Composer of the Week - Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) - Episode 5

The final programme of the week ranges from the sublime to the abject; Prokofiev measures up magnificently to Tolstoy in his operatic presentation of War and Peace, but his Story of a Real Man is a doomed attempt to appease the Soviet authorities - by this point in his career, the composer was irretrievably out of favour with Stalin. Before things had got that far, Prokofiev collaborated for the second and last time with Sergei Eisenstein, on the film Ivan the Terrible, which was at least partly to Stalin's taste. And to finish, music from the composer's last completed work, The Tale of the Stone Flower.