Alexandre Scriabine (1872–1915)
A Russian pianist-composer who began from Chopin and arrived at a mystical, visionary harmonic language at the threshold of modernism.
Scriabin studied at the Moscow Conservatory, where Rachmaninoff was a fellow student; he studied piano with Vasily Safonov and composition with Anton Arensky. A brilliant pianist, he injured his right hand through overpractice, yet still had a career performing his own works.
His early pieces (Étude Op. 2 No. 1, Preludes Op. 11, Études Op. 8) openly extend Chopin: mazurkas, études, preludes, nocturnes. Gradually his harmony transformed, nourished by philosophy and theosophy, until it broke free of classical tonality with the “mystic chord”.
He wrote ten piano sonatas, The Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus, for which he planned a “light keyboard” projecting colours. He dreamed of a total artwork, the Mysterium, which remained unfinished. He died in Moscow in 1915, aged forty-three.
For pianists, his early works are an ideal continuation of Chopin: a very mobile left hand, polyrhythms, subtle pedalling and passionate song. The late works demand exceptional sonic imagination.
Piano sheet music (7)
- Prelude Op. 16 No. 2 in G-sharp minor · level 5
- Prelude Op. 59 No. 2 · level 6
- Prelude Op. 16 No. 4 · level 4
- Étude in C-sharp minor Op. 2 No. 1 · level 5
- Prelude Op. 16 No. 1 · level 5
- Préludes opus 16 - 3. (O 16 n°3) · level 5
- Prelude Op. 16 No. 5 · level 5