A previously unknown symphony by Sergei Prokofiev will be aired on Ukrainian online radio Aristocraty (Aristocrats) on March 27 at 7 p.m.
The Russian composer has written the symphony in 1902 when he was just 11-years-old and lived in Sontsovka, today’s Donetsk Oblast. It is believed to be his first symphony.
The work was kept in a Moscow archive and has never been played for public. Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits has recently discovered the script of the symphony.
Karabits recorded it with the Symphonic Orchestra of the Glier Kyiv Institute of Music on March 21 during a concert dedicated to the 140th anniversary of Glier’s birthday and consisted of his students’ works.
The manuscript of the symphony found by Karabits was titled “To my teacher Reinhold Moritzevich Gliere.” As a child, Prokofiev was taking music lessons with Gliere, another Russian composer, every summer.
“Imagine you found unknown recording of The Beatles which has never been published before. It’s the same feeling”, radio host of “Aristokraty” Yaroslav Lodygin says. “There are millions of Prokofiev fans around the world and now they have opportunity to listen to his first work. And it’s weighty that it was recorded here in Kyiv”.
The two-hour-long radio show will also include an interview with conductor Karabits and Yuriy Zilberman, deputy head of the Gliere Kyiv Institute of Music.
Karabits plans to record Prokofiev symphony in London and give it to BBC Three broadcasting.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yulia Sosnovska can be reached at [email protected].
