Piano Concerto No. 3 (Prokofiev)

The work did not gain immediate popularity and had to wait until 1922 to be confirmed in the 20th century canon, after Serge Koussevitzky conducted a lavishly praised performance in Paris.

This leads into what is perhaps the most recognizable pianistic feat of the first movement: several lines of octaves interspersed with close tones either above or below (in a triplet rhythm), moving up and down the keyboard with the hands usually on top of one another.

The orchestra then resumes the pulsating low Cs; the piano makes a shortened restatement of the scalar passage that led to the recapitulation, which is now used to end the movement, with a dissonant harmony followed sarcastically by barely tonal open C octaves.

Interplay between the piano and orchestra builds up steam, with a brief quickening of tempo (foreshadowing the lengthy Coda) before arriving at a slow, lyrical secondary theme (C♯ major/minor) in woodwinds.

Then the coda explodes into a musical battle between soloist and orchestra, with prominent piano ornamentation over the orchestra (including famously difficult double-note arpeggi, sometimes approximated by pianists with keyboard glissandos using the knuckles), eventually establishing the ending key of C major and finishing in a flourish with a fortissimo C tonic ninth chord.

Evgeny Kissin has made three recordings: in 1985, when he was 13 years old, with conductor Andrei Tchistiakov for the Russian export label Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, released in the West on RCA; in 1993, live in Berlin, with Abbado for Deutsche Grammophon; and in 2008, live in London, with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra for EMI, an effort that also garnered a Grammy Award.

[5] Pianist Horacio Gutiérrez’s 1990 recording with Neeme Järvi and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra received acclaim upon its first release and again when reissued in 2009.