Prokofiev Symphony No. 2 in d minor, Op. 40

When Prokofiev was living in France in the 1920s he came under criticism for failing to write truly innovative or daring music; in the thrall of the fashionable Les Six, some charged that he was relying on older works to prop up his reputation. This unforgiving attitude toward the composer emerged when Honneger s Pacific 231, a work depicting the sounds and mechanistic rhythms of a locomotive fashioned in the socalled style mécanique had just scored a colossal triumph. Therefore, Prokofiev decided he