Alexander Scriabin
Today we have a piano week guest recommendation from
, an independent writer and arts marketer. His newsletter, , explores the human stories behind classical music's most melancholy moments as a means to cultivate calm, connection, and healing.Today we're listening to Alexander Scriabin, a Russian composer and pianist. Although his early work in both fields was influenced by the lush romanticism of Frédéric Chopin, Scriabin ultimately forged new paths for his music, conjuring works of a singular artistic vision informed by his synesthesia and an obsession with the occult, mysticism, and Nietzschean philosophy. To Scriabin, music was more than an intellectual pursuit or a pleasure garden of sensory delights — it served as the portal through which we can achieve total liberation of the human spirit. Having composed almost exclusively for the solo piano and the orchestra, we can trace his artistic development across the years through his ten piano sonatas and five symphonies, the most popular of which remains his fourth, Le Poème de l'extase (The Poem of Ecstasy) — a kaleidoscopic voyage of the soul that author Henry Miller described as "all fire and air ... like a bath of ice, cocaine, and rainbows."
Scriabin: The Complete Piano Sonatas - Marc-André Hamelin (150m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal
Scriabin: 3 Symphonies; Poem of Ecstasy; Poem of Fire, "Prometheus" - Eliahu Inbal & Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt (180m, choral vocals on track 6 and 16)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal
Have a great Thursday.
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I love Scriabin's piano music. Glad to have it here. I've got a different opinion to LoW's --- Scriabin died more than 100 years ago, and was a pan-European: yes, Russian, but lived in Geneva, Paris and Brussels.
could you please refrain from publishing russian music while the war is ongoing? it's harmful, because people still don't understand that russian "culture" plays a primary role in invasive, chauvinistic, primitive ideas.