CD, стоящие на полке рядом : Classics (Guru)      

Records: Studio St. George's, Brandon Hill, Bristol 01.1996

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Scriabin Piano Works

I create the world through the play of my moods,

with my smiles, my sighs, my caresses,

my anger, my hopes, my doubts.

-Alexander Scriabin

'I bring not truth but freedom.' This statement, written by Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) in his notebook around 1904-1905, could not be bettered as a summary of his aesthetic and philosophical development.

Scriabin was one of the least dogmatic revolutionaries in the history of music. One can safely forget the obscure, convoluted commentaries that have done his art such a disservice, and look upon him as he really was: an explosion of light of dazzling vibrancy - and also an undoubtedly disturbing presence at the turn of the century, which was so enamoured of systems and doctrines and so full of smug certainties. Is Scriabin's music really inaccessible, written in a code indecipherable to all but a few initiates? By no means. To be convinced, and for the magic to work, one has simply to approach it with the same keen openness that informed the composer's attitude to the world - an overwhelming Nietzschean 'yes', beyond good and evil.

'Once Scriabin took off, he kept going, leaping like a stone that has been thrown across a river and ricochets off the surface; one almost had the impression he left the earth and soared in mid-air. In general, he cultivated within himself various forms of spiritual lightness and a kind of weightless motion very much as if he was in flight.' Scriabin's whole being was steeped in pure spirituality, and the briefest description of his personality, like the one by Pasternak just quoted, says a great deal more than a purely biographical account. He distinguished himself by a rare capacity - which he took to positively solipsistic lengths - for rising above all the factual and contingent aspects of existence. He was driven by an indomitable desire to assert his creative freedom, which was inspired by a perpetual elan; he was the world, and thus had the power to mould it as he wished, to recreate it: 'Driven by divine impulse, unshackled by aims, / To draw you, O marvellous universe, / Into my free-roaming play.'

Let us touch briefly on Scriabin's youth. Having had his first music lessons from his beloved aunt Lyubov (a first-rate amateur pianist who passed on her passion for the Romantics, above all Chopin), he went on to perfect his piano technique under the guidance of the two greatest Russian teachers of the time, Nicolai Zverev and Vassili Safonov. Although Scriabin was of small stature and less well endowed physically for the keyboard than someone like Rachmaninov, he succeeded in developing a positively dazzling technique (as may be heard in the wax cylinder recordings he made in 1910). Numerous people have praised his amazing suppleness and the extraordinary richness of his palette of tone-colours, as well as his mastery of the expressive silence. These qualities are well described by Serov: 'he had an almost magic touch which was particularly enchanting when he played softly, drawing the most superb fleeting effects from the pedal.'

Scriabin's partner throughout all his musical conquests was the piano - not the orchestra, to which he never returned after Prometheus or The Poem of Fire, op.60 (1909) -, and the piano accompanied him right to the end of his life (the Preludes op.74 date from 1914). For this reason, the works written between 1909 and 1914, which form a bridge stretching from Prometheus to the Utopian Mystery, are all the more fascinating. The pieces performed here by Mikhail Pletnev cover the period from the Preludes op.11 (1888-1896) to Sonata no.10, op.70 (1913), thus virtually spanning Scriabin's entire creative life. This programme also shows the full extent of the extraordinary harmonic and pianistic development, thoroughly intuitive in nature, which he accomplished in a quarter of a century, and familiarises the listener with his favourite forms.

The 24 Preludes op. 11 clearly are post-Romantic works, influenced by, amongst others, Chopin's op.28. Yet even in these youthful works, Scriabin cannot be seen as merely following in Chopin's footsteps, as is all too often said. Boris de Schloezer, who has written some of the most significant pages ever on Scriabin, quite rightly pointed out that in these works Scriabin was not imitating Chopin's Ballades, but taking their musical language further. 'He succeeds in making it more supple', writes de Schloezer, 'and making it flow even more freely with considerable use of major-minor ambiguities and chromaticism, the latter nevertheless firmly grounded in a strongly defined tonal framework'. Still, there are moments, for example in Prelude no. 14, presto, which foreshadow the energy and tension of later works.

The year 1903 was a turning point in Scriabin's development, and Sonata no.4, op.30, is the earliest illustration of this. 'Man soaring towards the star that symbolises happiness' - thus Scriabin himself defined this work with its single theme and almost monolithic structure (its two movements are played as a continuous whole). The link with Romanticism, which was very pronounced in Sonatas nos.1 to 3, here gives way to moods of an occasionally Wagnerian nature. In some passages one catches glimpses of the superposed fourths which were to be so prominent in Sonata no.5. From Opus 30 on, the sonata was the form which Scriabin used for exploring the utmost resources of the piano. Harmony, rhythm, colour - everything plays its part in creating a new sound world, one in which a certain Romantic conception of piano composition is left far behind. This process culminates in Sonata no. 10, which is particularly striking for its density, dazzling energy and eroticism. 'The insects are born of the sun which nourishes them. They are the kisses of the sun, like my Tenth Sonata', Scriabin said.

Writing sonatas did not prevent Scriabin from producing a number of very concise works. This disc gives the listener the chance to discover pieces from op.45 to op.57, which are convincing examples of Scriabin's natural talent for miniatures, his ability to condense his musical ideas and to conjure up a new atmosphere in a few bars. These pieces deserve special attention, given that they were written in the shadow, as it were, of the orchestral work The Poem of Ecstasy (1905-1907) and its counterpart Sonata no.5 (1907). In comparison to these fiery scores, Reverie, op.49 no.3, Danse languide, op.51 no.4, and the Tristan-like Desir, op.57 no.1, for example, show us a more intimate, but no less ardently daring, facet of Scriabin's creative personality.

- Alain Cochard