Alexander Melnikov

After spending 10 years abroad, Russian composer and pianist Sergei Prokofiev travels back home for the first time in 1927, on invitation from the Soviet Union. Details of the trip were kept in his personal diary, discovered in 1989, with which this film begins. As a turning point in his life, the journey was the catalyst that led to his ultimate return and settling back in his homeland in 1936, the tragic consequences of which were yet to be known. With both professional and personal problems that ensued until his early death in 1953, this film reveals Prokofiev’s musical genius and his human failings. Contributors include his son Sviatoslav and Soviet cultural bureaucrat Tichon Chrenikov, Valery Gergiev, and Karen Khachaturian.

From the Rai “Arturo Toscanini” Auditorium, Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov, together with the Rai Orchestra's principal trumpet Roberto Rossi, performs Dmitri Shostakovich's Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet, and Strings, Op. 26. Conducting is James Feddeck, who opens and closes the concert with two works by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: the Overture from the Concerto in B minor, Op. 26, “The Hebrides,” and Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56, known as the “Scottish.”