!)

Previous "Composer of the month" posts:

• April - Rossini