Siuita No. 3, iz baleta "Zolushka": dlia simfonicheskogo orchestra, soch. 109. Partitura [Suite no. 3 from the ballet "Cinderella": for the symphony orchestra, comp. 109. Score]. Full score by Prokofiev (Prokof'ev), Sergei - 1954

1954. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Muzykal'noe Izdatel'stvo, 1954. Quarto (29 × 22 cm). Original illustrated wrappers; 100 pp. Small chip to upper corner of front wrapper, else very good. First edition. An excerpt from the ballet "Cinderella," considered by many (including Galina Ulanova, who danced the part of Cinderella) to be the best ballet by Sergei Prokofiev. The ballet was written in 1940-1944, with the final sections completed during WWII, while the composer was living in evacuation in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. In parallel to his work on this ballet, Prokofiev was also collaborating with Sergei Eisenstein on music for the film "Ivan the Terrible," as well as an opera based on Tolstoy's "War and Peace." The ballet opened at the Bolshoi Theater shortly after the end of the war in the fall of 1945. This is one of the three excerpts authorized by the composer, and the first to be published as a freestanding edition. This selection was first performed independently on the radio in 1947.<br/><br/>Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) is considered one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. An early talent and a reputed rebel of classical music, in his creative life he composed eight ballets, seven operas, seven symphonies, nine piano sonatas and much more. In 1918, following the two Russian revolutions, Prokofiev left Russia for the United States, subsequently living in France and Germany before re-settling in the Soviet Union in 1936. Finding himself in Soviet Russia in the darkest of times, Prokofiev continued to lead a productive creative life, even as he was "encouraged" to write patriotic pieces such as his 1939 "Zdravitsa" (Cheers) to celebrate Joseph Stalin's sixtieth birthday. Prokofiev also had the misfortune of dying on the same day as the great leader, on March 3, 1953, with his death going virtually unnoticed by the Soviet press and the public. For more information see Shlifstein S. and Rose Prokofieva (trans.), Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (2000). Publisher's catalog to rear wrapper. KVK, OCLC show copies at NYPL, Penn, Oberlin, Wayne State, Baylor University (Texas), Cambridge, and Universitatsbibliothek Mainz. One of only 370 copies printed.