Prokofiev’s life and career as both pianist and composer spanned the final years of Tsarist Russia, the artistic freedoms of America and Paris to Stalin’s repressive cultural policies. He quickly acquired the reputation of an enfant terrible and eventually came to be regarded as one of the great 20th century Russian composers.

Prokofiev’s first published piano sonatas are a reworking of earlier works, composed when he was a student. They form part of an important and often demanding set of ten sonatas and they reveal a debt to Rachmaninov before his own musical idiom is established. From one of Prokofiev’s greatest masterpieces, the ballet Romeo and Juliet, came a suite of ten pieces for piano which demonstrate not only Prokofiev’s angular and sardonic style but also his strikingly poignant lyricism and sensuality.