Visions fugitives, No. 3 (Allegretto)

Prokofiev's Visions fugitives, Op. 22 (1915–17) are twenty short pieces that sit at the centre of the early-Soviet piano repertoire. The set is a cycle of fleeting musical sketches — each piece is under two minutes — and the pieces explore Prokofiev's characteristic harmonic vocabulary at compressed scale: chromatic side-steps, percussive articulation, modal colour, and motoric rhythm.

No. 3 is an Allegretto and tests two specific Grade 7 priorities: a clean, percussive articulation in both hands sustained at a brisk tempo, and a sense of harmonic colour that includes Prokofiev's characteristic chromatic side-steps from a tonal centre. The right hand carries a witty, motoric melodic line; the left hand provides a sparse, precisely-articulated accompaniment. The piece is short — under ninety seconds — but the technical and stylistic demands are real.

Two pitfalls. First, students who hear the speed and lean into it lose the precision — Prokofiev's writing rewards a tempo that allows every articulation to speak. Second, the chromatic inflections can be played as wrong notes rather than as colour; lean into them and let them speak as the substance of Prokofiev's harmonic language.

Prokofiev's Op. 22 is on IMSLP in clean public-domain editions in territories where the composer's work has entered the public domain; in others, the music remains under copyright. Several reference recordings (Sviatoslav Richter's complete cycle is canonical) calibrate the right Soviet-era poise.