Volume 34, Number 16 · October 22, 1987
Prodigal Son
By Arthur Berger
Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography
by Harlow Robinson
Viking, 573 pp., $29.95
In the 1940s, when Shostakovich was at the height of his success in America, I heard Stravinsky being asked what he thought of the Soviet composer and I still remember the venom in his voice as he shouted back, 'Pas de talent.' A followup question solicited his opinion of Prokofiev and, all venom gone, he said that was an entirely different thing. Some years earlier Stravinsky himself had been the composer who was most likely to figure in such a comparison with Prokofiev. In Paris, where Prokofiev settled as a refugee in the aftermath of the October Revolution after having tried his fortune in America, Diaghilev admitted him as a member of his coterie and referred to him as his 'second son'—Stravinsky having been for a number of years his 'first.' The manner in which the 'brothers' pursued their careers in tandem for a while is one of the subjects generously described by Harlow Robinson with his flair for interesting and relevant information in his absorbing new biography of Prokofiev. It becomes evident from Robinson's account that instead of what should have been pride on Prokofiev's part the pairing with Stravinsky brought out Prokofiev's competitiveness. He was 'very aware of Stravinsky's head start with Diaghilev.'
Review, 2933 words
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