Sergei Prokofiev was not only a great composer but also a virtuoso pianist who gave concerts in the Soviet Union and abroad. His repertoire included pieces by Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and other composers.

Newspaper reviews of Prokofiev’s concerts were published under such titles as “A Titan Pianist”, “A Piano Cubist and Futurist”, “The Russian Chaos in Music”, “A Volcanic Eruption Behind a Keyboard”, “A Carnival of Cacophony”, and “A Mammoth Attack on the Asian Plateau”. His lively playing was often compared to the poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Prokofiev was at his best when performing his own compositions. “The best performance of Prokofiev’s music, or of any other good music for that matter, is one in which the personality of the performer does not obtrude in any way. That is precisely what one could say of Prokofiev’s playing, ” said the violinist David Oistrakh. The Soviet writer Vladimir Lyovshin described his impressions of seeing the composer on stage, “Having given a somewhat sideward bow, Sergei Sergeyevich sat down and spend a lot of time getting settled in front of the piano. He moved the chair back and forth. He adjusted the tails of his coat. Then he inspected the piano keys carefully as if checking whether all of them were in place and started rubbing his hands as if he was washing them carefully. Finally, he looked somewhere above — maybe at Schubert or Mozart — and gave a slight nod as if saying hello to them. On stage, he behaved in his own unique manner: he did not sway, close his eyes, or shake his head as most musicians. Instead, throughout his playing, he stayed perfectly impassive on the outside. The audience, on the contrary, was completely electrified and broke into tumultuous applause over and over again! How did he achieve that? That was a mystery, the artist’s professional secret. He seemed to be saying, ‘Everything is quite simple. You can see the piano, its strings, keys, and pedals. What I do with them to touch your hearts is no business of yours! ’”