Prokofiev Pas de Deux

Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon
Costumes: Narciso Rodriguez
Lighting: Penny Jacobus

World Premiere: September 19, 2007, Morphoses, Sadler's Wells Theatre, London
Dancers: Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg

Music: "Andante assai" from Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63, 1935. Used by arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., publisher and copyright owner.

The Second Concerto was Prokofiev's last commission from Western Europe. Most of the score was written in Russia, and its "sound" has more in common with his later Soviet-period music than any of his Parisian scores. Compared to the First Violin Concerto, the Second is altogether more serious, meditative, and restrained. Its style has strong affinities with the music of Romeo and Juliet, which was composed at approximately the same time. The structure of the work is less laconic and more conventional than that of its predecessor, and its mellow richness and melodic beauty of the central Andante is almost Bachian in feel - though Prokofiev's characteristic whimsiness is never entirely absent.

- Rita McAllister

Commissioned by Sadler's Wells Theatre, London.