(Tolstoy described Alexander Scriabins music as a sincere ...)
Tolstoy described Alexander Scriabins music as a sincere expression of genius while Scriabin described himself as all impulse, all desire His virtuosity rivalling that of Rachmaninov, the young and colorful musician and composer found inspiration in his idol, Chopin, while still touching his compositions with Russian darkness and sensuous passion. This album of his less-popular compositions also includes the child prodigys Canon in D minor, composed when Scriabin was only 11 years old.
Etude in D-Sharp Minor, Op. 8, No. 12 (Digitally Remastered)
(Alexander Scriabin's Etude in D-Sharp Minor, Op. 8, No. 1...)
Alexander Scriabin's Etude in D-Sharp Minor, Op. 8, No. 12 performed by pianist Tatjana Franova.
When sold by Amazon.com, this product will be manufactured on demand using CD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
(Scriabin' cycle of Piano Sonatas is one of the most visio...)
Scriabin' cycle of Piano Sonatas is one of the most visionary and dramatic in the canon. The First dates from 1892, written at a time of crisis in his life, and is a passionate, emotionally unstable work, whilst No. 4, completed over a decade later, embod
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist.
Background
Aleksandr Nikolayevich Scriabin was born on December 25, 1871 in Moscow, Russia. His father, Nikolai Scriabin, was a wealthy aristocrat, lawyer and a distinguished diplomat. His mother, Lyubov Petrovna, was a professional pianist, who passed away due to tuberculosis when Aleksandr was only one year old. After his wife’s death, Aleksandr’s father completed his education in Turkish and joined the Foreign Services, serving Greece and Turkey. Aleksandr was brought up by his aunt. He had his grandmother and great aunt around too.
Education
As a child. Scriabin was quite exposed to piano playing, as his aunt Lyubov was an amateur piano player. He was quite fascinated with the mechanism of the piano and he often built pianos and gifted it to the guests. Scriabin started taking piano lessons at an early age from Nikolai Zverev. Scriabin was of short stature, just about five foot tall, but many a times he acted all big and arrogant to compensate for his lack of height. Scriabin wanted to join the army. When he was eleven, he put on a uniform, but was made fun because of his weak stature and short height.
In 1882, Scriabin enrolled himself into the Moscow Cadet corps. Scriabin’s peers often resented being friends with him because of his short height. However, after he performed and played the piano at a concert, he won the approval of his peers. At the Cadet, Scriabin learned and played the piano. From 1888 to 1892, Scriabin studied at the Moscow Conservatory where his teachers included Arensky, Taneyev, and Safonov. Safonov taught him to play piano while Arensky and Taneyev mentored him in composition. Aleksandr became noted pianist regardless of his small hands.
While practicing Franz Liszt's ‘Réminiscences de Don Juan’, Aleksandr damaged his right hand and the doctors dismissed the hope of it ever recovering. It was during this time that Scriabin indited Piano Sonata No. 1 as a "cry against God, against fate. " This was amongst his first large scale masterpieces. Eventually Scriabin’s hand regained movement. In 1892, he graduated from the conservatory with the Little Gold Medal in piano performance. By the time he graduated, Aleksandr had already composed the piano pieces that constituted his opuses 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. However, Scriabin did not graduate in composition from the conservatory due to his musical differences with Arensky.
Career
Scriabin launched his concert career in 1894. He made his debut as a pianist in St. Petersburg. In the same year, he composed for Mitrofan Petrovich Belyayev’s publishing company. Mitrofan paid him 100 roubles for a sonata and 25 roubles for a prelude.
In 1897, he toured Russia and then held a successful concert in Paris in 1898. He composed the ‘Reverie’ in e minor, but was criticized for its brevity. Therefore, he went about composing his Symphony no 1. In the same year, Scriabin became a teacher at the conservatory and he taught there until 1903. He resigned the conservatory over a sex scandal. He was not applauded as an educator mainly because of his pungent remarks about great musicians like Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms.
Inspired by Chopin, Aleksandr’s early compositions included nocturnes, mazurkas, preludes, and etudes for piano. By the end of 1904, Scriabin moved to Switzerland. He was completely devoted to composition while he was there. There he completed his Symphony no 3.
Scriabin spent around six years touring several countries including Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium and United States. From 1906 to 1907, Scriabin toured United States and gave concerts with Safonov and the conductor Modest Altschuler. While in New York City, Scriabin met Alfred La Liberté, who was his good friend and disciple.
During those years, he was greatly interested in theological teachings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and these became the backbones of his compositions of philosophical ideas. His “Poem of Ecstasy” (1908) and “Prometheus” (1910) reflected the theosophical ideas greatly. While performing “Prometheus”, he had a notion of light and colors projected on the screen. He was the first ever artist to use color accompaniment with his performances. He also used a multicolored keyboard, which was designed by the physicist Aleksandr Moser in 1910, for the performances of 'Prometheus'.
In 1909, Scriabin was encouraged by conductor Serge Koussevitzky to return to Russia permanently. Koussevitzky established Scriabin as the orchestral composer. However, as Scriabin was so difficult to deal with, it resulted in a fall out. Scriabin continued to compose on big projects and wanted to perform a multi-media project on the Himalayas. He was looking forward to uniting all of mankind through these compositions and went on to create a seven-day long composition called ‘Mysterium’. He had written seventy pages shortly before his death. The incomplete composition titled “Prefatory Action” was however, performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy in Berlin with Aleksei Lyubimov at the piano in Berlin.
In 1915, at the age of 43, he died in Moscow from septicemia as a result of a sore on his upper lip. He had mentioned the sore as early as 1914 while in London. Immediately upon Scriabin's sudden death, Rachmaninoff toured Russia in a series of all-Scriabin recitals. It was the first time he had played music other than his own in public and his efforts helped secure Scriabin's reputation as a great composer.
Achievements
The composer and pianist Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a striking representative of the early modern school of Russian music. The romantic symbolism of his late work often obscures his genuine innovations.
He is considered by some to be the main Russian Symbolist composer.
Scriabin was one of the most innovative and most controversial of early modern composers.
Scriabin had a major impact on the music world over time, and influenced composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Nikolai Roslavets. However Scriabin's importance in the Russian and then Soviet musical scene, and internationally, drastically declined after his passing.
His musical aesthetics have been reevaluated, and his ten published sonatas for piano, which arguably provided the most consistent contribution to the genre since the time of Beethoven's set, have been increasingly championed.
Aleksandr was also influenced by color. His color system lined up with the circle of fifths. He had a colored keyboard with turntable colored lamps, which is now preserved in his apartment in Moscow. Also designed for one of his performances was his color organ that projected colored light on a screen rather than sound. Most of Scriabin’s works are known to be influenced by synesthesia — a sensation triggered by stimulus. In this case, it was color.
Personality
Scriabin was small and reportedly frail throughout his life. Scriabin was a serious womanizer and was a predator around young girls.
Quotes from others about the person
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia said of Scriabin that "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. "
According to his biographer Bowers, "No one was more famous during their lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after death. "
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
A major influence on Scriabin’s music was philosophy. After he discovered the theosophical teachings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in 1905, they became the spine of his musical compositions. Quite famously, Scriabin has been quoted saying, “I am God”. The “9th Sonata” (Black Mass) is one of the most recognizable examples of Scriabin’s eccentric philosophical influences.
Music & Bands
Frédéric Chopin’s influenced Scriabin’s early musical pieces. The techniques of the étude, the prelude, the nocturne, and the mazurka are what Scriabin usually employed in his music. However, with the advent of time, Scriabin’s music became highly original, using unusual harmonies and styles.
Connections
Scriabin’s personal life was quite an interesting mix of ugly truths. He married Vera Ivanovna Isakovich in 1897. She was a Jew but eventually converted into a Russian Orthodox. She was an excellent pianist, but her personality was completely opposite as compared to Scriabin. Scriabin had three girls and a boy with Vera. The eldest daughter passed away due to psychosomatic disorder and the son passed away because of fever. Aleksandr divorced Vera in 1904 and found a new mistress, Tatiana Fyodorovna Schloezer. He married her and had two girls and a boy named Julian Scriabin. Julian was a young and talented pianist himself.
Aleksandr new marriage did not meant he kept himself away from other girls and love affairs. He was still involved with other women and underage girls, and was alleged to have raped many too. For instance, when he taught at the conservatory in 1903, he was charged of having sex with an underage girl.
