The most outstanding of the five piano concertos composed by Serge Prokofiev (1891-1953) ist the Third Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 26, written between 1916 and 1922; Prokofiev interrupted his work on this concerto after his departure from Russia, but returned to it in the storming year of 1921 when the curve of his American success was rising and falling in alternation. He himself first performed the work in Chicago on December, 16th, 1922, with Frederick Stock conducting and shortly afterwards in New York. He considered this work the best of his půiano concertos, and played it many times preparing each successive performance much more diligently than his other concerts. It is characteristic that he included this concerto in the programme of the first symphonic concert given, after his return to his native country, in Moscow, on January, 24th, 1927. This is no chance occurence: for after the Concerto for Violin (1913), the "Overture on Jewish Themes" and the opera "The Love of Three Oranges" (1919), this Concerto again proves the composer's close attachment to Russian fold musicality.
Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904) is today an important representative of Soviet music not only as a composer, but also as a learned theoretician, excellent teacher, musical critic and a leading public figure. As a composer, he was ciefly influenced by the creative example of N. J. Miaskovsky; from him he has learned to use simple musical idiom to express himself in broadly singing melodies.
The Hird Piano Concerto, written at the end of the Fifties, belongs, together with the concertos for Violin and for Violoncello, to the three concertos dedicated to Soviet youth. Of the three, the Third Piano Concerto is probably the one mostly characterized by a clear texture and transparency of its piano stylization and orchestration.