‘Life and work of Sergei Prokofiev’

Sergei Prokofiev enriched the repertoire with indestructible classics. Yet he remained an enigma as a person and composer for a long time. In this lecture, Francis Maes discusses the unusual career of a man who tried to play a role in Western European modernism, but then eventually returned to the Soviet Union. However, the promises that he would enjoy elite status there while also being able to continue his international tours soon proved to be false... In 1948, he ran into the lamp of the infamous resolution against formalism.

Francis Maes is Professor of Musicology at Ghent University and also Professor in the Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies. As author of the book A history of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar, which has since become a standard work, he is considered a specialist of Russian music. His most recent book, A Story of the Not, deals with Tchaikovsky's opera Yevgeny Onegin.

Dutch lecture, free entry upon presentation of the ticket for the following concert.