Among the first pieces that Prokofiev wrote upon his return to the Soviet Union after years of being music's bad boy in Paris and America, Music for Children constitutes a significant change of pace for the composer. These dozen miniatures are explicitly educational—music to be played by children, rather than for them, much in the spirit of Bartók's own didactic collections, For Children and Mikrokosmos. Yet in producing this "accessible" music, Prokofiev was not writing down to his audience; formerly the master of dense, hard-hitting works, he was increasingly preoccupied with clarity, simplicity, and lyricism. With its necessary innocence, Music for Children suggests the direction Prokofiev would soon take in his concert works.

The suite begins with "Morning," a delicate little tune uttered tentatively in the middle register over quiet rumblings in the bass. A more extended melody unfolds slowly, before a return of the opening material. "Promenade," despite the Mussorgskyan connotations of the title, is a lighthearted skip at a fairly fast pace. "Fairy Tale" is slower and quieter, both its spare melody and nervous ostinato accompaniment written as a series of cleanly detached notes; indeed, much of this suite is decidedly non-legato. "Tarantella" is an upbeat, but not intense, version of the familiar Italian dance, with rapid work for the left hand. "Regrets" (also translated as "Repentance") is the suite's longest movement, clocking in at about three minutes; it's a dirge of little thematic distinction, but full of atmosphere, written in a spare style reminiscent of the more somber works of Satie and Poulenc. "Waltz" begins with a rather salonish melody that takes some unexpected turns and harmonies. Contrast comes from a brief central section devoted to perky left-hand comments.

"Parade of the Grasshoppers" begins with a start-and-stop introduction, then eases into a more regular processional theme that still retains the appropriate bounce. The intro returns briefly at the end. "Rain and Rainbow," not surprisingly, is dominated by a long, wistful, descending melody rather like those that would later suffuse Prokofiev's ballet Cinderella. "Tag" is a light scherzo carried by chattering right-hand material with a more rudimentary left-hand accompaniment. "March" is militaristic only in the sense of children's parody, rather like the "Children's March" from Bizet's Carmen; the naughty little dissonances are more pronounced in this piano original than in Prokofiev's orchestration for the suite Summer Day. "Evening" offers brief treble phrases over a restless bass accompaniment; although there's no specific program attached to this movement, the gently flittering right-hand material might suggest fireflies, and the secondary section's quiet four-note ostinato implies frogs or nighttime insects in the brush. "Moonlit Meadows" is a poetically naïve musical scene, the primary interest being how Prokofiev passes thematic fragments up and down the keyboard; adult pianists such as György Sándor often take this movement at a much faster clip than most children could manage, sucking out its atmosphere and rendering it as pleasant, but generic, Prokofiev.

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