Prokofiev was a brilliant pianist; as a rule, he composed at the piano. At one point, however, he came to the conclusion that thematic material created in his imagination might be better that that born of improvisational wandering up and down the keyboard. He then decided to write an extensive work for orchestra using only his internal hearing: a fairly uncomplicated symphony in the style of a somewhat modernized Haydn. As he reminisced in his Autobiography, “it seemed to me that had Haydn lived to our day he would have retained his own style while accepting something of the new at the same time.“ Prokofiev knew Haydn’s symphonic style well ever since his conducting studies with Nikolay Tcherepnin, which made it easier for him, as he facetiously said, “to venture forth on this dangerous journey without the piano.” He completed the symphony, first drafted in 1916, in the middle of the following year, as he walked the fields and meadows in the country around Petrograd, where he spent the summer – on purpose without his piano. It was given its “Classical” nickname a little out of perversity to spite conservative philistines; in his soul of souls, however, he did nurture a hope that the symphony would live up to its ambitious name – and was he right.
His “Classical” Symphony in D major op. 25 preserved the traditional four-movement form in a highly condensed version – the whole lasts for ca. 13 minutes. Movement One is a two-theme “sonata allegro” that, from its very first bars, displays the work’s characteristic features: a clear and tonal musical language and an exuberance of themes, perfectly adapted to the lucidity of orchestral texture. Prokofiev replaced the conventional minuet with a gavotte, his own trademark that he used again, some years later and in an extended version, in his ballet Romeo and Juliet. He rejected earlier drafts of the finale to produce an entirely new one consistently trying to avoid minor triads. As usual, he succeeded: the finale to his “Classical” Symphony emanates joy and a truly Haydnian serenity, free from even the least of shadows.

Adam Walaciński