This album marks Peter Jablonski’s debut for the Ondine label. Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) created an impressive catalogue of works for the piano and became one of the great innovators in 20th century music. In his early works, the listener can sense the composer’s great admiration for the art of Frédéric Chopin. This is especially manifested in the over 20 Mazurkas that Scriabin wrote for the solo piano, the very same form of music that Chopin followed throughout his active years as a composer. Jablonski's album includes all Scriabin's Mazurkas with an opus number as well as two early Mazurkas.

REVIEW:

Peter Jablonski reaches in an brings out this music's opium-laced perfumes and colors, and projects their intoxicating essence very well. The music of Alexander Scriabin is not concerned with notes, but rather with what these notes can evoke. Jablonski's got this covered.

– Classical Music Sentinel (Jean-Yves Duperron)

Both Scriabin and Langgaard believed that through their music they could pave the way for a spiritual revolution. The piano offered a perfect and very intimate medium for their highly personal harmonic and expressive vocabularies. Scriabin drew on daemonic associations in his Piano Sonata No. 9 to liberate the old tonal system, whereas Langgaard explored his youthful fascination with Catholicism in music of fanaticism and ecstasy. Langgaard’s The Flame Chambers and Scriabin’s Vers la flamme are feverish musical twins that exemplify both composers’ explosive intensity.

The piano works of Alexander Scriabin, gathered on the newest release by Konstantin Semilakov, allow us to trace the development of his musical language through the chronological order of their composition. Starting from an early phase influenced by 19th century music, it gradually reveals a groundbreaking harmonic system that is no longer based on major-minor tonal connections. Born in Riga in 1984, pianist Konstantin Semilakovs is laureate of the First Prize of the International Piano Competition in Porto, Portugal and prizewinner of the Competition for Young Pianists Ettlingen, Germany. Since 2018 he is appointed professor of piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He is passionate about researching the phenomenon of 'colour' in the classical piano repertoire and synaesthetic performing of works by the composers Olivier Messiaen and Alexander Scriabin.

This new release is the last installment in Petrenko's fortunate survey of Scriabin's symphonic output. Gramophone writes: “Kirill Gerstein is just the sort of 'thinking pianist' to take it on [Scriabin’s Piano Concerto] and he does a terrific job, and Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Phil are highly sympathetic partners.” The multifaceted pianist Kirill Gerstein has rapidly ascended into classical music’s highest ranks. With a masterful technique, discerning intelligence, and a musical curiosity that has led him to explore repertoire spanning centuries and styles, he has proven to be one of today’s most intriguing and versatile musicians. His early training and experience in jazz has contributed an important element to his interpretive style, inspiring an energetic and expressive musical personality that distinguishes his playing.

Russian composer Alexander Scriabin is known to enthusiasts for his theory of musical colors, innovative piano works that pushed the boundaries of tonal writing, and for his untimely demise brought on by an unsanitary razor blade. American pianist and music professor Russell Hirshfield has now recorded an ambitiously-broad selection of the composer's early works which may well provide a novel talking point. There are relatively few recordings of Scriabin's music these days, possibly because it's a daunting task: The compositions demand a high level of virtuosity, but also a natural musical expressiveness that few performers are able to capture. Often, as in the case of the 24 Preludes, the performer is required to condense the emotional depth of an entire sonata movement into one minute or less. It's a well-crafted but fragile kind of music: if any one component, say, the phrasing, is off-color, the whole piece can fall apart. Luckily, Hirshfield is more than up to the challenge. His pianistic sentiment, technical command and interpretive clarity is not only impressive, it's the perfect fit for Scriabin. The level-headed yet profoundly empathetic playing truly brings out the shine in Scriabin's idiosyncratic compositional voice. This rendition isn't drenched in pseudo-Slavic drama which often mars contemporary recordings of Russian composers: instead, it rightfully portrays the pieces as the works of the individual. And it's a success. ALEXANDER SCRIABIN: EARLY WORKS couldn't be more aptly titled: Even though they constitute a selection, one would be hard-pressed not to imagine them as the sole recordings of the true, unadulterated Scriabin. Russell Hirshfield adds another exceptional merit to his great pianistic mastery: that to be a good musician is not only to be a performer, but to be an ambassador.

The Scriabin Mystery is brought to vivid life by acclaimed French pianist Vincent Larderet and celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Russian composer. Making his AVIE debut, Larderet presents a comprehensive survey of the scope of Scriabin’s output and the evolution of his style, from his early, post-Romantic works influenced by Chopin and Liszt, through to the modernism of the 20th century in his final works. His harmonies famously colored by his synesthesia, Scriabin’s craft was a revolutionary fusion of freedom of expression underpinned by a sense of unity and geometric proportion, his psychologically complex constructions infused with incandescence and mysticism. Scriabin’s music has long held pride of place in Larderet’s repertoire. He offers a brilliant and broad overview of the composer’s evolution in chronological sequence, revealing the mystery of one of the most visionary composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scriabin’s life was tragically cut short at the age of 43, leaving his final work, Acte préalable, unfinished. Long thought lost, the sketches were re-discovered by composer and musicologist Manfred Kelkel, who used the material for his composition Tombeau de Scriabine. Vincent includes the Prelude of this work as a touching encore to The Scriabin Mystery.

A new precious chapter has been added to Mariangela Vacatello's project of complete recording of Alexander Scriabin’s piano sonatas. A record series, to which the second volume is now added, that becomes a virtuosic journey into the world of sonatas where, as Guido Salvetti illustrates in the accompanying notes: "They thus reflect the composer's entire artistic itinerary: from the fiery romantic gestures of Liszt to the dissolution of rationality in the more symbolic esotericism." The sonatas date from 1891, in the last months of study at the Moscow Conservatory, and 1913.
In this new publication, Mariangela Vacatello delves with a personal touch into the creative plots of the sonatas n. 2 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8, revealing its expressive complexities and countless emotional cues. A new record release that reflects the intense and virtuosic exploratory research of the pianist, an opportunity to rediscover the creative and human universe of the Russian composer in its expressive and narrative density".

The Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol.1 is the first volume of a new project that will see Mariangela Vacatello perform the entire cycle of Scriabin's piano sonatas.

Scriabin's Piano Sonatas (the ten to which the composer assigned an opus number) date from between 1891, during the last months of his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, and 1913, in his final phase dominated by the vast project of the "Symphonic Poem" Prometheus. They thus reflect the composer's entire artistic itinerary: from the fiery romantic gestures of Liszt to the dissolution of rationality in the more symbolic esotericism. And so it happens that the musical discourse, rather than being based on an orderly succession of different figures, is transformed into a sort of efflorescence of thematic recurrences between one movement and another (in the First, Third, and Fourth) and of self-quotations between the Fifth and the following Sonatas (becoming exacerbated in the Ninth and Tenth), with a network of cross references (of trills, fanfares, arpeggios, languid chromaticisms, etc.) that makes it possible to suggest the hypothesis of a single work (as such, monstrously intricate) that embraces the Sonatas from the Fourth to the Tenth as phases of a single spiritual experience, dominated by the mysteriosophic idiosyncrasies of the philosopher and mystic Vladimir Solovyov.

Scriabin composed most of his single-movement fourth symphony The Poem of Ecstasy between 1905 and 1908 in Italy and France. He originally intended it to be called Poème orgiaque (‘Orgiastic Poem’) with its unprecedented raw sensuality and overpowering aesthetic, taking chromaticism beyond even Wagnerian voluptuousness. His earlier Symphony No. 2 in C minor adopts César Franck’s cyclical ideas to which Scriabin layered sweeping climaxes, majestic intensity and rich orchestral colour that enliven its five movements with ceaseless invention.

REVIEW:

The Poem of Ecstasy is an extremely effective piece. JoAnn Falletta’s sleek, graceful performance, at 19 minutes, is on the swift side of things, and well balanced for transparency and texture. The Buffalo Philharmonic paints in lovely light colors, and nothing drips. The electronic organ used by the orchestra supplies a fine weight for the conclusion of the piece. Falletta delivers the last apocalyptic chord after a slight pause, all the more effective given the fact that this has been a swift performance unencumbered by needless rubato. The Poem of Ecstasy emerges gleaming and appealing.

Falletta’s traversal of the Second Symphony is, if anything, even better, and almost relentless. This reading is ablaze with forward motion, bringing the piece home in 40 minutes. Scriabin has not provided many moments for the music to catch its breath, so it turns out that an effective counter to this is to speed one’s way through the score and gradually ratchet up the tension.

Falletta does not linger excessively over the slow movement. This is where conductors can get into trouble dwelling on atmosphere. In the propulsive last third of the symphony, Scriabin seems to tighten his compositional approach, as if aware of this pitfall, and the Buffalo Philharmonic is with him all the way, brass and percussion snarling through the whiplash winds of the Tempestuoso and ultimately hitting paydirt with the memorable march that brings the symphony to its powerful and optimistic conclusion. 

The Naxos engineers are to be congratulated throughout. The recorded sound is utterly natural and true to the hall. Falletta deserves kudos for daring to be brisk and for knowing how to build satisfying climaxes. This is the best version of the Second Symphony I have heard.

-- Fanfare (Steven Kruger)

As pianist Andrei Hoteev puts it, Vladimir Sofronitzki's interpretations included an "improvisatory style", which corresponds with what musicologist Sigfried Schibli has noted as a characteristic of Scriabin's own playing, going on to say Scriabin "developed his own style of playing the piano" with "alertly varied rhythms and dynamics...combined with a delicate touch and spontaneous agogics." Indeed, Sofronitzki's Scriabin performances have often been praised for their idiomatic, "poetic" rubato together with a flair for musical architecture and rhythmic precision. In his desire for fidelity to the original, Sofronitzki's highly sensitive use of the pedal reflects his striving to abide by the composer's expressive markings as closely as possible. His affinity with Scriabin's oeuvre may derive from the fact that both the composer and the pianist himself were influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Having spent his childhood in Warsaw, where his family had settled when he was two years old, Sofronitzki came to be regarded as setting new standards for Chopin interpretation - an artistic focus that goes back to his first piano tuition in the Polish capital. In 1949, the centenary of Chopin's death, Sofronitzki performed all his piano works on five successive days at the great hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

REVIEWS:

The flow of melody and the highest transparency of musical events were top priorities for Vladimir Sofronitzky, whom Emil Gilels called the greatest piano player in the world and of whom the famous Heinrich Neuhaus said, « He plays like a god and looks like a god. » Let’s look closely at these two statements: Gilels speaks of the piano player not of the pianist. Consciously or unconsciously? And Neuhaus speaks of the god. God, is that power? Mightiness? Because Sofronitzky’s playing is powerful. It is dramatic and sonorous. This is Sofronitzky’s individualism: his feelings are those of sovereignty, of control. Poetry and tenderness are not his thing. And so the recordings of this edition impress me more than they touch me.

However, those who are intoxicated by consummate piano technique will be happy with this. In addition to the Etudes, Mazurkas, Preludes, Impromptus, Nocturnes and Poèmes, this box includes the legendary near-complete recording of the piano sonatas with Vladimir Sofronitzky. Only the first three movements of the 1st Sonata and the 9th Sonata, which the pianist never recorded out of respect for Scriabin, are missing and replaced by recordings by other pianists. Sofronitzky’s interpretations are phenomenal: he literally chisels the music into sculptures, relentless, accented, yet often very restrained and labored for nuance. Nevertheless, it is the enormously powerful playing that dominates and captivates the listener[.]

-- Pizzicato

These are historical recordings from 1946 to 1962, played primarily by Sofronitski; all the others are listed as guests. Profil celebrates Scriabin’s 150th birthday with a nearly complete collection of his solo piano works. This remastered collection has cleaned things up to today’s standards.

"Historical Recordings 1946-1962" is correct for all the recordings here except Scriabin’s tracks. There is not a bad performance in this collection. A few choices were made that I didn’t agree with, but, by and large, this is spectacular Scriabin...I was amazed at the musical concentration Sofronitsky summoned to play such beautifully shaped phrases on such an instrument. Anyone who enjoys Scriabin’s piano music will find exceptional performances on each disc here.

-- American Record Guide

Praised for her poetic and dramatic interpretation, New York-based Korean pianist Yoojung Kim is a versatile pianist, improviser, arranger, musical curator, educator, chamber musician and collaborator. Ms. Kim has appeared in recital and as soloist with orchestras throughout Europe, the United States, and Asia. Yoojung Kim is currently a member of the Artist Faculty in Piano Studies at NYU Steinhardt.

REVIEWS:

A lovely release of fine performances of this often intense but deeply satisfying music which deserves to be so much better known. Much of the music is on the grand scale but there are also more intimate movements including the first of the Deux poems, Op 32. Alongside further Poemes and Morceaus are Sonatas 2, 3 & 4. The CD is bookended by the adventurous Fantaisie in B minor and Vers la flamme.

-- Lark Reviews

Pianist Yoojung Kim gets highest marks for poetry and interpretive insights, qualities that are particularly critical when the subject is Russian pianist, composer, and musical symbolist Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915). She understands Scriabin to a degree that I am pleased to find remarkable among current pianists, and her feeling for color and expressiveness brings out the very best in an often-illusive composer.

-- Audio Video Club of Atlanta (Phil Muse)