Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1

Following encouragement from his teacher to immerse himself in the works of Mozart and Haydn, Sergei Prokofiev composed his Symphony No. 1, Classical, in 1916-17.  Harkening back to his forbears in the realms of form and structure while using the expanded harmonic language of his contemporaries, Prokofiev for the first time composed away from the piano keyboard, lending a more compact and transparent orchestral sound to the work.  Written just before the composer left Russia following the abdication of the Tsar and Lenin’s ascent to power, the Classical symphony foreshadowed the neoclassicism of the 1920s and became one of the composer’s most frequently performed works.