Seong-Jin Cho Reclaims Prokofiev’s Clarity

Seong-Jin Cho’s recent Prokofiev cycle reconciles Russian gravitational attack with a clarity that reveals the composer’s neo-classical architecture. His performance avoids the percussive caricature that has plagued Prokofiev interpretation since the mid-20th century, favoring instead a transparency that prioritizes contrapuntal legibility. This approach mirrors the clarity of the Vienna Philharmonic’s recording culture of the analog era, where structural detail was never sacrificed for brute force. By treating Prokofiev as an heir to Haydn as much as a modernist iconoclast, Cho recovers the wit and precision of the scores, demonstrating that the composer’s sound world is built on harmonic logic rather than mere volume.