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Symphonies Nos. 1 and 5
Sergei Prokofiev

Symphonies Nos. 1 and 5

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

Label: Challenge Classics
Format: SACD
Barcode: 0608917273229
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Catalog number: CC 72732
Releasedate: 07-04-17
-Third (and last but one) instalment in Gaffigan/Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra’s ongoing series of Prokofiev’s complete symphonies.

- Nos. 1 and 5 are surely the most famous and beloved of Prokofiev’s symphonies

- Written in a time-span of 27 years (the former in France, the latter in Soviet Union) they display two much different faces of the composer’s musical personality.

- The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Choir will be awarded the Concertgebouw prize of 2017
The image Sergei Prokofiev seems to project, particularly when it coems to the music he wrote while living in the West from 1914 to 1935, is one of a joker and an agitator, yet a classical composer at the core. This double identity can be heard even in his earlier works, mostly for piano, written before 1914, and was sealed with his ''Classical'' Symphony in 1917. The subtitle is the composer's own. Indeed, Prokofiev stated, ''I wanted to write a symphony that Haydn or Mozart would have written had they lived in the twentieth century.'' Symphony No. 5: Prokofiev wrote the work in the Soviet Union in 1944, when the Nazis were increasingly losing ground but had certainly not yet been defeated. Although the symphony lacks a programme per se, it is undeniably a depiction of war and victory. Heroism is always tinged with the tragedy inherent in war, and the grand gesture is both sincere and theatrical.