There’s nothing more exhilarating than raw terror. If you aren’t convinced, take a moment and listen to Sergei Prokofiev’s Suggestion Diabolique, the ghoulishly demonic final movement of the 1908 Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 4. It’s a thrilling ride, along the lines of Schubert’s Erlkönig. Opening in the growling lowest register of the piano, this music resides just on the edge of tonality. You can sense the young Prokofiev flexing his compositional muscles and rebelling against rigid rules and convention. Those deep melodic interjections remained a part of Prokofiev’s later vocabulary. For example, listen to the way those lines suggest a sense of breadth and massive scale in this excerpt from Romeo and Juliet.
Here is a live concert clip with Evgeny Kissin:
Recordings
Prokofiev: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 1, Boris Berman iTunes
3 thoughts on “Ghoulish Prokofiev: “Suggestion Diabolique””
What was the original inspiration for the piece, do we know? Is there any religious context, or is it more about, as you say, ‘raw terror’ and kinetic (balletic?) energy?
Prokofiev wrote his Op. 4 backwards, and the Suggestion Diabolique was written in January/February 1908 when the composer was only 16. To the best of my knowledge, part of the inspiration was a particularly fierce winter storm in St. Petersburg, and the other part was pure spite (Prokofiev in his compositions actively rebelled against the staid, conservative teachings of Anatoly Lyadov, his professor of harmony and counterpoint at the St. Petersburg Conservatory).
Thank you, Kevin, for your reply!
I had overlooked the Op. Number – hadn’t twigged that this is clearly early, juvenilia… I love that the urge was out of pure contempt and spite and the inspiration natural. It’s an evocative foretaste of the maestro’s adult career …
What was the original inspiration for the piece, do we know? Is there any religious context, or is it more about, as you say, ‘raw terror’ and kinetic (balletic?) energy?
Prokofiev wrote his Op. 4 backwards, and the Suggestion Diabolique was written in January/February 1908 when the composer was only 16. To the best of my knowledge, part of the inspiration was a particularly fierce winter storm in St. Petersburg, and the other part was pure spite (Prokofiev in his compositions actively rebelled against the staid, conservative teachings of Anatoly Lyadov, his professor of harmony and counterpoint at the St. Petersburg Conservatory).
Thank you, Kevin, for your reply!
I had overlooked the Op. Number – hadn’t twigged that this is clearly early, juvenilia… I love that the urge was out of pure contempt and spite and the inspiration natural. It’s an evocative foretaste of the maestro’s adult career …