Born on 23 April 1891, Sergei Prokofiev's musical ambitions were fuelled by hearing his mother playing Chopin and Beethoven on the piano in the evenings.Young Sergei composed his first piano piece at five and his first opera aged nine. In 1904, the 13-year old Prokofiev and his mother were introduced to the composer Glazunov, professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was so impressed that he urged Sergei to apply to study there. Several years younger than most of his classmates at the Conservatory, Prokofiev was viewed as eccentric and arrogant, often expressing his dissatisfaction with the education, which he found boring. Prokofiev initially made his name as a composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of difficult works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos.The second caused a scandal at its 1913 premiere.The audience reportedly left the hall with exclamations of "The cats on the roof make better music!" Prokofiev's first major orchestral success was the Scythian Suite, compiled from music he composed for the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned three more ballets from After the Russian Revolution, Prokofiev left his homeland with the Soviet Union's official blessing. He lived in the USA, then Germany and Paris. Prokofiev's first love was opera. He composed several, including The Gambler and The Fiery Angel. But his most successful was the satirical 'The Love for Three Oranges’. In 1938, Prokofiev collaborated with film director Eisenstein on Alexander Nevsky. Prokofiev composed some of his most brilliant and dramatic music. He later adapted much of his score into a large-scale cantata for mezzo-soprano, orchestra and chorus, which was extensively performed and recorded. Towards the end of his life, Prokofiev enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably the pianist Richter and cellist Rostropovich for whom he composed his Symphony-Concerto. Prokofiev died at the age of 61 on 5 March 1953, the day Stalin's death was announced. For three days as the throngs gathered to mourn Stalin, it was impossible to carry Prokofiev's body out of his home for burial. Death of Tybalt, Opus 64a/7 (Suite 1) The seventh of Prokofiev’s nine ballets is his setting of Romeo and Juliet, which has become a treasured classic. Early traumas stalking the ballet could have derailed its ultimate popularity, not only in the dance format but in the three orchestral suites as well. Act III opens with fighting between Capulet and Montague servants and the hot-headed Tybalt enters into the mix. This ferocious setting generates perpetual motion music in depicting the opening turmoil and then focuses in on a terrible duel between Tybalt and Romeo. In his fury, Tybalt has already killed Mercutio, whose famous final words were “A plague on both your houses.” After Romeo kills Tybalt, to even the score, he exclaims, “O I am fortune’s fool.” The score of Death of Tybalt is perfectly suited to the wind orchestra medium, but places great technical demands, especially on the clarinets and saxophones.