# A la Prokofiev composers (?)



## Niebolaz (Jul 9, 2009)

I'm looking for composers whose music has that peculiar tinge of irony/sarcasm that I love in Prokofiev and find very refreshing. Perhaps the word peculiar is a bit misplaced; any composer's work you feel you could call ironic/sarcastic will do..


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## mueske (Jan 14, 2009)

Bella Bartok has that sometimes, as well as Shostakovich. That quirky side, I love it as well. Perhaps a stranger recommendation, Beethoven's second symphony. The finale always makes me laugh, very ironic theme.


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Poulenc's music is very refreshing and sometimes amusing. Shostakovich has already been said.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I second Poulenc, and 3rd Shostakovich.

Hindemith too! He can be very humorous too, but perhaps not as bitter.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Shostakovich, yes, especially 1st piano concerto with famous trumpet.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Maybe the grand-daddy of _Les Six _(Poulenc has already been mentioned), *Erik Satie*? His ballet _Relache_ is particularly ironic (from what I've read), even the title which means something like "show cancelled" in French. When "relache" is posted on the door of the theatre, it's telling the audience to go back home, the show has been cancelled. The ballet itself (again, based on what I've read about it), has a man walking around the stage naked, a film of a camel herd, and in the end the composer was meant to enter riding a mock car. Probably more wierd than ironic, but (obviously) meant to break the conservative conventions of the French ballet. It was apparently a huge influence on people like John Cage later on in the C20th.

Another work I've read about & not actually heard, is *Gyorgy Ligeti's* only opera _Le Grand Macabre_. It's about the end of the world, but after this "event" happens, things go on as usual. It's quite famous for the prelude, which is played on car horns. Again, there's a certain sense of irony/sarcasm in the way the composer is deliberately breaking well-established musical conventions, in this case, those of grand opera.

I wouldn't say that either of these composer's styles are remotely like that of Prokofiev, but rather like him, they are deliberately being cheeky (enfant terrible)...


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## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Although probably ironic etc to a lesser degree than Prokofiev and Shostakovich, I think Stravinsky could be mentioned here. Like his Ragtime for 11 instruments.


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## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

What about Kabalevsky? He might have been a conformist, but to my ears, there is something of hidden nostalgia and bitter-sweetness in his music, too.


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## JSK (Dec 31, 2008)

You might like Poulenc. I kind of think of him. His style is more conservative and French than Prokofiev's, but his music does have many similar quirky, sarcastic, and impulsive qualities.


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## Guest (May 16, 2010)

You might also try Aram Khachaturian, a very well-known contemporary of Prokofiev and Shosty.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*Prokofiev...*

has no equal...his Three-oranges march is SO burlesque! It is fantastique!

Martin


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