Prokofiev's String Quartet No. 2
Composers Datebook · Sep 5, 2026 · 1:59
Composers Datebook · Sep 5, 2026 · 1:59
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In 1941, as the German army was overrunning Russia, the Soviet government evacuated important artists to remote places of safety. Composer Sergei Prokofiev, for example, found himself in the little town of Nalchik, nestled in the foothills of the northern Caucasus Mountains about 1000 miles away from the front.
He was intrigued by the region’s folk music, and, taking a break from a big project to turn Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace into an opera, composed his String Quartet No. 2, based on local tunes. The new work was, as he put it, “a combination of virtually untouched folk material and the most classical of classical forms, the string quartet.”
Its three movements are all based on local songs and dances, and he took care not to smooth out any roughness in the original material.
His new string quartet received its premiere performance back in Moscow in April of 1942, at a concert given by The Beethoven Quartet. A later performance on today’s date that same year was delayed due to a German air raid. The new music was well received, and Prokofiev, perhaps with the air raid in mind, supposedly called the premiere “an extremely turbulent success.”
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): String Quartet No. 2
