Cooling the volcano: Prokofiev's Cello Concerto Op. 58 and Symphony-Concerto Op. 125

Prokofiev was writing cello music all his life, starting with an early Ballade (1912), to his very last and incomplete piece, the Sonata for Solo Cello Op. 133 (1953). Prokofiev's cello writing in the late period of his life was inspired by the young Mstislav Rostropovich, who began his brilliant concert career in the 1940s. The Cello Concerto No. 1 Op. 58 and its later version, the Symphony-Concerto Op. 125, completed in collaboration with Rostropovich, are very different works. The writing for cello is much more idiomatic in the Symphony-Concerto. The innovative technical discoveries in the Symphony-Concerto influenced Russian composers over the next few decades (including Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Concertos).

The Concerto No. 1 is still very much related to Prokofiev's early, often experimental style, while the Symphony-Concerto is sometimes seen as an example of the so-called "degradation" of this style and is considered by many as a typically "Soviet" work.