The Year 1941 (Prokofiev) The Year 1941 (Prokofiev) Sergei Prokofiev wrote the symphonic suite The Year 1941 (Op. 90) in 1941. Prokofiev, along with other composers, was evacuated to the Caucasus when Germany started attacking the Soviet Union in 1941. It was under such circumstances that Prokofiev began work on this symphonic suite. He was working on his epic opera "War and Peace" and the "String Quartet No. 2" at the same time. The whole suite lasts for around 15 minutes. The suite is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets,
Sergei Prokofiev 1902, Prokofiev's mother met Sergei Taneyev, director of the Moscow Conservatory, who initially suggested that Prokofiev should start lessons in piano and composition with Alexander Goldenweiser. Unable to arrange that, Taneyev instead arranged for composer and pianist Reinhold Glière to spend the summer of 1902 in Sontsovka teaching Prokofiev. The first series of lessons culminated, at the 11-year-old Prokofiev's insistence, with the budding composer making his first attempt to write a symphony. The following summer, Glière revisited Sontsovka to give further tuition. When, decades later, Prokofiev wrote about his lessons with Glière, he gave due credit to his teacher's sympathetic