Interpreting Prokofiev

Join us for an evening of music, recordings, and discussion hosted and produced by Joseph Horowitz (who The New York Times has called “a force in classical music today, a prophet and an agitator”) and featuring Alexander Toradze (“arguably the greatest living exponent of Prokofiev’s piano music,” according to The London Financial Times).

Why did Sergei Prokofiev choose to return to Stalin’s police state in 1935? What were the tradeoffs shaping his singular odyssey? What can be learned from Prokofiev’s own recordings of his piano music— including the Visions Fugitive, which will also be heard in live performance, and the Piano Concerto No. 3, of which Toradze’s recording was once voted “the best of all time” in International Piano Quarterly?

This event, also featuring Stanford pianists George Barth and Kumaran Arul (who performs the Visions Fugitive), begins a four-day Prokofiev festival presented by Stanford Lively Arts. Reviewing the Stanford Lively Arts Toradze/Horowitz “Interpreting Stravinsky” festival two seasons ago, Richard Scheinin wrote in the San Jose Mercury News: “It was a knockout. Here was one of those rare events we crave as listeners: a set of performances that takes the familiar, confronts it, and make it not just new, but more enjoyable than before.”

JOSEPH HOROWITZ
Author; Classical Music Historian
The most recent of Joseph Horowitz’s eight books, Artists in Exile (named one of the best books of 2008 by The Economist), explores the impact of 20th-century immigration and exile on composers, actors, and filmmakers fleeing the Russian Revolution and Hitler. His other books include Classical Music in America: A History, Wagner Nights: An American History, and Understanding Toscanini (named one of the best books of 1987 by the National Book Critics Circle).

ALEXANDER TORADZE
Pianist Alexander Toradze is one of the world’s most eminent concert pianists. His Prokofiev interpretations have been characterized by The New York Times as “an epic shriek.” Of his performance of Stravinsky’s Capriccio at Stanford two seasons ago, Scheinin wrote in the Mercury News: “Toradze’s opening flourishes were delivered in a pulverizing flash. Why the keyboard didn’t collapse is anyone’s guess. He also played with the most delicate, jazzy refinement. But this complete artist has a very personal—and Russian—interpretation of the work.”

Thursday, November 12
7:30 pm
PLEASE NOTE LOCATION CHANGE!
NEW VENUE: Campbell Recital Hall - Bruan Music Center
FREE; no registration required
Open to the public

For additional info on Interpreting Prokofiev, please visit livelyarts.stanford.edu