Since 1991the year that marked both the fall of the Soviet Union and the centenary of Sergey Prokofievs birtha new assessment of the renowned composers life and work has become both possible and necessary. In this engrossing book, David Nice draws on a remarkable range of previously unexamined sources to present that reassessment. The book follows Prokofievs personal and musical progression from his childhood on a Ukrainian country estate to the years he spent traveling in America and Europe as an acclaimed interpreter of his own works. Nice sheds new light on Prokofievs early years at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, his departure from Russia in 1918 for what he thought would be a short tour of America, and his marriage and family relationships. He considers the music of Prokofievs years in the west (long dismissed by Soviet musicologists as decadent work weakened by the composers absence from the motherland), moving from the lyricism of his St Petersburg years to the fresh simplicity of his early Soviet scores. Nice also examines the complex reasons which led Prokofiev to move his family to the Soviet Union in 1936. A second volume will cover Prokofievs life from this period to his death in 1953.