I. Andante – Allegro II. Tema con variazioni. Tema. Andantino Var. 1. L’istesso tempo
Var. 2. Allegro Var. 3. Allegro moderato Var. 4. Andantino meditativo Var. 5. Allegro giusto
Tema. L’istesso tempo III. Allegro ma non troppo

There was almost an almighty scandal at the prize giving ceremony of the 1914 Anton Rubinstein award. Alexander Glazunov, the director of the St Petersburg Conservatoire, could hardly be persuaded to hand over the first prize to the winner of the piano competition. He sensed every gesture of the 23 year old Prokofiev (1891-1953) to be a provocation: while other young musicians played works by  Liszt and Saint-Saëns, the young Prokofiev incensed the conservative professors with a rendition of this own First Piano Concerto. Although the verdict of the jury was announced, Prokofiev was soon thrown out of the institution.

A few years later, Prokofiev was spending the summer in Brittany. He divided up his days in a very strict fashion: "I arise at 8.30," he wrote in a letter, "and after drinking my hot chocolate, see if the garden is still there. Then I get down to work: I am working on my third piano concerto." This was followed by meals, chess parties, piano playing and swimming, in a similarly regimented order. In May 1919 Prokofiev left the Soviet Union, planning to do so for only a short period. By 1920 it became evident to him that his sojourn in the West would have to be extended. A year later in the summer of 1921, he resumed composition of his Piano Concerto No. 3. He largely recycled earlier ideas and material: for the theme of the second movement Andantino, he takes a sketch from 1913 and two variations from 1916-1917. The two themes of the opening movement date from a sketch from the same years, as well as extracts from an experimental "white quartet" (which, if it were transcribed from piano, would only utilise the white notes.) Thus Prokofiev uses musical ideas drawn from different periods in his new concerto. But as so often with Prokofiev, he is able to impose a unified structure on it all, while creating a highly variegated composition.