At its 1913 premiere, the Second Piano Concerto (dedicated to a recently deceased friend) was divisive, deemed by some listeners to be too futuristic: "The cats on the roof make better music!" After the original score was destroyed in a fire, Prokofiev reconstructed it ten years later, so heavily revised that, in his words, it "could almost be considered [Concerto] No. 4." In four movements with the first and final lasting longer than the middle two, the concerto evokes rapidly shifting atmospheres, somber and lively and full of irony—and the diabolically difficult piano part requires a pianist of Debargue's considerable talents!

Photo: Yuri Simonov © Ivan Smirnov, Lucas Debargue © Felix Broede

Lucas Debargue appears courtesy of Sony Classical.