Music and Time Annotation << Back Fifth Piano Concerto by Sergei Prokofiev: an Unsuccessful Creative Experiment or an Underrated Masterpiece? V.I. Chernyshov Among all Prokofiev's completed piano concertos, the Fifth deserves special consideration. Putting aside the left-handed Fourth Concerto, the Fifth differs significantly from its predecessors (the First, Second and Third concertos), and not only in the appearance of the piano part, but also in the updated musical language. In the 1920s, when the composer's work was in crisis, Prokofiev artificially created a new style named «new simplicity». This style subsequently left its mark on the music of the Fourth and Fifth piano concertos. The first performances of the Fifth Concerto by the author, and then by Sviatoslav Richter, did not make quite an impression on the audience, because the music of this composition seemed complicated at that time. It still seems complicated to us today, since in the last, say, 70 years, the Fifth concert has not been able to take a notable position either in the concert repertoire of the world’s leading pianists, or on the posters of prestigious concert halls. The author aims to determine the reasons for unclaimed work, by analyzing music of concerto and the piano part separately, with its «technical inventions» that are so dear to the composer, being a first-rate pianist. Keywords: Sergei Prokofiev, Fifth piano concerto by Prokofi ev, new simplicity, col pugno, Sviatoslav Richter, Sergei Babayan. Pp. 14-23.