Prokofiev and Shostakovich

Abstract

Much has been written on the professional and personal trajectories of the two luminaries of Soviet/Russian music, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. Their true relationship, however, has yet to be seriously explored. Many writers have focused on the composers’ alleged personal and professional antagonisms, caused by their supposed individual claims to the title of “the greatest Soviet composer,” referencing anecdotes of questionable reliability. This chapter compares the two composers’ contributions to certain genres; their typical compositional procedures; their collaborations with other highly regarded exponents of Soviet cultural life, and their common predecessors. It also contrasts the two composers’ written assessments of one another’s compositions, and compares their works, in which we can observe not only how Prokofiev influenced his younger contemporary but also how each composer might have inspired the other.