Symphony No. 2 by Sergei Prokofiev

Everybody hates this piece because it's atonal, unpleasant, and aggressive, but then Chris Brown gets to be on the Grammys so it seems like this is right up America's alley (topical humor). This is pretty good despite the fact that Prokofiev never really went expressionist again for the rest of his career. I guess we all have our phases, and for some of us those phases are maybe brought on by constant threat of execution by the 2nd most murderous tyrant of the 20th Century (write nicer music for workers lol or else ;) - JS).

RATING: 71%

Piano Concerto No. 4 by Prokofiev

Prokofiev's 4th piano concerto is written mainly for the left hand, which means there are a lot of low notes. Some may say that sucks where's all the high notes, and others may say high notes are for scary movies and children's songs, or scary movies featuring children's songs, which is basically all of them. Reminiscing about the early part of this review, I can't help but regret not making a masturbation joke or an R3 joke, but at least I didn't live my whole life artistically oppressed by Stalin only to die on the same day as him, am I right?

RATING: 89%

Piano Concerto No. 3 by Prokofiev

Sleeping is a thing that most of us tend to do at night unless you are a vampire or witch in which case the gig's up, buddy. Sometimes you can accidentally sleep for a couple minutes during the day if something super boring is happening, like work or chess or Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major. A famous philosopher once said "I never sleep because sleep is the cousin of death," but that's bull puckey because if you never slept you'd probably be irritable and wouldn't be able to operate heavy machinery, and who can go through life like that, because I sure can't.

RATING: 57%

Piano Concerto No. 2 by Prokofiev

You think you're sooooo good at piano, hotshot? Well, why not try giving Prokofiev's 2nd Piano Concerto a try and just learn how wrong you are, hoss. In contrast to his 1st Piano Concerto, Prokofiev's 2nd demonstrates a substantial shift, both into tonal expressionism (a VERY brief period for the Soviet composers, due to Stalin's relentless assertion that "modern" musical trends were anti-worker), and into a different instrumental structure-- here, it is the piano that leads the symphony along, rather than filling in gaps for the symphony, and indeed there are 5 or 6 minute stretches of a full, lush piano exploring a variety of conflicting, complex modal twists, dancing from playfulness to dread, from excitation to tragedy and back. Hey, here's a video of an 11 year old girl playing what is considered one of the hardest pieces of piano music ever composed almost flawlessly. Enjoy a delicious humility sandwich why don't you?

RATING: 93%

Piano Concerto No. 1 by Prokofiev

There used to be a time when I was young that I was all like "Prokofiev is the fuckin PIMP." Then I got older and it turned into a bunch of garbage or some fucking shit, with all of his recurring motherfucking leitmotifs of Georgian themes and shit, and the same predictable chord progressions. Basically what had happened was I took Prokofibitch by the throat and said "Your ass is to the curb," and then I threw his ass to the curb (metaphor). But then the other day I bought all his concertos on sale for 10 FUCKING DOLLARS (true story) and after listening to his first piano concerto in D-flat major I have to admit that, yes, my bust, Prokofiev actually is one bad ass motherfucker, and while the first concerto is in and out quick like me with your moms last night, he still manages to build a furious emotional stake with some deft tonal shifts and sudden key changes, so fuck all you haters like I used to be, just get your ass to Border's and buy this shit.

RATING: 80%