By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER

The daring works Prokofiev wrote while a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory dismayed his conservative teachers, including Glazunov. But Prokofiev, the enfant terrible composer, found a lively outlet for his adventurous music in the Evenings for Contemporary Music, rowdy and bohemian monthly concerts organized by avant-garde enthusiasts.

...

The fine pianist Frederic Chiu played the fiery chromatic scales of Prokofiev’s dark-hued Étude No. 3 in C minor (from Four Études for Piano, Op. 2) with aplomb, as well as the Four Pieces for Piano (Op. 3). “Story” is quietly lyrical, but in “Jest” and “March” Prokofiev displays his penchant for quirky harmonies and grotesquerie.

...

His vocal works received a warm reception at the Evenings for Contemporary Music, unlike Schoenberg’s Three Pieces for Piano (Op. 11), which elicited derisive laughter and catcalls when Prokofiev played them. But other audience members were reportedly impressed that Prokofiev had made “real music” out of them. Mr. Chiu aptly illuminated the elegiac quality of the first two pieces and played the atonal finale with intensity.

 

Serialist composers like Schoenberg and Webern — whose spare Three Little Pieces for Cello and Piano (Op. 11) were performed by Mr. Chiu and Timothy Eddy (the Orion Quartet’s cellist) — were later touted by the Soviets as evidence of the “rotting musical culture” of the West.

 

Mr. Chiu also offered an enjoyable performance of Alexander Tcherepnin’s whimsical Bagatelles for Piano (Op. 5). These characterful miniatures sometimes reflect the influence of Prokofiev, who studied with Nikolai Tcherepnin, Alexander’s father.

...