Visions Fugitives by PROKOFIEV

David Rubinstein's recording of Prokofiev's Visions Fugitives was originally produced by Musical Heritage Society and the recording session took place at the Columbia Studios on 30th Street in New York City in September 1972. The recording was re-issued on the Musicus label in 2007, with Rubinstein's own liner notes: "The one outstanding quality about Prokofiev’s music that eluded his earlier critics was its lyricism, and this is odd because it is present in all of his works. It may be surmised that it was the intensity of his rhythms (which were nowhere as complex as Stravinsky’s) and the unique character of his harmonies which may have camaflouged the aspect of his music which, in Prokofiev’s own words, was the most important to him. Or it may be a case of selective listening. The twenty short pieces which comprise Visions Fugitives were inspired by a line from a poem by Balmont: “In every fugitive vision I see worlds full of the changing play of rainbow hues.” Prokofiev composed these pieces in his mid-twenties, between 1915 and 1917. Each one is a world of color, even in the most percussive ones. In each of them one can find typical examples of his styles: the melancholic lyricism of Nos.1 and 16, the driving rhythms of Nos.14 and 15, the buffoonery of No.10, the dreaminess of No.18. The fleeting No.19 is immersed in the violence of the 1917 Russian Revolution."