With Passage, her debut solo album, the Georgian pianist Salome Jordania (nee 1996) presents a spiritual and vertiginous journey by way of the music of Franz Liszt, Alexander Scriabin, and Kaija Saariaho. Moving between mysticism, darkness, and the quest for transcendence, she explores the obscurity and radiance of the human soul through a programme of rare intensity, conceived as a true inner odyssey.
For those accustomed to hearing a more standard, cohesive repertoire on an album, this program may seem unusual: For this studio concert, the Russian-American pianist Misha Namirovsky was guided by two artistic principles: on the one hand, the juxtaposition of forms, structural breadth and musical character, and on the other, the aspects of profundity, virtuosity and reflection.
Nobody could call Scriabin a fussy man. All he asks of a pianist who would traverse his early sonatas is that he manage to be as sounding brass (Sonata No. 1), to walk on water (No. 2), to burn and be not consumed (No. 3), to fly (No. 4), and to dematerialize (No. 5). In that order. Oh yes, and stretch a twelfth.
Boris Berman, of Yale University by way of Moscow and Tel Aviv, is ready for this or any decathalon. Born and raised in the one country where Scriabin is as securely ensconced in the Pantheon as Bach or Beethoven, he believes in the music the way Sofronitsky did, the way Horowitz did, the way you will after you've heard him play. I must say his performances of the First and Second Sonatas were revelations to me. These are the sonatas one only encounters in integral recordings, and the other complete Scriabins I've heard (Szidon, Ponti) have not been satisfactory. In Berman's hands the first movement of the First, composed by a twenty-year-old just out of the Conservatory, is one of the great Scriabin experiences. It may be as yet conventional in form and only vaguely suggestive in its harmony of the composer's mature idiom. But it already has his inimitable rhythmic fluidity (yes, literally inimitable; God knows Stravinsky and Prokofiev tried) and his unique command of three- and four-handed pianistic textures. Berman sprouts as many hands as are required, and he has an ability to phrase in long periods—plus the pedal technique to support it—that keeps the music airborne despite its sequential construction. He also has his teacher Lev Oborin's famous way with inner voices; how many pianists could bring out the tenor in the chorale section of the funeral-march finale within an overall marking, scrupulously observed, of pppp?
When, beginning with Sonata No. 3, Berman hits the big-time competition, he more than holds his own. He knows the idiom to the extent that his eighth-note triplets are regularly distended, as Scriabin played them, with a hesitation on the second note and a correspondingly shorter third. His tempos are brisk and flexible, his touch remarkably like Scriabin's own, to the extent that we may judge it from the composer's Vorsetzer rolls and from verbal descriptions (e.g., that of Alexander Pasternak, the poet's brother: “I . . . had the impression that his fingers were producing the sound without touching the keys; his enemies liked to say it was not real piano playing, but a twittering of birds or a mewing of kittens“). This mercurial lightness is really indispensable in the Fourth Sonata, not only in the Prestissimo volando, but also toward the end of the Andante, where the right hand must caress a steady stream of high repeated chords while the left hand sings the tune. You will indeed have the impression that Berman's fingers are not touching the keys. When that main theme of the Andante comes back riding the crest of the Prestissimo in what James Baker (in truly excellent program notes) calls the first of Scriabin's many thematic apotheoses, Berman's effortless tone production is suitably glorious.
In fact, nowhere in this set is there the slightest sense of sweat or strain, even in the Fifth Sonata, so full of explicitly erotic gestures. (Yes, Scriabin appeals to forces mystérieuses, but we know very well what they are.) It's a very playful, aristocratic sort of ecstasy Scriabin summons up, the kind reflected in the Kama Sutra, far, oh very far from 42nd Street. Berman has the cosmic skittishness it takes to make what is often such a heavy harangue a tickly, spritzy delight. Porno-phony, perhaps, but definitely soft-core.
Volume 2, expected shortly, will require the pianist to cast spells, be like the sun, worship the devil, and ultimately become an insect. Can't wait.
Scriabin: The Complete Piano Sonatas Vol 2 / Boris Berman
Music and Arts Programs of America
CD
$19.99Aug 19, 2013
When the first volume of sonatas turned up (Music and Arts CD-605, Fanfare 13:5), Richard Taruskin wrote of Berman that, “Born and raised in the one country where Scriabin is as securely ensconced in the Pantheon as Bach or Beethoven, he believes in the music the way Sofronitsky did, the way Horowitz did, the way you will after you've heard him. ...“ Indeed, in the complete traversal sweeps—Ponti, Laredo, Taub—Berman's most consistent competition comes from Ashkenazy (London 425 579-2, two silver discs), who, needless to say, shares Berman's distinctions. In fact, heard after other pianists, Berman and Ashkenazy seem remarkably at one in their view of Scriabin and in their effortless projection of it—even their timings are often identical ! Within this basic similarity, however, one may say that Berman favors a voluptuously febrile approach, couched in veiled, bass-rich, pedal-held sound (abetted by a lushly resonant acoustic), while Ashkenazy opts for an almost crystalline (though seldom dry) clarity, crisper articulation, and brighter color. In the later sonatas, with their incantatory repetitions flaring into great washes of sonority, Ashkenazy's larger, more pointed climaxes bring these hallucinatory soundscapes into sharper focus, though Berman s accarezzevole touch and cumulative power awaken the music's daimonic eroticism with an hypnotic sureness scanted in Ashkenazy's patrician brilliance.
Both are high-voltage players, though neither quite matches Horowitz for sheer nervous energy, sinister intimations, trembling-on-the-verge spellbinding, eruptive grandeur, or overall éclat— though we are close: if Horowitz overwhelms, Ashkenazy compels, while Berman seduces. It is only fair to add that Ashkenazy recorded his cycle over a period of years, going back to 1975, where Berman committed his to the microphone in a matter of days—a staggering achievement. As noted, Music and Arts's aural perspective, while immediate and detailed, favors the bass. James E. Baker's extensive notes are a decided bonus, though his placement of Scriabin in the cultural history of his time and place will probably amount to obscurum per obscurius for most readers, to whom the likes of Solovyov, Balmont, lvanov, Baltrushaitis, Gippius, et al., are unlikely to be even superficially as familiar as the also named Nietzsche, Rudolf Steiner, and Madame Blavatsky. Hearing the sonatas together is one of music's great adventures, and Berman, aside from being an astounding pianist, is also gifted with that touch of the psychopomp which enables him to convey us unerringly to the heart of Scriabin's mystery. Enthusiastically recommended.
The 21 Mazurkas Scriabin penned over a period of some 15 years (from 1888 to 1903) are musical treasures from one of the most remarkable tone-poets Russia ever produced. Long neglected by pianists, they were for the most part relegated to the limbo of early efforts, or often regarded as inferior ñ albeit interesting ñ imitations of Chopinís more ìauthenticî creations. Doubtlessly, the mystery and melancholy of Chopinís Mazurkas found a sympathetic echo in the hypersensitive soul of the young composer, whose affection for the Polish master began in boyhood and was indeed never to wane. Yet, in adapting the dance most indigenous to Poland and most closely associated with Chopin, Scriabin, even at the early age of 16, by his very nature, could do no less than transform it into something striking and original. It could not be helped: his vision was unique, a way of apprehending the world very much estranged from commonplace notions of reality, where angels, dark imaginings, intense nostalgia, and imitations of unseen realms were the norm. Refracted through the prism of an extraordinary sensibility, his mazurkas would become essentially mazurka-fantasies. They would take on an allure of pieces improvised in the bleakest hours of the night, where subterranean, atavistic passions unexpectedly surge forth and an eerie desolation sets in. At other times, they would beguile by sheer charm and sensuality, often self-indulgently so. The American pianist and critic John Bell Young, himself a noted exponent of Scriabinís music, wrote on hearing an advance copy of this recording: ìTerrific! He is a Scriabinist to the manor born.î Le Vanís recording of Brahmsí Sonatas no. 1 & no. 3 has been acclaimed internationally as was his release of Lisztís Complete Cello/Piano Works with cellist Guido Schiefen for Arte Nova (BMG), awarded best chamber music disc for the year 2000 in the Neue Musik Zeitung. Le Van has resided for several years in France where he is Artistic Director of the International Franz Liszt Festival.
This new recording contains a selection of piano works by Alexandre Scriabin, the Russian Romantic/mystic, from the different stages of his creative life: from the Chopin-inspired early Etudes and monumental Fantasy Op. 28 to the 7th(“White Mass”) and 10th Piano Sonata, expressions of Scriabin’s philosophical ideas, dealing with his personal demons and quest for cosmic illumination. Serbian pianist Misha Dacic has a special affinity to Scriabin, “he knows how to make the piano sound not like a piano” (as Nikolai Sverev said about the young Scriabin). Dacic’ previous Liszt recording for Piano Classics (PCL0048) received glowing reviews: “What a Liszt player!, a formidable Lisztian reputation is completely born out of the stunning virtuosity and passionate, fearless embrace of the composer’s idiom, (performance-10 Classicstoday.com), “Startling temperamental force and mastery” (Bryce Morrison in Gramophone). Misha Dacic is a regular guest at the prestigious Miami Piano Festival. He studied with Lazar Berman, and participated in the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano. Misha Dacic holds his present posts as piano professor at Mersin State Conservatory in Turkey, and at the University of Arts in Niš, Serbia.
As Scriabin's Preludes progressively leave their Chopin models behind and dig deeper into sensuous abstraction, Evgeny Zarafiants' probing, dark toned interpretations truly hit home. No skating over Scriabin's increasingly troubled waters for this pianist, whose wide dynamic range and multi-tiered palette of articulations add dramatic dimension and heft to these elusive scores. The real eye-openers, though, are four preludes written by Scriabin's eleven-year-old son Julian. They're quite extraordinary in their confident, fluent piano writing and harmonic sophistication, bearing hints of early Schoenberg alongside the elder Scriabin's musical style. Julian drowned at age 11 in 1919. We will never know if he would have grown up to take over the family business, so to speak, yet these remarkable pieces are no doubt worthy of the Scriabin name. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Scriabin: Orchestral Works / Segerstam, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic
BIS
CD
$39.99Sep 01, 2007
This specially-priced (3 CDs for the price of 2) boxed set spans from Scriabin's first large-scale orchestral work, his Piano Concerto (1897), to Prometheus (1909-10), his last completed piece (which incidentally also features an important part for solo piano). It thus includes the lion's share of his orchestral output - excepting the unfinished, mythical Mysterium - and shows his development from a young man brought up on Chopin and Tchaikovsky into one of the most original composers the world has ever known.
Less than three years have passed since Yevgeny Sudbin's remarkable début on disc: a Scarlatti recital which caused reviewers to compare the then 25-year4 old pianist favourably to Horowitz and Pletnev. The following Rachamninov disc cause Piano Magazine (UK) to describe him as 'a major world-class artist'. The latest offering - an intriguing double-bill of Tchaikovsky's and Medtner's First Piano Concertos - was released previously this year, earning him an 'Editor's Choice' in the Gramophone. The grounds for that distinction, as given in the magazine, are certainly just as apt for the present Scriabin recital: 'Yevgeny Sudbin's performance here fairly explodes with imagination, feeling and desire. Here, one feels, is a pianist hungry to test himself intellectually and emotionally as well as technically.'
This CD release marks the start of a creative partnership between the Oslo Philharmonic and LAWO Classics. Alexander Scriabin’s deep immersion in esoteric philosophy and related spiritual awakening became integral to his art. The Russian composer’s initial conservative musical language evolved in the early 1900s and opened up to daring harmonic territories. His art was influenced in part by his reading of Helena Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine, a syncretic blend of ancient wisdom, occult practices, mysticism, and critical reactions to Darwin and modern "materialist" science.
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REVIEWS:
Petrenko shows an excellent grasp of each symphony's dramatic trajectory, and a broader than usual awareness of the creative legacy within which Scriabin worked.
– BBC Music Magazine
Petrenko’s debut disc with his new Oslo band should not be overlooked: Scriabin’s virtuosic writing holds no terrors for them, and they wallow in the “Voluptés” of No 3’s central movement with ravishing transparency. The Poem of Ecstasy is heady stuff, brilliantly played.
CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 2, “Funeral March.” Polonaise in f?, op. 44. Prelude in B?, op. 28/21. BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas: No. 27; No. 32. SCRIABIN Etude, op. 8/2. 2 Poems, op. 32 • Ivo Pogorelich (pn) • C MAJOR 701308 (DVD: 101:00)
This video was filmed in 1987, when Pogorelich was in his late-20s. The locale is an ornate Italian villa with excellent acoustics. The sound engineering has held up very well, and the camerawork is unobtrusive. There is no showmanship. Pogorelich simply plays the music, without jumping about or making faces. He has one of the most compulsively watchable pairs of hands I’ve ever seen. I haven’t been this taken with the physical act of a pianist’s playing since I saw Earl Wild play the Gershwin Concerto in 1986. There is a balance of form and function in Pogorelich’s hands that is just enthralling. Pogorelich performs the Chopin and the Scriabin in a black tunic, switching to a plain blue shirt for the Beethoven. Perhaps there’s something revealing in that. The video footage was originally divided into five separate television programs, which simply are played here in succession. I didn’t find this distracting.
I believe Chopin’s Second Piano Sonata was one of the works Pogorelich performed in the 1980 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. That was where Martha Argerich resigned from the jury after Pogorelich’s elimination, calling him “a genius.” This video contains a great rendition of the sonata. Even the brief introductory chords are dramatic and arresting. In the first movement, Pogorelich has a beautiful response to the second subject, varying it with richness and nobility on each of its appearances, the third time giving it beautiful tone coloring. The scherzo features a dynamic left hand, while its second subject is highly rhapsodic. The opening of the Marche funèbre is grand, even triumphant, whereas its second subject is shaded nocturnally. The return of the Marche is terrifying, leading to the finale’s splendid virtuosic chaos. Throughout the sonata Pogorelich’s conception is bold, dynamic, and vivid.
The remaining Chopin works are equally impressive. The polonaise is freely shaped, colorful, and propulsive. The return of its main theme at the end is immense and thrilling. Pogorelich’s interpretation of the prelude is slow and stately. He brings the same ingratiating talents as a miniaturist to the short works by Scriabin. They highlight his craftsmanship as a subtle colorist and superb technician. The étude is languorous. As for the Two Poems, the first is dreamy, while the second is torrential.
Pogorelich’s Beethoven is more provocative, owing to his preference for slow tempos. In the first movement of Sonata No. 27, I prefer to think of his tempo not as slow but as spacious. The music’s structure always is apparent. In the final movement, Pogorelich offers a truthful representation of Beethoven’s cantabile marking. This issue, however, bedevils the last sonata. In its first movement, Pogorelich’s concept of maestoso is assisted by his ability to clarify voices. This movement’s contrast of virtuosity and repose seems here to prefigure Liszt. Things bog down, unfortunately, in the last movement. There Pogorelich takes the adagio molto marking too literally, interfering in his slowness with the other instruction for cantabile playing. His phrasing becomes choppy. Beethoven did offer the instruction semplice, but that doesn’t mean to proceed so slowly as to be simple-minded. I watched this DVD four times before writing this review, and the last movement of Sonata No. 32 was the only performance I grew weary of.
If you are collecting these works on CD, I can make some recommendations. In the Chopin sonata, I like Cécile Ousset (whose muscularity recalls Pogorelich), Leif Ove Andsnes, and Idil Biret. Richard Goode and Bernard Roberts are interesting in both of the Beethoven sonatas. For No. 32, there also are fine recordings by Bruce Hungerford, Jerome Rose, and, on a Graf fortepiano, Peter Serkin. Scriabin’s Two Poems appears in a lyrical presentation by the Russian-American pianist Dmitry Paperno, on a lovely collection of shorter works titled Through the Years. As for Pogorelich’s DVD, it is fascinating and compulsively watchable almost all the way through. If you can overlook some rather zany Beethoven, it might be for you.
This CD features the acclaimed Finnish pianist Olli Mustonen with piano works by Alexander Scriabin, which have become his signature pieces in concert. Olli Mustonen has been hailed by The Sunday Times as, “a living dream of pianism, having broken through an expressive barrier that other players do not know exists.”
