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Alexander Scriabin

June 22, 2023

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Nikolayevich and the family name is Scriabin.

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin[n 1] (6 January 1872 [O.S. 25 December 1871] – 27 April [O.S. 14 April] 1915) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed in a relatively tonal, late-Romantic idiom. Later, and independently of his influential contemporary Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed a much more dissonant musical language that had transcended usual tonality but was not atonal,[3] which accorded with his personal brand of metaphysics. Scriabin found significant appeal in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk as well as synesthesia, and associated colours with the various harmonic tones of his scale, while his colour-coded circle of fifths was also inspired by theosophy. He is often considered the main Russian Symbolist composer and a major representative of the Russian Silver Age.[3]

Alexander Scriabin
Александр Скрябин
Born
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin

(1871-12-25)25 December 1871
(N.S. (1872-01-06)6 January 1872)
Moscow, Russian Empire
Died14 April 1915(1915-04-14) (aged 43)
Moscow, Russian Empire
Occupations
  • Composer
  • pianist
WorksList of compositions
Signature

Scriabin was an innovator as well as one of the most controversial composer-pianists of the early 20th century. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia said of him, "no composer has had more scorn heaped on him or greater love bestowed." Leo Tolstoy described Scriabin's music as "a sincere expression of genius."[4] Scriabin's oeuvre exerted a salient influence on the music world over time, and inspired composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev,[5] and Karol Szymanowski. But Scriabin's importance in the Russian (subsequently Soviet) musical scene, and internationally, drastically declined after his death. According to his biographer Faubion Bowers, "No one was more famous during their lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after death."[6][page needed] Nevertheless, his musical aesthetics have been reevaluated since the 1970s, and his ten published sonatas for piano and other works have been increasingly championed, garnering significant acclaim in recent years.[7]

Biography

Childhood and education (1872–1893)

 
A young Alexander Scriabin (late 1870s)

Scriabin was born in Moscow into a Russian noble family on Christmas Day, 1871, according to the Julian Calendar. His father, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Scriabin, then a student at the Moscow State University, belonged to a modest noble family founded by Scriabin's great-grandfather Ivan Alekseevich Scriabin, a soldier from Tula who had a brilliant military career and was granted hereditary nobility in 1819.[8] Alexander's paternal grandmother, Elizaveta Ivanovna Podchertkova, daughter of a captain lieutenant, came from a wealthy noble house of the Novgorod Governorate.[9] His mother, Lyubov Petrovna Scriabina (née Schetinina), was a concert pianist and a former student of Theodor Leschetizky. She belonged to an ancient dynasty that traced its history back to Rurik; its founder, Semyon Feodorovich Yaroslavskiy, nicknamed Schetina (from the Russian schetina meaning stubble), was the great-grandson of Vasili, Prince of Yaroslavl.[10] She died of tuberculosis when Alexander was only a year old.[11]

After her death, Nikolai Scriabin completed tuition in the Turkish language in St. Petersburg's Institute of Oriental Languages and left for Turkey. Like all his relatives, he followed a military path and served as a military attaché in the status of Active State Councillor; he was appointed an honorary consul in Lausanne during his later years.[6][page needed][8] Alexander's father left the infant Sasha (as he was known) with his grandmother, great-aunt, and aunt. Scriabin's father later remarried, giving Scriabin a number of half-brothers and sisters. His aunt Lyubov (his father's unmarried sister) was an amateur pianist who documented Sasha's early life until he met his first wife. As a child, Scriabin was frequently exposed to piano playing; anecdotal references describe him demanding that his aunt play for him.

Apparently precocious, Scriabin began building pianos after becoming fascinated with piano mechanisms. He sometimes gave houseguests pianos he had built. Lyubov portrays Scriabin as very shy and unsociable with his peers, but appreciative of adult attention. According to one anecdote, Scriabin tried to conduct an orchestra composed of local children, an attempt that ended in frustration and tears. He performed his own plays and operas with puppets to willing audiences. He studied the piano from an early age, taking lessons with Nikolai Zverev, a strict disciplinarian, who was also the teacher of Sergei Rachmaninoff and other piano prodigies, though Scriabin was not a pensioner like Rachmaninoff.[6][page needed]

 
Zverev's students in the late 1880s. Scriabin, with military attire, is second from the left. Rachmaninoff is the fourth from the right.

In 1882, Scriabin enlisted in the Second Moscow Cadet Corps. As a student, he became friends with the actor Leonid Limontov, who in his memoirs recalls his reluctance to become friends with Scriabin, who was the smallest and weakest among all the boys and sometimes teased due to his stature.[12] But Scriabin won his peers' approval at a concert where he performed on the piano.[13] He ranked generally first in his class academically, but was exempt from drilling due to his physique and given time each day to practice piano.

Scriabin later studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Anton Arensky, Sergei Taneyev, and Vasily Safonov. He became a noted pianist despite his small hands, which could barely stretch to a ninth. Feeling challenged by Josef Lhévinne, he damaged his right hand while practicing Franz Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan and Mily Balakirev's Islamey.[14] His doctor said he would never recover, and he wrote his first large-scale masterpiece, his Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 6, as a "cry against God, against fate." It was the third sonata he wrote, but the first to which he gave an opus number (his second was condensed and released as the Allegro Appassionato, Op. 4). He eventually regained the use of his hand.[14]

In 1892 he graduated with the Little Gold Medal in piano performance, but did not complete a composition degree because of strong personality and musical differences with Arensky (whose faculty signature is the only one absent from Scriabin's graduation certificate) and an unwillingness to compose pieces in forms that did not interest him.[15]

Early career (1894–1903)

In 1894, Scriabin made his debut as a pianist in St. Petersburg, performing his own works to positive reviews. The same year, Mitrofan Belyayev agreed to pay Scriabin to compose for his publishing company (he published works by notable composers such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov).[16] In August 1897, Scriabin married the pianist Vera Ivanovna Isakovich, and then toured in Russia and abroad, culminating in a successful 1898 concert in Paris. That year he became a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory and began to establish his reputation as a composer. During this period he composed his cycle of études, Op. 8, several sets of preludes, his first three piano sonatas, and his only piano concerto, among other works, mostly for piano.

For five years, Scriabin was based in Moscow, during which time his old teacher Safonov conducted the first two of Scriabin's symphonies.

According to later reports, between 1901 and 1903 Scriabin envisioned writing an opera. He expounded its ideas in the course of normal conversation. The work would center around a nameless hero, a philosopher-musician-poet. Among other things, he would declare: I am the apotheosis of world creation. I am the aim of aims, the end of ends.[17] The Poem Op. 32 No. 2 and the Poème tragique Op. 34 were originally conceived as arias in the opera.[18]

Leaving Russia (1903–09)

By 13 March 1904, Scriabin and his wife had relocated to Geneva, Switzerland. While living here, Scriabin separated legally from his wife, with whom he had had four children. He also began working on his Symphony No. 3 here. The work was performed in Paris during 1905, where Scriabin was accompanied by Tatiana Fyodorovna Schlözer—a former pupil and the niece of the pianist and composer Paul de Schlözer[6][page needed] and sister of the music critic Boris de Schlözer. Tatiana would become Scriabin's second wife, with whom Scriabin had other children.

With a wealthy sponsor's financial assistance, Scriabin spent several years travelling in Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium and the United States, working on more orchestral pieces, including several symphonies. He also began to compose "poems" for the piano, a form with which he is particularly associated. While in New York City, in 1907, he became acquainted with the Canadian composer Alfred La Liberté, who became a personal friend and disciple.[19]

In 1907, Scriabin settled in Paris with his family and was involved with a series of concerts organized by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was actively promoting Russian music in the West at the time. He subsequently relocated to Brussels (rue de la Réforme 45) with his family.

 
Scriabin (sitting on the left of the table) as a guest at Wladimir Metzl's home in Berlin, 1910

Return to Russia (1909–15)

In 1909, Scriabin permanently returned to Russia, where he continued to compose, working on increasingly grandiose projects. For some time before his death he had planned a multimedia work, to be performed in the Himalayas, that would cause a so-called "armageddon", "a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world."[20][failed verification] Scriabin left only sketches for this piece, Mysterium, although a preliminary part, L'acte préalable ("Prefatory Action"), was eventually made into a performable version by Alexander Nemtin [de].[21] Part of that unfinished piece was performed with the title Prefatory Action by Vladimir Ashkenazy in Berlin with Alexei Lubimov at the piano. Nemtin eventually completed a second portion ("Mankind") and a third ("Transfiguration"), and Ashkenazy recorded his entire two-and-a-half-hour completion with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for Decca. Several late pieces published during Scriabin's lifetime are believed to have been intended for Mysterium, such as the Two Dances, Op. 73.[22]

Death

Scriabin gave his last concert on 2 April 1915 in St. Petersburg, performing a large programme of his own works. He received rave reviews from music critics, who called his playing "most inspiring and affecting", and wrote, "his eyes flashed fire and his face radiated happiness". Scriabin himself wrote that during his performance of his Sonata No. 3, Op. 23, "I completely forgot I was playing in a hall with people around me. This happens very rarely to me on the platform." He elaborated that he normally "had to watch himself very carefully, look at himself as if from afar, to keep himself in control."[23]

Scriabin returned triumphantly to his Moscow apartment on 4 April. He noticed a resurgence of a little pimple on his right upper lip. He had mentioned the pimple as early as 1914 while in London. His temperature rose, and he took to bed and cancelled his Moscow concert for 11 April. The pimple became a pustule, then a carbuncle and a furuncle. Scriabin's doctor remarked that the sore looked "like purple fire". His temperature shot up to 41 °C (106 °F) and he was now bedridden. Incisions were made on 12 April, but the sore had already begun to poison his blood, and he became delirious. Bowers writes: "Intractably and inexplicably, a simple spot had grown into a terminal ailment."[24] On 14 April 1915, at age 43 and at the height of his career, Scriabin died in his Moscow apartment.[25]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Alexander Scriabin and Category:Compositions by Alexander Scriabin
 
The beginning of Scriabin's Étude, Op. 8, No. 12
 
"Étude Op. 8 No. 12"
Awadagin Pratt performs Alexander Scriabin's Étude, Op. 8, No. 12 at the White House Classical Music Student Workshop Concert. (2009-11-04)
Étude Op. 8 No. 12
Étude, Op. 8, No. 12. played by Domenico Stigliani
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Rather than seeking musical versatility, Scriabin was happy to write almost exclusively for solo piano and for orchestra.[26] His earliest piano pieces resemble Chopin's and include music in many genres that Chopin employed, such as the étude, the prelude, the nocturne, and the mazurka. Scriabin's music rapidly evolved over the course of his life. The mid- and late-period pieces use very unusual harmonies and textures.

The development of Scriabin's style can be traced in his ten piano sonatas: the earliest are composed in a fairly conventional late-Romantic manner and reveal the influence of Chopin and sometimes Liszt, but the later ones are very different, the last five lacking a key signature. Many passages in them can be said to be tonally vague, though from 1903 through 1908, "tonal unity was almost imperceptibly replaced by harmonic unity."[27]

First period (1880s–1903)

Scriabin's first period is usually considered to last from his earliest pieces to his Symphony No. 2, Op. 29. The works from this period adhere to the romantic tradition, employing common-practice harmonic language. But Scriabin's voice is present from the very beginning, in this case by his fondness for the dominant function[28] and added tone chords.[29]

 
Common spellings of the dominant chord and its extensions during the common practice period. From left to right: dominant seventh, dominant ninth, dominant thirteenth, dominant seventh with raised fifth, dominant seventh with a rising chromatic appoggiatura on the fifth, and dominant seventh flattened fifth.

Scriabin's early harmonic language was especially fond of the 13th dominant chord, usually with the 7th, 3rd, and 13th spelled in fourths.[30] This voicing can also be seen in several of Chopin's works.[30] According to Peter Sabbagh, this voicing was the main generating source of the later mystic chord.[29] More importantly, Scriabin was fond of simultaneously combining two or more different dominant-seventh enhancements, such as 9ths, altered 5ths, and raised 11ths. But despite these tendencies, slightly more dissonant than usual for the time, all these dominant chords were treated according to the traditional rules: the added tones resolved to the corresponding adjacent notes, and the whole chord was treated as a dominant, fitting inside tonality and diatonic, functional harmony.[29]

 
Examples[31] of enhanced dominant chords in Scriabin's early work. Extracted from the Mazurkas Op. 3 (1888–1890): No. 1, mm. 19–20, 68; No. 4, mm. 65–67.

Second period (1903–07)

This period begins with Scriabin's Sonata No. 4, Op. 30, and ends around his Sonata No. 5, Op. 53 and the Poem of Ecstasy, Op. 54. During this period, Scriabin's music becomes more chromatic and dissonant, yet still mostly adheres to functional tonality. As dominant chords are more and more extended, they gradually lose their tensive function. Scriabin wanted his music to have a radiant, shining feeling, and attempted this by raising the number of chord tones. During this time, complex forms like the mystic chord are hinted at, but still show their roots in Chopinesque harmony.[29]

At first, the added dissonances resolve conventionally according to voice leading, but the focus slowly shifts to a system in which chord coloring is most important. Later on, fewer dissonances in the dominant chords are resolved. According to Sabbagh, "the dissonances are frozen, solidified in a color-like effect in the chord"; the added notes become part of it.[29]

Third period (1907–15)

I decided that the more higher tones there are in harmony, it would turn out to be more radiant, sharper and more brilliant. But it was necessary to organize the notes giving them a logical arrangement. Therefore, I took the usual thirteenth-chord, which is arranged in thirds. But it is not that important to accumulate high tones. To make it shining, conveying the idea of light, a greater number of tones had to be raised in the chord. And, therefore, I raise the tones: At first I take the shining major third, then I also raise the fifth, and the eleventh—thus forming my chord—which is raised completely and, therefore, really shining.[32][33]

According to Samson, while the sonata form of Scriabin's Sonata No. 5 has some meaning to the work's tonal structure, in his Sonatas Nos. 6, Op. 62 and 7, Op. 64 formal tensions are created by the absence of harmonic contrast and "between the cumulative momentum of the music, usually achieved by textural rather than harmonic means, and the formal constraints of the tripartite mould". He also argues that the Poem of Ecstasy and Vers la flamme "find a much happier co-operation of 'form' and 'content'" and that later sonatas, such as No. 9, Op. 68 ("Black Mass"), employ a more flexible sonata form.[27]

According to Claude Herndon, in Scriabin's late music "tonality has been attenuated to the point of virtual extinction, although dominant sevenths, which are among the strongest indicators of tonality, preponderate. The progression of their roots in minor thirds or diminished fifths [...] dissipate the suggested tonality."[34]

 
The acoustic and octatonic scales, and their combination[35]

[The Mystic chord] is not a dominant chord, but a basic chord, a consonance. It is true—it sounds soft, like a consonance.[36][37]

In former times the chords were arranged by thirds or, which is the same, by sixths. But I decided to construct them by fourths or, which is the same, by fifths.[29][37]

Varvara Dernova writes, "The tonic continued to exist, and, if necessary, the composer could employ it . . . but in the great majority of cases, he preferred the concept of a tonic in distant perspective, so to speak, rather than the actually sounding tonic . . . The relationship of the tonic and dominant functions in Scriabin's work is changed radically; for the dominant actually appears and has a varied structure, while the tonic exists only as if in the imagination of the composer, the performer, and the listener."[38]

Most of the music of this period is built on the acoustic and octatonic scales, as well as the nine-note scale resulting from their combination.[35]

Philosophical influences and influence of colour

Scriabin was interested in Friedrich Nietzsche's Übermensch theory, and later became interested in theosophy. Both influenced his music and musical thought. During 1909–10 he lived in Brussels, becoming interested in Jean Delville's Theosophist philosophy and continuing his reading of Helena Blavatsky.[27]

Theosophist and composer Dane Rudhyar wrote that Scriabin was "the one great pioneer of the new music of a reborn Western civilization, the father of the future musician", and an antidote to "the Latin reactionaries and their apostle, Stravinsky" and the "rule-ordained" music of "Schoenberg's group."[39] Scriabin developed his own very personal and abstract mysticism based on the role of the artist in relation to perception and life affirmation. His ideas on reality seem similar to Platonic and Aristotelian theory, though much less coherent. The main sources of his philosophy can be found in his numerous unpublished notebooks, in one of which he wrote "I am God". The notebooks contain complex and technical diagrams explaining his metaphysics. Scriabin also used poetry to express his philosophical notions, though arguably much of his philosophical thought was translated into music, the most recognizable example being the Sonata No. 9.

 
Keys arranged in a circle of fifths in order to show the relationship with the visible spectrum in Scriabin's variant of synesthesia[citation needed]

Though Scriabin's late works are often considered to be influenced by synesthesia, an involuntary condition wherein one experiences sensation in one sense in response to stimulus in another, it is doubted that Scriabin actually experienced this.[40][41] His colour system, unlike most synesthetic experience, accords with the circle of fifths, which tends to prove it was mostly a conceptual system based on Sir Isaac Newton's Opticks.[citation needed]

Scriabin did not, for his theory, recognize a difference between major and a minor tonality with the same tonic, such as C minor and C major. Indeed, influenced by theosophy, he developed his system of synesthesia toward what would have been a pioneering multimedia performance: his unrealized magnum opus Mysterium was to be a weeklong performance including music, scent, dance, and light in the foothills of the Himalayas that was somehow to bring about the world's dissolution in bliss.

In his autobiographical Recollections, Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov about Scriabin's association of colour and music. Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed with Scriabin about associations of musical keys with colors; himself skeptical, Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colours involved. Both maintained that D major is golden-brown, but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue. Rimsky-Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff's opera The Miserly Knight accorded with their claim: the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is in D major. Scriabin told Rachmaninoff, "your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny."

Scriabin wrote only a small number of orchestral works, but they are among his most famous, and some are performed frequently. They include a piano concerto (1896), and five symphonic works: three numbered symphonies, The Poem of Ecstasy (1908), and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (1910), which includes a part for a machine known as a "clavier à lumières", also known as a Luce (Italian for "light"), a colour organ designed specifically for the performance of Scriabin's tone poem. It was played like a piano, but projected coloured light on a screen in the concert hall rather than sound. Most performances of the piece (including the premiere) have omitted this light element, although a performance in New York City in 1915 projected colours onto a screen. It has been erroneously claimed that this performance used the colour-organ invented by English painter A. Wallace Rimington; in fact, it was a novel construction supervised personally and built in New York specifically for the performance by Preston S. Miller, the president of the Illuminating Engineering Society.

On 22 November 1969, the work was fully realized, making use of the composer's color score as well as newly developed laser technology on loan from Yale's Physics Department, by John Mauceri and the Yale Symphony Orchestra and designed by Richard N. Gould, who projected the colors into the auditorium reflected by Mylar vests worn by the audience.[42] The Yale Symphony repeated the presentation in 1971[43] and brought the work to Paris that year for what was perhaps its Paris premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The piece was reprised at Yale again in 2010 (as conceived by Anna M. Gawboy on YouTube, who, with Justin Townsend, wrote Scriabin and the Possible).[44]

Scriabin's original colour keyboard, with its associated turntable of coloured lamps, is preserved in his apartment near the Arbat in Moscow, which is now a museum[45] dedicated to his life and works.

Recordings and performers

 
Autograph signature, from the manuscript of Two Poems, Op. 63.[46] The composer uses the French spelling "Scriabine".

Scriabin himself made recordings of 19 of his own works, using 20 piano rolls, six for the Welte-Mignon, and 14 for Ludwig Hupfeld of Leipzig.[47] The Welte rolls were recorded in February 1910 in Moscow, and have been replayed and published on CD. Those recorded for Hupfeld include the Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3 (Opp. 19 and 23).[48] While this indirect evidence of Scriabin's pianism prompted a mixed critical reception, close analysis of the recordings within the context of the limitations of the particular piano roll technology can shed light on the free style he favoured for his own works, characterized by extemporary variations in tempo, rhythm, articulation, dynamics, and sometimes even the notes.[49]

Pianists who have performed Scriabin to particular critical acclaim include Vladimir Sofronitsky, Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter. Sofronitsky never met Scriabin, as his parents forbade him to attend a concert due to illness. Sofronitsky said he never forgave them, but he married Scriabin's daughter Elena. According to Horowitz, when he played for Scriabin as an 11-year-old, Scriabin responded enthusiastically and encouraged him to pursue a full musical and artistic education.[50] When Rachmaninoff performed Scriabin's music, Scriabin criticized his pianism and his admirers as earthbound.[51][52]

Surveys of the solo piano works have been recorded by Gordon Fergus-Thompson, Pervez Mody [de], Maria Lettberg, Joseph Villa, Michael Ponti, and Elina Akselrud. The complete published sonatas have also been recorded by Dmitri Alexeev, Ashkenazy, Robert Taub, Håkon Austbø, Boris Berman, Bernd Glemser, Marc-André Hamelin, Yakov Kasman, Ruth Laredo, John Ogdon, Garrick Ohlsson, Roberto Szidon, Anatol Ugorski, Anna Malikova, Mikhail Voskresensky, and Igor Zhukov, among others.

Other prominent performers of Scriabin's piano music include Samuil Feinberg, Elena Bekman-Shcherbina, Nikolai Demidenko, Marta Deyanova, Sergio Fiorentino, Andrei Gavrilov, Emil Gilels, Glenn Gould, Andrej Hoteev, Evgeny Kissin, Anton Kuerti, Elena Kuschnerova, Piers Lane, Eric Le Van, Alexander Melnikov, Stanislav Neuhaus, Artur Pizarro, Mikhail Pletnev, Jonathan Powell, Burkard Schliessmann, Grigory Sokolov, Alexander Satz, Yevgeny Sudbin, Matthijs Verschoor, Arcadi Volodos, Roger Woodward, Evgeny Zarafiants, Aleksei Chernov [ru], and Margarita Shevchenko Margarita Shevchenko [pl].

In 2015, German-Australian pianist Stefan Ammer, as a part of The Scriabin Project Concert Series, joined his pupils Mekhla Kumar, Konstantin Shamray, and Ashley Hribar to honour Scriabin at various venues in Australia.[53]

Reception and influence

 
Prélude, Op. 11 No. 1
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Prélude, Op. 11 No. 2
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Mazurka, Op. 40 No. 2
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Prelude, Op. 67 No. 1
Performed by Jennifer Castellano. Courtesy of Musopen, 1.87 mB
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Scriabin's funeral, on 16 April 1915, was attended by so many people that tickets had to be issued. Rachmaninoff, a pallbearer, subsequently embarked on a grand tour of Russia, performing only Scriabin's music for the family's benefit.[54] It was the first time Rachmaninoff had publicly performed piano music other than his own. Prokofiev admired Scriabin, and his Visions fugitives bears great likeness to Scriabin's tone and style.[55] Another admirer was the English composer Kaikhosru Sorabji, who promoted Scriabin even during the years when his popularity had decreased greatly. Aaron Copland praised Scriabin's thematic material as "truly individual, truly inspired", but criticized Scriabin for putting "this really new body of feeling into the strait-jacket of the old classical sonata-form, recapitulation and all", calling this "one of the most extraordinary mistakes in all music."[56]

The work of Nikolai Roslavets, unlike Prokofiev's and Stravinsky's, is often seen as a direct extension of Scriabin's. But unlike Scriabin's, Roslavets' music was not explained with mysticism and eventually was given theoretical explication by the composer. Roslavets was not alone in his innovative extension of Scriabin's musical language, as quite a few Soviet composers and pianists, such as Feinberg, Sergei Protopopov, Nikolai Myaskovsky, and Alexander Mosolov followed this legacy until Stalinist politics quelled it in favor of Socialist Realism.[57]

Scriabin's music was greatly disparaged in the West during the 1930s. In the UK Sir Adrian Boult refused to play the Scriabin selections chosen by the BBC programmer Edward Clark, calling it "evil music",[58] and even banned Scriabin's music from broadcasts in the 1930s. In 1935, Gerald Abraham called Scriabin a "sad pathological case, erotic and egotistic to the point of mania".[59] At the same time, the pianist Edward Mitchell, who compiled a catalogue of Scriabin's piano music in 1927,[60] was championing his music in recitals and regarded him as "the greatest composer since Beethoven".[61]

Scriabin's music has since undergone a total rehabilitation and can be heard in major concert halls worldwide. In 2009, Roger Scruton called Scriabin "one of the greatest of modern composers".[62]

In 2020, a bust of Scriabin was placed in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.[63]

Relatives and descendants

 
Scriabin with Tatiana, 1909

Scriabin was the uncle of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh, a renowned bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church who directed the Russian Orthodox diocese in Great Britain between 1957 and 2003. Scriabin was not a relative of Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov, whose birth name was Vyacheslav Skryabin. In his memoirs published by Felix Chuyev under the Russian title "Молотов, Полудержавный властелин", Molotov explains that his brother Nikolay Skryabin, who was also a composer, had adopted the name Nikolay Nolinsky in order not to be confused with Alexander Scriabin.

Scriabin had seven children in total: from his first marriage Rimma (Rima), Elena, Marina (1901–1989), and Lev, and from his second Ariadna (1906–1944), Julian, and Marina. Rimma died of intestinal issues in 1905 at age seven.[11] Marina became an actress at the Second Moscow Art Theatre and the wife of director Vladimir Tatarinov. Lev also died at age seven, in 1910. At this point, relations with Scriabin's first wife had significantly deteriorated, and Scriabin did not meet her at the funeral.[64]

Ariadna became a hero of the French Resistance, and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance. Her third marriage was to the poet and WWII Resistance fighter David Knut, after which she converted to Judaism and took the name Sarah. She co-founded the Zionist resistance movement Armée Juive and was responsible for communications between the command in Toulouse and the partisan forces in the Tarn district and for taking weapons to the partisans, which resulted in her death when she was ambushed by the French Militia.

 
Scriabin's children from Tatiana: Julian, Marina and Ariadna, c. 1913

Ariadna's daughter (by her first marriage to French composer David Lazarus), Betty (Elizabeth) Knut-Lazarus, became a famous teenage heroine of the French Resistance, personally winning the Silver Star from George S. Patton, as well as the French Croix de Guerre. After the war she became an active member of the Zionist Lehi (Stern Gang), undertaking special operations for the militant group, and she was imprisoned in 1947 for launching a terrorist letter bomb campaign against British targets[65] and planting explosives on British ships that had been trying to prevent Jewish immigrants from travelling to Mandatory Palestine. Regarded as a heroine in France, she was released prematurely but imprisoned a year later in Israel for alleged involvement in the killing of Folke Bernadotte.[66] The charges were later dropped. After her release from prison, she settled at age 23 in Beersheba, Israel, where she had three children and founded a nightclub that became Beersheba's cultural centre. She died at age 38.[67]

In total, three of Ariadna's children immigrated to Israel after the war, where her son Eli (born 1935) became a sailor in the Israeli Navy and a noted classical guitarist, while her son Joseph (Yossi, born 1943) served in the Israeli special forces, before becoming a poet, publishing many poems dedicated to his mother. One of her great-grandsons, via Betty Knut-Lazarus, Elisha Abas, is an Israeli concert pianist.[68]

Julian, a child prodigy, was a composer and pianist, but died by drowning at age 11 (1919) in the Dnieper River in Ukraine.[69][70]

References

Notes

  1. ^ /skriˈɑːbɪn/,[1] UK also /skriˈæbɪn/;[2] Russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин [ɐlʲɪˈksandr nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈskrʲæbʲɪn] Scientific transliteration: Aleksandr Nikolaevič Skrjabin; also transliterated variously as Skriabin, Skryabin, and (in French) Scriabine. The composer himself used the French spelling "Scriabine", which was also the most popular spelling used in English-language publications during his lifetime. First editions of his works used the Romanizations "Scriabine", "Scriàbine", and "Skrjábin 19 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine".

Citations

  1. ^ "Scriabin". Merriam-Webster Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 6 February 2014.
    "Scriabin". Random House Dictionary. Dictionary.com. from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 6 February 2014.
  2. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  3. ^ a b Powell, Jonathan (2001). Skryabin [Scriabin], Aleksandr Nikolayevich. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.25946. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  4. ^ E. E. Garcia (2004): Rachmaninoff and Scriabin: Creativity and Suffering in Talent and Genius 25 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Psychoanalytic Review, 91: 423–42.
  5. ^ Bowers, Faubion (1966). "Scriabin Again and Again". Aspen Magazine. New York (2). OCLC 50534422. from the original on 1 April 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2008.
  6. ^ a b c d Bowers 1996.
  7. ^ Powell, Jonathan (2001). "Skryabin, Aleksandr Nikolayevich". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.25946. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  8. ^ a b Ivan Grezin. Nikolai Scriabin: First Russian Consul in Lausanne 19 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine article from NashaGazeta.ch, 23 November 2011 (in Russian and French)
  9. ^ Russian Academy of Sciences (1994). Cultural Heritage of the Russian Emigration, 1917–1940. Volume 1 // ed. by Eugene Chelyshev, Dmitry Shakhovskoy. Moscow: Nasledie, p. 507–509 ISBN 5-201-13219-7
  10. ^ Velvet Book. Chapter 11, 59–70: Yaroslvaskiy and Schetinin families at Genealogia.ru (in Russian)
  11. ^ a b Yuri Khanon (1995). Scriabin As a Face. St. Petersburg: Liki Rossii, p. 13 ISBN 5-87417-026-X
  12. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 120.
  13. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 121.
  14. ^ a b Scholes, Percy (1969) [1924]. Crotchets: A Few Short Musical Notes. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-7222-5836-1. OCLC 855415. ISBN is for January 2001 edition.
  15. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 154.
  16. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 60.
  17. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 315.
  18. ^ Bowers, Faubion. The New Scriabin. p. 47.
  19. ^ Potvin, Gilles. "Alfred La Liberté". The Canadian Encyclopedia. from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  20. ^ Minderovic, Zoran. "Alexander Scriabin". Biography. Allmusic. Retrieved 9 December 2007.
  21. ^ Benson, Robert E. (October 2000). . Nuances. Preparation for The Final Mystery. Classical CD Review. Archived from the original on 30 December 2007. Retrieved 9 December 2007.
  22. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 2:264.
  23. ^ Bowers 1996, pp. 270–271.
  24. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 278.
  25. ^ Roberts, Peter Deane (2002). Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook. Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 483. ISBN 9780313017230. from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  26. ^ Macdonald 1978, p. 7.
  27. ^ a b c Samson, Jim (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900–1920. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-02193-6. OCLC 3240273.
  28. ^ Samson, Jim (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900–1920. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 156–157. ISBN 978-0-393-02193-6.[page needed]
  29. ^ a b c d e f Sabbagh, Peter (2001). The Development of Harmony in Scriabin's Works. ISBN 978-1-58112-595-5.
  30. ^ a b Sabbagh 2003, p. 16.
  31. ^ Sabbagh 2003, pp. 17–18.
  32. ^ Sabbagh 2003, p. 24.
  33. ^ Taken from Musik-Konzepte 32/33, p. 8.
  34. ^ Herndon, Claude H. (1982–83). Skryabin's new harmonic vocabulary in his sixth sonata. Journal of Musicological Research. p. 354.
  35. ^ a b Kallis, Vasily (2008). "Principles of Pitch Organization in Scriabin's Early Post-tonal Period: The Piano Miniatures". Music Theory Online. Society for Music Theory. 14 (3). doi:10.30535/mto.14.3.2.
  36. ^ Sabbagh 2003, p. 40.
  37. ^ a b Leonid Sabaneev, Vospominanija o Skrjabine, Moscow 1925, p. 47, quoted in Musik-Konzepte 32/33, p. 8.
  38. ^ Guenther, Roy J. (1979). Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia Skriabina: A Translation and Critical Commentary. PhD Dissertation, Catholic University of America. p. 67.
  39. ^ Oja, Carol J. (2003). Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s. Oxford University Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-19-516257-8.
  40. ^ *Harrison, John (2001). Synaesthesia: The Strangest Thing, ISBN 0-19-263245-0: "In fact, there is considerable doubt about the legitimacy of Scriabin's claim, or rather the claims made on his behalf, as we shall discuss in Chapter 5." (pp. 31–32).
  41. ^ B. M. Galeyev and I. L. Vanechkina (August 2001). "Was Scriabin a Synesthete?" 25 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Leonardo[permanent dead link], Vol. 34, Issue 4, pp. 357–362: "authors conclude that the nature of Scriabin's 'color-tonal' analogies was associative, i.e. psychological; accordingly, the existing belief that Scriabin was a distinctive, unique 'synesthete' who really saw the sounds of music—that is, literally had an ability for 'co-sensations'—is placed in doubt."
  42. ^ Ballard, Lincoln M. "A Russian Mystic in the Age of Aquarius: The U.S. Revival of Alexander Scriabin in the 1960s". Project Muse. Johns Hopkins University. Archived from the original on 11 November 2014. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  43. ^ Frisch, Walter (22 February 1971). "'Prometheus' Transcends". Yale Daily News.
  44. ^ Gawboy, Anna M.; Townsend, Justin (June 2012). "Scriabin and The Possible". Music Theory Online. Society for Music Theory. 18 (2). doi:10.30535/mto.18.2.2. from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  45. ^ "Scriabin Museum in Moscow 2019 ✮ Best Museums in Russia". MOSCOVERY.COM. 6 July 2016.
  46. ^ Alex Ross, "The Juilliard Manuscript Collection", The Rest Is Noise website, p. 27.
  47. ^ Smith, Charles Davis (1994). The Welte-Mignon: Its Music and Musicians. Vestal, New York: The Vestal Press, for the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors' Association. ISBN 978-1-879511-17-0.
  48. ^ Sitsky, Larry (1990). The Classical Reproducing Piano Roll. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-25496-3.
  49. ^ Leikin, Anatole (1996). "The Performance of Scriabin's Piano Music: Evidence from the Piano Rolls". Performance Practice Review. 9 (1): 97–113. doi:10.5642/perfpr.199609.01.08. ISSN 1044-1638. Retrieved 4 February 2014.
  50. ^ Horowitz plays Scriabin in Moscow on YouTube
  51. ^ Rimm 2002, p. 145.
  52. ^ Downes 2010, p. 99.
  53. ^ "Artist Portal". cpaus.force.com.
  54. ^ Michael Steen (2011). The Lives and Times of the Great Composers. Icon Books. ISBN 978-1848311350.
  55. ^ "page 17".
  56. ^ Copland, Aaron (1957). What to Listen for in Music. New York: McGraw-Hill. OCLC 269329.
  57. ^ Taruskin, Richard (20 February 2005). "Restoring Comrade Roslavets". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
  58. ^ Kennedy, Michael. Adrian Boult. London, Macmillan, 1989. p. 157 ISBN 0-333-48752-4
  59. ^ Ballard, Lincoln (January 2010). "Lincoln Ballard, Defining Moments: Vicissitudes in Scriabin's Twentieth-Century Reception". Academia.edu. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  60. ^ "Scriabin...: A Complete Catalogue of His Piano Compositions, with Thematic Illustrations". Hawkes & Son. 30 May 1927 – via Google Books.
  61. ^ Rubbra, Edmund. 'The Resurgence of Scriabin', in The Listener, 26 February 1970
  62. ^ Scruton, Roger (2009). Understanding Music: Philosophy and Interpretation. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. p. 183. ISBN 9781847065063. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
  63. ^ "Смотрим Главное, Вести, Фильмы, Сериалы, Шоу И Эфир Российских Каналов".
  64. ^ Pryanishnikov and Tompakov (1985). Летопись жизни и творчества А. Н.Скрябина [Chronicles of the Life and Art of A. N. Scriabin] (in Russian). Muzyka.
  65. ^ ”Blushed at Bomb Plot Charge". 26 August 1948, Morning Bulletin. Rockhampton
  66. ^ Lazaris, V. (2000). Три женщины. Tel Aviv: Lado, pp. 363–368
  67. ^ בטי קנוט־לזרוס – סיפורה של לוחמת נשכחת 29 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine Oded Bar-Meir, 05.05.11
  68. ^ "Elisha Abas – the official website". from the original on 4 March 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2008.
  69. ^ The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky. New York, Schirmer Books, 1993. p. 921 ISBN 0-02-872416-X
  70. ^ Slonimsky, Nicolas (1993). The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. New York: Schirmer Books.

Sources

External links

Recordings

  • Scriabin's own recording of the third and fourth movements of his Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 23 (The Pianola Institute)
  • ()
  • Scriabin's Étude, Op. 8 No. 12

June 22, 2023
alexander, scriabin, this, name, that, follows, eastern, slavic, naming, conventions, patronymic, nikolayevich, family, name, scriabin, alexander, nikolayevich, scriabin, january, 1872, december, 1871, april, april, 1915, russian, composer, virtuoso, pianist, . In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions the patronymic is Nikolayevich and the family name is Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin n 1 6 January 1872 O S 25 December 1871 27 April O S 14 April 1915 was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist Before 1903 Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frederic Chopin and composed in a relatively tonal late Romantic idiom Later and independently of his influential contemporary Arnold Schoenberg Scriabin developed a much more dissonant musical language that had transcended usual tonality but was not atonal 3 which accorded with his personal brand of metaphysics Scriabin found significant appeal in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk as well as synesthesia and associated colours with the various harmonic tones of his scale while his colour coded circle of fifths was also inspired by theosophy He is often considered the main Russian Symbolist composer and a major representative of the Russian Silver Age 3 Alexander ScriabinAleksandr SkryabinBornAlexander Nikolayevich Scriabin 1871 12 25 25 December 1871 N S 1872 01 06 6 January 1872 Moscow Russian EmpireDied14 April 1915 1915 04 14 aged 43 Moscow Russian EmpireOccupationsComposerpianistWorksList of compositionsSignatureScriabin was an innovator as well as one of the most controversial composer pianists of the early 20th century The Great Soviet Encyclopedia said of him no composer has had more scorn heaped on him or greater love bestowed Leo Tolstoy described Scriabin s music as a sincere expression of genius 4 Scriabin s oeuvre exerted a salient influence on the music world over time and inspired composers such as Igor Stravinsky Sergei Prokofiev 5 and Karol Szymanowski But Scriabin s importance in the Russian subsequently Soviet musical scene and internationally drastically declined after his death According to his biographer Faubion Bowers No one was more famous during their lifetime and few were more quickly ignored after death 6 page needed Nevertheless his musical aesthetics have been reevaluated since the 1970s and his ten published sonatas for piano and other works have been increasingly championed garnering significant acclaim in recent years 7 Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Childhood and education 1872 1893 1 2 Early career 1894 1903 1 3 Leaving Russia 1903 09 1 4 Return to Russia 1909 15 1 5 Death 2 Music 2 1 First period 1880s 1903 2 2 Second period 1903 07 2 3 Third period 1907 15 3 Philosophical influences and influence of colour 4 Recordings and performers 5 Reception and influence 6 Relatives and descendants 7 References 7 1 Notes 7 2 Citations 7 3 Sources 8 External linksBiography EditChildhood and education 1872 1893 Edit A young Alexander Scriabin late 1870s Scriabin was born in Moscow into a Russian noble family on Christmas Day 1871 according to the Julian Calendar His father Nikolai Aleksandrovich Scriabin then a student at the Moscow State University belonged to a modest noble family founded by Scriabin s great grandfather Ivan Alekseevich Scriabin a soldier from Tula who had a brilliant military career and was granted hereditary nobility in 1819 8 Alexander s paternal grandmother Elizaveta Ivanovna Podchertkova daughter of a captain lieutenant came from a wealthy noble house of the Novgorod Governorate 9 His mother Lyubov Petrovna Scriabina nee Schetinina was a concert pianist and a former student of Theodor Leschetizky She belonged to an ancient dynasty that traced its history back to Rurik its founder Semyon Feodorovich Yaroslavskiy nicknamed Schetina from the Russian schetina meaning stubble was the great grandson of Vasili Prince of Yaroslavl 10 She died of tuberculosis when Alexander was only a year old 11 After her death Nikolai Scriabin completed tuition in the Turkish language in St Petersburg s Institute of Oriental Languages and left for Turkey Like all his relatives he followed a military path and served as a military attache in the status of Active State Councillor he was appointed an honorary consul in Lausanne during his later years 6 page needed 8 Alexander s father left the infant Sasha as he was known with his grandmother great aunt and aunt Scriabin s father later remarried giving Scriabin a number of half brothers and sisters His aunt Lyubov his father s unmarried sister was an amateur pianist who documented Sasha s early life until he met his first wife As a child Scriabin was frequently exposed to piano playing anecdotal references describe him demanding that his aunt play for him Apparently precocious Scriabin began building pianos after becoming fascinated with piano mechanisms He sometimes gave houseguests pianos he had built Lyubov portrays Scriabin as very shy and unsociable with his peers but appreciative of adult attention According to one anecdote Scriabin tried to conduct an orchestra composed of local children an attempt that ended in frustration and tears He performed his own plays and operas with puppets to willing audiences He studied the piano from an early age taking lessons with Nikolai Zverev a strict disciplinarian who was also the teacher of Sergei Rachmaninoff and other piano prodigies though Scriabin was not a pensioner like Rachmaninoff 6 page needed Zverev s students in the late 1880s Scriabin with military attire is second from the left Rachmaninoff is the fourth from the right In 1882 Scriabin enlisted in the Second Moscow Cadet Corps As a student he became friends with the actor Leonid Limontov who in his memoirs recalls his reluctance to become friends with Scriabin who was the smallest and weakest among all the boys and sometimes teased due to his stature 12 But Scriabin won his peers approval at a concert where he performed on the piano 13 He ranked generally first in his class academically but was exempt from drilling due to his physique and given time each day to practice piano Scriabin later studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Anton Arensky Sergei Taneyev and Vasily Safonov He became a noted pianist despite his small hands which could barely stretch to a ninth Feeling challenged by Josef Lhevinne he damaged his right hand while practicing Franz Liszt s Reminiscences de Don Juan and Mily Balakirev s Islamey 14 His doctor said he would never recover and he wrote his first large scale masterpiece his Piano Sonata No 1 Op 6 as a cry against God against fate It was the third sonata he wrote but the first to which he gave an opus number his second was condensed and released as the Allegro Appassionato Op 4 He eventually regained the use of his hand 14 In 1892 he graduated with the Little Gold Medal in piano performance but did not complete a composition degree because of strong personality and musical differences with Arensky whose faculty signature is the only one absent from Scriabin s graduation certificate and an unwillingness to compose pieces in forms that did not interest him 15 Early career 1894 1903 Edit In 1894 Scriabin made his debut as a pianist in St Petersburg performing his own works to positive reviews The same year Mitrofan Belyayev agreed to pay Scriabin to compose for his publishing company he published works by notable composers such as Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov 16 In August 1897 Scriabin married the pianist Vera Ivanovna Isakovich and then toured in Russia and abroad culminating in a successful 1898 concert in Paris That year he became a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory and began to establish his reputation as a composer During this period he composed his cycle of etudes Op 8 several sets of preludes his first three piano sonatas and his only piano concerto among other works mostly for piano For five years Scriabin was based in Moscow during which time his old teacher Safonov conducted the first two of Scriabin s symphonies According to later reports between 1901 and 1903 Scriabin envisioned writing an opera He expounded its ideas in the course of normal conversation The work would center around a nameless hero a philosopher musician poet Among other things he would declare I am the apotheosis of world creation I am the aim of aims the end of ends 17 The Poem Op 32 No 2 and the Poeme tragique Op 34 were originally conceived as arias in the opera 18 Leaving Russia 1903 09 Edit By 13 March 1904 Scriabin and his wife had relocated to Geneva Switzerland While living here Scriabin separated legally from his wife with whom he had had four children He also began working on his Symphony No 3 here The work was performed in Paris during 1905 where Scriabin was accompanied by Tatiana Fyodorovna Schlozer a former pupil and the niece of the pianist and composer Paul de Schlozer 6 page needed and sister of the music critic Boris de Schlozer Tatiana would become Scriabin s second wife with whom Scriabin had other children With a wealthy sponsor s financial assistance Scriabin spent several years travelling in Switzerland Italy France Belgium and the United States working on more orchestral pieces including several symphonies He also began to compose poems for the piano a form with which he is particularly associated While in New York City in 1907 he became acquainted with the Canadian composer Alfred La Liberte who became a personal friend and disciple 19 In 1907 Scriabin settled in Paris with his family and was involved with a series of concerts organized by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev who was actively promoting Russian music in the West at the time He subsequently relocated to Brussels rue de la Reforme 45 with his family Scriabin sitting on the left of the table as a guest at Wladimir Metzl s home in Berlin 1910 Return to Russia 1909 15 Edit In 1909 Scriabin permanently returned to Russia where he continued to compose working on increasingly grandiose projects For some time before his death he had planned a multimedia work to be performed in the Himalayas that would cause a so called armageddon a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world 20 failed verification Scriabin left only sketches for this piece Mysterium although a preliminary part L acte prealable Prefatory Action was eventually made into a performable version by Alexander Nemtin de 21 Part of that unfinished piece was performed with the title Prefatory Action by Vladimir Ashkenazy in Berlin with Alexei Lubimov at the piano Nemtin eventually completed a second portion Mankind and a third Transfiguration and Ashkenazy recorded his entire two and a half hour completion with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin for Decca Several late pieces published during Scriabin s lifetime are believed to have been intended for Mysterium such as the Two Dances Op 73 22 Death Edit Scriabin gave his last concert on 2 April 1915 in St Petersburg performing a large programme of his own works He received rave reviews from music critics who called his playing most inspiring and affecting and wrote his eyes flashed fire and his face radiated happiness Scriabin himself wrote that during his performance of his Sonata No 3 Op 23 I completely forgot I was playing in a hall with people around me This happens very rarely to me on the platform He elaborated that he normally had to watch himself very carefully look at himself as if from afar to keep himself in control 23 Scriabin returned triumphantly to his Moscow apartment on 4 April He noticed a resurgence of a little pimple on his right upper lip He had mentioned the pimple as early as 1914 while in London His temperature rose and he took to bed and cancelled his Moscow concert for 11 April The pimple became a pustule then a carbuncle and a furuncle Scriabin s doctor remarked that the sore looked like purple fire His temperature shot up to 41 C 106 F and he was now bedridden Incisions were made on 12 April but the sore had already begun to poison his blood and he became delirious Bowers writes Intractably and inexplicably a simple spot had grown into a terminal ailment 24 On 14 April 1915 at age 43 and at the height of his career Scriabin died in his Moscow apartment 25 Music EditSee also List of compositions by Alexander Scriabin and Category Compositions by Alexander Scriabin The beginning of Scriabin s Etude Op 8 No 12 Etude Op 8 No 12 source source Awadagin Pratt performs Alexander Scriabin s Etude Op 8 No 12 at the White House Classical Music Student Workshop Concert 2009 11 04 Etude Op 8 No 12 source source source Etude Op 8 No 12 played by Domenico Stigliani Problems playing these files See media help Rather than seeking musical versatility Scriabin was happy to write almost exclusively for solo piano and for orchestra 26 His earliest piano pieces resemble Chopin s and include music in many genres that Chopin employed such as the etude the prelude the nocturne and the mazurka Scriabin s music rapidly evolved over the course of his life The mid and late period pieces use very unusual harmonies and textures The development of Scriabin s style can be traced in his ten piano sonatas the earliest are composed in a fairly conventional late Romantic manner and reveal the influence of Chopin and sometimes Liszt but the later ones are very different the last five lacking a key signature Many passages in them can be said to be tonally vague though from 1903 through 1908 tonal unity was almost imperceptibly replaced by harmonic unity 27 First period 1880s 1903 Edit Scriabin s first period is usually considered to last from his earliest pieces to his Symphony No 2 Op 29 The works from this period adhere to the romantic tradition employing common practice harmonic language But Scriabin s voice is present from the very beginning in this case by his fondness for the dominant function 28 and added tone chords 29 Common spellings of the dominant chord and its extensions during the common practice period From left to right dominant seventh dominant ninth dominant thirteenth dominant seventh with raised fifth dominant seventh with a rising chromatic appoggiatura on the fifth and dominant seventh flattened fifth Scriabin s early harmonic language was especially fond of the 13th dominant chord usually with the 7th 3rd and 13th spelled in fourths 30 This voicing can also be seen in several of Chopin s works 30 According to Peter Sabbagh this voicing was the main generating source of the later mystic chord 29 More importantly Scriabin was fond of simultaneously combining two or more different dominant seventh enhancements such as 9ths altered 5ths and raised 11ths But despite these tendencies slightly more dissonant than usual for the time all these dominant chords were treated according to the traditional rules the added tones resolved to the corresponding adjacent notes and the whole chord was treated as a dominant fitting inside tonality and diatonic functional harmony 29 Examples 31 of enhanced dominant chords in Scriabin s early work Extracted from the Mazurkas Op 3 1888 1890 No 1 mm 19 20 68 No 4 mm 65 67 Second period 1903 07 Edit This period begins with Scriabin s Sonata No 4 Op 30 and ends around his Sonata No 5 Op 53 and the Poem of Ecstasy Op 54 During this period Scriabin s music becomes more chromatic and dissonant yet still mostly adheres to functional tonality As dominant chords are more and more extended they gradually lose their tensive function Scriabin wanted his music to have a radiant shining feeling and attempted this by raising the number of chord tones During this time complex forms like the mystic chord are hinted at but still show their roots in Chopinesque harmony 29 At first the added dissonances resolve conventionally according to voice leading but the focus slowly shifts to a system in which chord coloring is most important Later on fewer dissonances in the dominant chords are resolved According to Sabbagh the dissonances are frozen solidified in a color like effect in the chord the added notes become part of it 29 Third period 1907 15 Edit I decided that the more higher tones there are in harmony it would turn out to be more radiant sharper and more brilliant But it was necessary to organize the notes giving them a logical arrangement Therefore I took the usual thirteenth chord which is arranged in thirds But it is not that important to accumulate high tones To make it shining conveying the idea of light a greater number of tones had to be raised in the chord And therefore I raise the tones At first I take the shining major third then I also raise the fifth and the eleventh thus forming my chord which is raised completely and therefore really shining 32 33 According to Samson while the sonata form of Scriabin s Sonata No 5 has some meaning to the work s tonal structure in his Sonatas Nos 6 Op 62 and 7 Op 64 formal tensions are created by the absence of harmonic contrast and between the cumulative momentum of the music usually achieved by textural rather than harmonic means and the formal constraints of the tripartite mould He also argues that the Poem of Ecstasy and Vers la flamme find a much happier co operation of form and content and that later sonatas such as No 9 Op 68 Black Mass employ a more flexible sonata form 27 According to Claude Herndon in Scriabin s late music tonality has been attenuated to the point of virtual extinction although dominant sevenths which are among the strongest indicators of tonality preponderate The progression of their roots in minor thirds or diminished fifths dissipate the suggested tonality 34 The acoustic and octatonic scales and their combination 35 The Mystic chord is not a dominant chord but a basic chord a consonance It is true it sounds soft like a consonance 36 37 In former times the chords were arranged by thirds or which is the same by sixths But I decided to construct them by fourths or which is the same by fifths 29 37 Varvara Dernova writes The tonic continued to exist and if necessary the composer could employ it but in the great majority of cases he preferred the concept of a tonic in distant perspective so to speak rather than the actually sounding tonic The relationship of the tonic and dominant functions in Scriabin s work is changed radically for the dominant actually appears and has a varied structure while the tonic exists only as if in the imagination of the composer the performer and the listener 38 Most of the music of this period is built on the acoustic and octatonic scales as well as the nine note scale resulting from their combination 35 Philosophical influences and influence of colour EditScriabin was interested in Friedrich Nietzsche s Ubermensch theory and later became interested in theosophy Both influenced his music and musical thought During 1909 10 he lived in Brussels becoming interested in Jean Delville s Theosophist philosophy and continuing his reading of Helena Blavatsky 27 Theosophist and composer Dane Rudhyar wrote that Scriabin was the one great pioneer of the new music of a reborn Western civilization the father of the future musician and an antidote to the Latin reactionaries and their apostle Stravinsky and the rule ordained music of Schoenberg s group 39 Scriabin developed his own very personal and abstract mysticism based on the role of the artist in relation to perception and life affirmation His ideas on reality seem similar to Platonic and Aristotelian theory though much less coherent The main sources of his philosophy can be found in his numerous unpublished notebooks in one of which he wrote I am God The notebooks contain complex and technical diagrams explaining his metaphysics Scriabin also used poetry to express his philosophical notions though arguably much of his philosophical thought was translated into music the most recognizable example being the Sonata No 9 Keys arranged in a circle of fifths in order to show the relationship with the visible spectrum in Scriabin s variant of synesthesia citation needed Though Scriabin s late works are often considered to be influenced by synesthesia an involuntary condition wherein one experiences sensation in one sense in response to stimulus in another it is doubted that Scriabin actually experienced this 40 41 His colour system unlike most synesthetic experience accords with the circle of fifths which tends to prove it was mostly a conceptual system based on Sir Isaac Newton s Opticks citation needed Scriabin did not for his theory recognize a difference between major and a minor tonality with the same tonic such as C minor and C major Indeed influenced by theosophy he developed his system of synesthesia toward what would have been a pioneering multimedia performance his unrealized magnum opus Mysterium was to be a weeklong performance including music scent dance and light in the foothills of the Himalayas that was somehow to bring about the world s dissolution in bliss In his autobiographical Recollections Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Rimsky Korsakov about Scriabin s association of colour and music Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky Korsakov agreed with Scriabin about associations of musical keys with colors himself skeptical Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colours involved Both maintained that D major is golden brown but Scriabin linked E flat major with red purple while Rimsky Korsakov favored blue Rimsky Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff s opera The Miserly Knight accorded with their claim the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is in D major Scriabin told Rachmaninoff your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny Scriabin wrote only a small number of orchestral works but they are among his most famous and some are performed frequently They include a piano concerto 1896 and five symphonic works three numbered symphonies The Poem of Ecstasy 1908 and Prometheus The Poem of Fire 1910 which includes a part for a machine known as a clavier a lumieres also known as a Luce Italian for light a colour organ designed specifically for the performance of Scriabin s tone poem It was played like a piano but projected coloured light on a screen in the concert hall rather than sound Most performances of the piece including the premiere have omitted this light element although a performance in New York City in 1915 projected colours onto a screen It has been erroneously claimed that this performance used the colour organ invented by English painter A Wallace Rimington in fact it was a novel construction supervised personally and built in New York specifically for the performance by Preston S Miller the president of the Illuminating Engineering Society On 22 November 1969 the work was fully realized making use of the composer s color score as well as newly developed laser technology on loan from Yale s Physics Department by John Mauceri and the Yale Symphony Orchestra and designed by Richard N Gould who projected the colors into the auditorium reflected by Mylar vests worn by the audience 42 The Yale Symphony repeated the presentation in 1971 43 and brought the work to Paris that year for what was perhaps its Paris premiere at the Theatre des Champs Elysees The piece was reprised at Yale again in 2010 as conceived by Anna M Gawboy on YouTube who with Justin Townsend wrote Scriabin and the Possible 44 Scriabin s original colour keyboard with its associated turntable of coloured lamps is preserved in his apartment near the Arbat in Moscow which is now a museum 45 dedicated to his life and works Recordings and performers Edit Autograph signature from the manuscript of Two Poems Op 63 46 The composer uses the French spelling Scriabine Scriabin himself made recordings of 19 of his own works using 20 piano rolls six for the Welte Mignon and 14 for Ludwig Hupfeld of Leipzig 47 The Welte rolls were recorded in February 1910 in Moscow and have been replayed and published on CD Those recorded for Hupfeld include the Sonatas Nos 2 and 3 Opp 19 and 23 48 While this indirect evidence of Scriabin s pianism prompted a mixed critical reception close analysis of the recordings within the context of the limitations of the particular piano roll technology can shed light on the free style he favoured for his own works characterized by extemporary variations in tempo rhythm articulation dynamics and sometimes even the notes 49 Pianists who have performed Scriabin to particular critical acclaim include Vladimir Sofronitsky Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter Sofronitsky never met Scriabin as his parents forbade him to attend a concert due to illness Sofronitsky said he never forgave them but he married Scriabin s daughter Elena According to Horowitz when he played for Scriabin as an 11 year old Scriabin responded enthusiastically and encouraged him to pursue a full musical and artistic education 50 When Rachmaninoff performed Scriabin s music Scriabin criticized his pianism and his admirers as earthbound 51 52 Surveys of the solo piano works have been recorded by Gordon Fergus Thompson Pervez Mody de Maria Lettberg Joseph Villa Michael Ponti and Elina Akselrud The complete published sonatas have also been recorded by Dmitri Alexeev Ashkenazy Robert Taub Hakon Austbo Boris Berman Bernd Glemser Marc Andre Hamelin Yakov Kasman Ruth Laredo John Ogdon Garrick Ohlsson Roberto Szidon Anatol Ugorski Anna Malikova Mikhail Voskresensky and Igor Zhukov among others Other prominent performers of Scriabin s piano music include Samuil Feinberg Elena Bekman Shcherbina Nikolai Demidenko Marta Deyanova Sergio Fiorentino Andrei Gavrilov Emil Gilels Glenn Gould Andrej Hoteev Evgeny Kissin Anton Kuerti Elena Kuschnerova Piers Lane Eric Le Van Alexander Melnikov Stanislav Neuhaus Artur Pizarro Mikhail Pletnev Jonathan Powell Burkard Schliessmann Grigory Sokolov Alexander Satz Yevgeny Sudbin Matthijs Verschoor Arcadi Volodos Roger Woodward Evgeny Zarafiants Aleksei Chernov ru and Margarita Shevchenko Margarita Shevchenko pl In 2015 German Australian pianist Stefan Ammer as a part of The Scriabin Project Concert Series joined his pupils Mekhla Kumar Konstantin Shamray and Ashley Hribar to honour Scriabin at various venues in Australia 53 Reception and influence Edit Prelude Op 11 No 1 source source 728 kB Prelude Op 11 No 2 source source 1492 kB Mazurka Op 40 No 2 source source 677 kB Prelude Op 67 No 1 source source Performed by Jennifer Castellano Courtesy of Musopen 1 87 mB Problems playing these files See media help Scriabin s funeral on 16 April 1915 was attended by so many people that tickets had to be issued Rachmaninoff a pallbearer subsequently embarked on a grand tour of Russia performing only Scriabin s music for the family s benefit 54 It was the first time Rachmaninoff had publicly performed piano music other than his own Prokofiev admired Scriabin and his Visions fugitives bears great likeness to Scriabin s tone and style 55 Another admirer was the English composer Kaikhosru Sorabji who promoted Scriabin even during the years when his popularity had decreased greatly Aaron Copland praised Scriabin s thematic material as truly individual truly inspired but criticized Scriabin for putting this really new body of feeling into the strait jacket of the old classical sonata form recapitulation and all calling this one of the most extraordinary mistakes in all music 56 The work of Nikolai Roslavets unlike Prokofiev s and Stravinsky s is often seen as a direct extension of Scriabin s But unlike Scriabin s Roslavets music was not explained with mysticism and eventually was given theoretical explication by the composer Roslavets was not alone in his innovative extension of Scriabin s musical language as quite a few Soviet composers and pianists such as Feinberg Sergei Protopopov Nikolai Myaskovsky and Alexander Mosolov followed this legacy until Stalinist politics quelled it in favor of Socialist Realism 57 Scriabin s music was greatly disparaged in the West during the 1930s In the UK Sir Adrian Boult refused to play the Scriabin selections chosen by the BBC programmer Edward Clark calling it evil music 58 and even banned Scriabin s music from broadcasts in the 1930s In 1935 Gerald Abraham called Scriabin a sad pathological case erotic and egotistic to the point of mania 59 At the same time the pianist Edward Mitchell who compiled a catalogue of Scriabin s piano music in 1927 60 was championing his music in recitals and regarded him as the greatest composer since Beethoven 61 Scriabin s music has since undergone a total rehabilitation and can be heard in major concert halls worldwide In 2009 Roger Scruton called Scriabin one of the greatest of modern composers 62 In 2020 a bust of Scriabin was placed in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory 63 Relatives and descendants Edit Scriabin with Tatiana 1909 Scriabin was the uncle of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh a renowned bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church who directed the Russian Orthodox diocese in Great Britain between 1957 and 2003 Scriabin was not a relative of Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov whose birth name was Vyacheslav Skryabin In his memoirs published by Felix Chuyev under the Russian title Molotov Poluderzhavnyj vlastelin Molotov explains that his brother Nikolay Skryabin who was also a composer had adopted the name Nikolay Nolinsky in order not to be confused with Alexander Scriabin Scriabin had seven children in total from his first marriage Rimma Rima Elena Marina 1901 1989 and Lev and from his second Ariadna 1906 1944 Julian and Marina Rimma died of intestinal issues in 1905 at age seven 11 Marina became an actress at the Second Moscow Art Theatre and the wife of director Vladimir Tatarinov Lev also died at age seven in 1910 At this point relations with Scriabin s first wife had significantly deteriorated and Scriabin did not meet her at the funeral 64 Ariadna became a hero of the French Resistance and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de la Resistance Her third marriage was to the poet and WWII Resistance fighter David Knut after which she converted to Judaism and took the name Sarah She co founded the Zionist resistance movement Armee Juive and was responsible for communications between the command in Toulouse and the partisan forces in the Tarn district and for taking weapons to the partisans which resulted in her death when she was ambushed by the French Militia Scriabin s children from Tatiana Julian Marina and Ariadna c 1913 Ariadna s daughter by her first marriage to French composer David Lazarus Betty Elizabeth Knut Lazarus became a famous teenage heroine of the French Resistance personally winning the Silver Star from George S Patton as well as the French Croix de Guerre After the war she became an active member of the Zionist Lehi Stern Gang undertaking special operations for the militant group and she was imprisoned in 1947 for launching a terrorist letter bomb campaign against British targets 65 and planting explosives on British ships that had been trying to prevent Jewish immigrants from travelling to Mandatory Palestine Regarded as a heroine in France she was released prematurely but imprisoned a year later in Israel for alleged involvement in the killing of Folke Bernadotte 66 The charges were later dropped After her release from prison she settled at age 23 in Beersheba Israel where she had three children and founded a nightclub that became Beersheba s cultural centre She died at age 38 67 In total three of Ariadna s children immigrated to Israel after the war where her son Eli born 1935 became a sailor in the Israeli Navy and a noted classical guitarist while her son Joseph Yossi born 1943 served in the Israeli special forces before becoming a poet publishing many poems dedicated to his mother One of her great grandsons via Betty Knut Lazarus Elisha Abas is an Israeli concert pianist 68 Julian a child prodigy was a composer and pianist but died by drowning at age 11 1919 in the Dnieper River in Ukraine 69 70 References EditNotes Edit s k r i ˈ ɑː b ɪ n 1 UK also s k r i ˈ ae b ɪ n 2 Russian Aleksandr Nikolaevich Skryabin ɐlʲɪˈksandr nʲɪkɐˈla j ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈskrʲaebʲɪn Scientific transliteration Aleksandr Nikolaevic Skrjabin also transliterated variously as Skriabin Skryabin and in French Scriabine The composer himself used the French spelling Scriabine which was also the most popular spelling used in English language publications during his lifetime First editions of his works used the Romanizations Scriabine Scriabine and Skrjabin Archived 19 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine Citations Edit Scriabin Merriam Webster Online Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 6 February 2014 Scriabin Random House Dictionary Dictionary com Archived from the original on 19 March 2021 Retrieved 6 February 2014 Wells John C 2008 Longman Pronunciation Dictionary 3rd ed Longman ISBN 978 1 4058 8118 0 a b Powell Jonathan 2001 Skryabin Scriabin Aleksandr Nikolayevich Oxford Music Online Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 25946 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 E E Garcia 2004 Rachmaninoff and Scriabin Creativity and Suffering in Talent and Genius Archived 25 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine Psychoanalytic Review 91 423 42 Bowers Faubion 1966 Scriabin Again and Again Aspen Magazine New York 2 OCLC 50534422 Archived from the original on 1 April 2008 Retrieved 14 April 2008 a b c d Bowers 1996 Powell Jonathan 2001 Skryabin Aleksandr Nikolayevich Grove Music Online Oxford Music Online Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 25946 Retrieved 5 February 2014 a b Ivan Grezin Nikolai Scriabin First Russian Consul in Lausanne Archived 19 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine article from NashaGazeta ch 23 November 2011 in Russian and French Russian Academy of Sciences 1994 Cultural Heritage of the Russian Emigration 1917 1940 Volume 1 ed by Eugene Chelyshev Dmitry Shakhovskoy Moscow Nasledie p 507 509 ISBN 5 201 13219 7 Velvet Book Chapter 11 59 70 Yaroslvaskiy and Schetinin families at Genealogia ru in Russian a b Yuri Khanon 1995 Scriabin As a Face St Petersburg Liki Rossii p 13 ISBN 5 87417 026 X Bowers 1996 p 120 Bowers 1996 p 121 a b Scholes Percy 1969 1924 Crotchets A Few Short Musical Notes Freeport New York Books for Libraries Press p 141 ISBN 978 0 7222 5836 1 OCLC 855415 ISBN is for January 2001 edition Bowers 1996 p 154 Bowers 1996 p 60 Bowers 1996 p 315 Bowers Faubion The New Scriabin p 47 Potvin Gilles Alfred La Liberte The Canadian Encyclopedia Archived from the original on 19 March 2021 Retrieved 10 December 2019 Minderovic Zoran Alexander Scriabin Biography Allmusic Retrieved 9 December 2007 Benson Robert E October 2000 Scriabin s Mysterium Nuances Preparation for The Final Mystery Classical CD Review Archived from the original on 30 December 2007 Retrieved 9 December 2007 Bowers 1996 p 2 264 Bowers 1996 pp 270 271 Bowers 1996 p 278 Roberts Peter Deane 2002 Music of the Twentieth Century Avant Garde A Biocritical Sourcebook Connecticut Greenwood Press p 483 ISBN 9780313017230 Archived from the original on 19 March 2021 Retrieved 15 October 2020 Macdonald 1978 p 7 a b c Samson Jim 1977 Music in Transition A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality 1900 1920 New York W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 393 02193 6 OCLC 3240273 Samson Jim 1977 Music in Transition A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality 1900 1920 W W Norton amp Company pp 156 157 ISBN 978 0 393 02193 6 page needed a b c d e f Sabbagh Peter 2001 The Development of Harmony in Scriabin s Works ISBN 978 1 58112 595 5 a b Sabbagh 2003 p 16 Sabbagh 2003 pp 17 18 Sabbagh 2003 p 24 Taken from Musik Konzepte 32 33 p 8 Herndon Claude H 1982 83 Skryabin s new harmonic vocabulary in his sixth sonata Journal of Musicological Research p 354 a b Kallis Vasily 2008 Principles of Pitch Organization in Scriabin s Early Post tonal Period The Piano Miniatures Music Theory Online Society for Music Theory 14 3 doi 10 30535 mto 14 3 2 Sabbagh 2003 p 40 a b Leonid Sabaneev Vospominanija o Skrjabine Moscow 1925 p 47 quoted in Musik Konzepte 32 33 p 8 Guenther Roy J 1979 Varvara Dernova s Garmoniia Skriabina A Translation and Critical Commentary PhD Dissertation Catholic University of America p 67 Oja Carol J 2003 Making Music Modern New York in the 1920s Oxford University Press p 102 ISBN 978 0 19 516257 8 Harrison John 2001 Synaesthesia The Strangest Thing ISBN 0 19 263245 0 In fact there is considerable doubt about the legitimacy of Scriabin s claim or rather the claims made on his behalf as we shall discuss in Chapter 5 pp 31 32 B M Galeyev and I L Vanechkina August 2001 Was Scriabin a Synesthete Archived 25 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine Leonardo permanent dead link Vol 34 Issue 4 pp 357 362 authors conclude that the nature of Scriabin s color tonal analogies was associative i e psychological accordingly the existing belief that Scriabin was a distinctive unique synesthete who really saw the sounds of music that is literally had an ability for co sensations is placed in doubt Ballard Lincoln M A Russian Mystic in the Age of Aquarius The U S Revival of Alexander Scriabin in the 1960s Project Muse Johns Hopkins University Archived from the original on 11 November 2014 Retrieved 11 November 2014 Frisch Walter 22 February 1971 Prometheus Transcends Yale Daily News Gawboy Anna M Townsend Justin June 2012 Scriabin and The Possible Music Theory Online Society for Music Theory 18 2 doi 10 30535 mto 18 2 2 Archived from the original on 1 February 2014 Retrieved 4 February 2013 Scriabin Museum in Moscow 2019 Best Museums in Russia MOSCOVERY COM 6 July 2016 Alex Ross The Juilliard Manuscript Collection The Rest Is Noise website p 27 Smith Charles Davis 1994 The Welte Mignon Its Music and Musicians Vestal New York The Vestal Press for the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors Association ISBN 978 1 879511 17 0 Sitsky Larry 1990 The Classical Reproducing Piano Roll Westport CT Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 25496 3 Leikin Anatole 1996 The Performance of Scriabin s Piano Music Evidence from the Piano Rolls Performance Practice Review 9 1 97 113 doi 10 5642 perfpr 199609 01 08 ISSN 1044 1638 Retrieved 4 February 2014 Horowitz plays Scriabin in Moscow on YouTube Rimm 2002 p 145 Downes 2010 p 99 Artist Portal cpaus force com Michael Steen 2011 The Lives and Times of the Great Composers Icon Books ISBN 978 1848311350 page 17 Copland Aaron 1957 What to Listen for in Music New York McGraw Hill OCLC 269329 Taruskin Richard 20 February 2005 Restoring Comrade Roslavets The New York Times Retrieved 25 July 2011 Kennedy Michael Adrian Boult London Macmillan 1989 p 157 ISBN 0 333 48752 4 Ballard Lincoln January 2010 Lincoln Ballard Defining Moments Vicissitudes in Scriabin s Twentieth Century Reception Academia edu Retrieved 14 April 2014 Scriabin A Complete Catalogue of His Piano Compositions with Thematic Illustrations Hawkes amp Son 30 May 1927 via Google Books Rubbra Edmund The Resurgence of Scriabin in The Listener 26 February 1970 Scruton Roger 2009 Understanding Music Philosophy and Interpretation Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd p 183 ISBN 9781847065063 Retrieved 28 November 2012 Smotrim Glavnoe Vesti Filmy Serialy Shou I Efir Rossijskih Kanalov Pryanishnikov and Tompakov 1985 Letopis zhizni i tvorchestva A N Skryabina Chronicles of the Life and Art of A N Scriabin in Russian Muzyka Blushed at Bomb Plot Charge 26 August 1948 Morning Bulletin Rockhampton Lazaris V 2000 Tri zhenshiny Tel Aviv Lado pp 363 368 בטי קנוט לזרוס סיפורה של לוחמת נשכחת Archived 29 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine Oded Bar Meir 05 05 11 Elisha Abas the official website Archived from the original on 4 March 2008 Retrieved 14 April 2008 The Concise Edition of Baker s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians 8th ed Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky New York Schirmer Books 1993 p 921 ISBN 0 02 872416 X Slonimsky Nicolas 1993 The Concise Edition of Baker s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians 8th ed New York Schirmer Books Sources Edit Ballard Lincoln Bengtson Matthew Bell Young John 2017 The Alexander Scriabin Companion History Performance and Lore Lanham MD A Rowman amp Littlefield ISBN 978 1 4422 3262 4 Bowers Faubion 1996 Scriabin a Biography New York Dover Publications ISBN 978 0 486 28897 0 OCLC 33405309 Archived from the original on 19 March 2021 Retrieved 24 July 2018 Downes Stephen 2010 Music and Decadence in European Modernism The Case of Central and Eastern Europe Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 76757 6 Macdonald Hugh 1978 Skryabin Oxford studies of composers 15 Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 315438 4 Rimm Robert 2002 The Composer Pianists Hamelin and The Eight Portland Oregon Amadeus Press ISBN 978 1 57467 072 1 Sabbagh Peter 2003 The Development of Harmony in Scriabin s Works Universal Publishers ISBN 978 1 58112 595 5 External links EditUK Scriabin Association Free scores by Alexander Scriabin at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP The Mutopia Project has compositions by Alexander ScriabinRecordings Scriabin s own recording of the third and fourth movements of his Piano Sonata No 3 Op 23 The Pianola Institute Piano Rolls The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation Scriabin s Etude Op 8 No 12 Portals Biography Classical music Music RussiaAlexander Scriabin at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Alexander Scriabin amp oldid 1151202211, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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