Visions fugitives

When he composed the first of his Visions fugitives (literally Fleeting visions) in 1915, Prokofiev was a well-established enfant terrible composer pianist, whose ferocious yet mischievous playing style contrasted with Rachmaninoff’s more stately and poised manner. He eventually completed this cycle of 20 piano pieces—brief yet ear-catching and well-contrasted musical vignettes—in 1917, shortly after the February Revolution, the violence of which inspired its penultimate piece, “Presto agitatissimo”. The overall title was inspired by lines by the Symbolist poet, Konstantin Balmont: “In every fleeting vision I see worlds / Filled with the fickle play of rainbows.” Prokofiev’s succinct pieces may have taken some inspiration from Scriabin, a composer he much admired, and his Op. 11 set of Preludes. But rather than illustrate the character of each key used in classical music, Prokofiev’s potent fragments or musical snapshots capture a range of moods or atmospheres. Some pieces are rapt with enchantment, such as “Pittoresco”; others full of an apparently artless yet beguiling lyricism such as “Commodo”; or thrilling or malevolent, as in “Inquieto”. The whole cycle begins with a limpid “Lentamente” and ends with an equally slow and dream-like “Lento irrealmente”.