Sergey Prokofiev Diaries 1924-1933: Prodigal Son

Description

The third and final volume of Prokofiev's Diaries covers the years 1924 to1933 when he was living in Paris. Intimate accounts of the successes and disappointmentsof a great creative artist at the heart of the European arts worldbetween the two world wars jostle with witty and trenchant commentaries onthe personalities who made up this world. The Diaries document the complexemotional inner world of a Russian exile uncomfortably aware of the nature of life in Stalin's Russia yet increasingly persuaded that his creative gifts wouldnever achieve full maturity separated from the culture, people and land of hisbirthplace. Since even Prokofiev knew that the USSR was hardly the place tocommit inner reflections to paper, the Diaries come to an end after June 1933although it would be another three years before he, together with his wife andchildren, finally exchanged the free if materially uncertain life of a cosmopolitanParisian celebrity for Soviet citizenship and the credo of Socialist Realismwithin which the regime struggled to strait-jacket its artists. Volume Three continues the kaleidoscopic impressions and the stylish language- Prokofiev was almost as gifted and idiosyncratic a writer as acomposer - of its predecessors.

Anthony Phillips learnt Russian in the "Secret Classrooms"of National Service in the 1950s and later at Oxford. Thelanguage continued to play an important part during his latercareer in music administration, during which he becamegeneral manager of London's Royal Festival Hall. Story of aFriendship, his translation of Shostakovich's letters to IsaakGlikman, was published by Faber in 2000, and AntonChekhov: A Life in Letters (with Rosamund Bartlett) byPenguin Classics in 2004.

'The third and final instalment of Prokofiev's diaries . . . in AnthonyPhillips's excellently clear translation . . . These diaries are addictive andthe effect of not seeing the life through his eyes anymore is a wrench . . . Astupendous work.' - Alexander Waugh, Literary Review 'Should appeal well beyond Prokofiev's immediate fan base to readers intriguedby the siren song of Christian Science and / or sympatheticoutsider's take on the Diaghilev set.' - David Gutman, Gramphone