Dating from the composer's student years, these miniatures find Prokofiev in a playful mood. The opening March, with its sharp rhythm and mocking melody, looks ahead to the famous March from The Love for Three Oranges (especially harmonically, with its odd oscillation between F minor and F-sharp minor), but this is a much lighter piece. Gavotte offers early evidence of Prokofiev's Neoclassical tendencies. This is not the same Gavotte he would use in his Classical Symphony; it is more traditional (yet rather comic), a vestige of an assignment for Liadov's composition class. Rigaudon, another nod to the eighteenth century, ranges more widely than the previous movement, but lacks the fluidity and affection of the more famous Rigaudon in Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin. Similarly, the Mazurka is even more halting than its rhythmic pattern requires. It's not at all Chopinesque; Prokofiev adopts a Medieval organum procedure with two harmonic parts, each moving in parallel fourths. The Capriccio has a sharp Neoclassical melodic line, rocking Alberti bass figures, and a two-part form with a recapitulation and a long coda derived from the bass line; the piece might almost be mistaken for Poulenc.

Legend carries no specific program. It begins with a quiet, tentative passage, a brief adagio interruption, then an answer to the opening material, all of which is repeated; next comes an Andante religioso section with its own rudimentary variations, then essentially a reverse of the first section. The Prelude, sometimes encountered in a transcription for harp ("Harp" is, in fact, its subtitle), is a rapid, sparkling, heavily figurated etude. The ABA- patterned Allemande returns to the Neoclassical approach of the Gavotte, now with a comically stomping rhythm (those oafish Germans ...) and a mildly grotesque atmosphere. Humorous Scherzo, with the notation "for four bassoons," is centered toward the low end of the keyboard, with a quick yet grumbling left-hand accompaniment. The brief trio section is comparatively placid and straightforward. The set concludes with another Scherzo, this one without an adjective. It's a vivacissimo perpetuum mobile in a breathtaking flurry of sixteenth notes, beginning pianissimo and building steadily to the sff finish.



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7.Prélude in C: Vivo e delicato

The Op. 12 collection contains some of Prokofiev's most popular piano works, including the Marche (No. 1), Rigaudon (No. 3), Scherzo humoristique (No. 9), Scherzo (No. 10), and this Prelude, the seventh in the set. These five show the range of Prokofiev's audacious imagination, from the sardonic character of the Marche to the charming wit of the Scherzo humoristique to the ravishing delicacies of this Prelude.

That Prokofiev transcribed the Prelude for harp gives the listener an idea of the character of its music. The outer sections feature a rippling main theme whose gentle, flowing manner recalls the gossamer sounds of that instrument. The mood is bright and the thematic contour seems always in descent, as if portraying a cascading waterfall on a sunny spring day. The middle section is playful and slightly more suited to the keyboard in its mischief and less delicate sonorities. Overall, this Prelude must be ranked among Prokofiev's best early piano pieces.



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