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Alexander SCRIABIN (1872-1915) The Complete Works DECCA 478 8168 [18 CDs]
The three Cs of cost, convenience and completeness seem to be driving the current trend for these large surveys of composers' or artists' work. Add to that the record companies and their desire to wring the last drop of financial benefit from an extended but aging back catalogue. For any established collector the presence of unwanted duplication is offset by the ability to 'fill gaps' in a collection at a price that even a few years ago would have seemed impossibly low.
The centenary of Scriabin's death in April 1915 is the hook on which this 18 disc 'complete' edition of his work is hung. Complete is a word beloved of marketing departments but often proves to be a rather slippery concept. I have two other 'complete' sets of the Scriabin piano works neither of which presents music identical to what we are offered here. I am not enough of a Scriabin scholar to know of the existence of every fragment of juvenilia and posthumous work or to be able to judge if such works should merit inclusion. There are some inconsistencies; the set includes the piano Fantasy in A minor for two pianos but not an orchestrated version (by one G. Zinger) that appeared on an old Russian disc. Which is fair enough since it is not 'original' Scriabin but then the final three discs of the set do focus on the Alexander Nemtin conjectural composition called Mysterium - of which only the first part is in any way based on Scriabin sketches - and a Nemtin ballet called Nuances which is in effect a series of orchestrated piano works. Then lastly - and probably not completely - there is no sign of the two piano version of the Poem of Ecstasy which is listed on the Scriabinsociety.com website.
So accept this set for what it is - as near a complete survey as we are likely to get any time soon. Also, treat the Decca imprimatur with a degree of caution. Universal have simply brought together recordings from a variety of original sources - to be fair mainly Decca - but including Philips, DG and ASV and called it a Decca release. I would have appreciated some explanation in the liner as to why certain versions were preferred over others. The weakest element of this set is a lingering feeling of arbitrariness regarding chosen versions. Great store is made of the fact that the set contains "64 newly recorded tracks" (link) but on closer inspection this appears to be simply an act of plugging the gaps in the back catalogue rather than any artistic wish to revisit the repertoire. Worth noting too that Decca have released discs 1-8 as a separate 'Complete Piano Music' edition and discs 11-18 the 'Complete Orchestral Works' with another two disc/download "Ecstasy Essential Scriabin" set. Which always makes me wonder if there will be a follow-up "The Unessential Scriabin" sometime later.
Clearly, the piano was central to Scriabin's work and his most abiding legacy. Discs 1-8 present this in opus number order - which I must admit I rather like - with disc 9 tidying up the loose ends with the works without opus number and Scriabin's sole contribution to song. The other option would have been to gather all the Sonatas on a pair of discs, the Preludes on another and so on. I am sure some would prefer that as a perfectly valid way of presenting the works. I found that by juxtaposing works of significantly different scale and ambition but adjacent opus numbers I got a greater sense of the range of expression Scriabin was seeking to achieve. In the main Decca 'stick' with one performer for the bulk of a sub-group of works. Hence Ashkenazy's well-respected cycle of the ten sonatas is the backbone here - but why slip in Ivo Pogorelich's very individual take on No.2 or Sviatoslav Richter's version of the 5th and Pierre-Laurent Aimard's No.9? Coincidentally both Pogorelich's and Aimard's sonatas were originally coupled on DG with the Liszt. Granted, Richter's ex-DG live performance recorded in Italy in the early 1960s represents him at the height of his remarkable powers but if Richter in No.5 why not other pianists in the other sonatas too - without an explanation this seems oddly arbitrary. That being said I find Pogorelich's extraordinarily freely rhapsodic treatment of the opening Andante of the Fantasie-Sonata to be wholly compelling if quite unlike other versions I have heard. This early Sonata is a good touchstone for stylistic variation. Of the other versions I know I have a slightly irrational affection for Michael Ponti's complete Scriabin traversal on Vox-Turnabout. The recorded sound clanks and clangs and is rarely if ever beautiful. In performance terms there are moments when Ponti seems to be hurtling down a musical precipice one second away from catastrophe - the very antithesis of Pogorelich's poise - but somehow this results in an often compelling listening experience; music as a white-knuckle ride. Then Håkon Austbø on Brilliant is much more in control but I find him a fraction literal and detached. Of the versions I know, most successful at pulling together the entire gamut of emotions that Scriabin encompasses, and having the technical resource to back it up too, is the relatively unknown Maria Lettberg on Capriccio. This is currently a tremendous bargain online for around £15.00 for an eight disc set (review) and a bonus DVD of a discussion about Mysterium. Lettberg is very much a Scriabin specialist and a player whose work deserves very serious consideration. I have not heard the recordings by the likes of Mark-André Hamelin on Hyperion or other Scriabin specialists such as John Ogdon and recently Yevgeny Sudbin on BIS amongst many others.
Solo piano recitals seem to garner more debate in various on-line forums than just about anything else except opera. One person's 'junk' is another's 'definitive' version so that all of the recordings and performers represented here have been viewed as revelatory or rubbish. Gordon Fergus-Thompson is a case in point. ASV entrusted him with complete surveys of Debussy and Ravel as well as the Scriabin reproduced here. Perfectly legitimately - and apologies for a generalisation - he sees much of this music as being part of the same music continuum as Chopin albeit expressed in more modernistic and Russian manner. Particularly with much of the earlier music and the slighter forms Scriabin employed there is a danger - to which many pianist succumb to 'retro-fit' the mania and modernisms of the later music onto the earlier works. To my ear Fergus-Thompson is very successful at allowing this music reveal a grace and elegance that is not often associated with this composer. Aside from Ashkenazy's survey of the Sonatas and other works Fergus-Thompson is the main contributor to the piano music so collectors will need to decide whether his approach appeals or not.
Generally across the entire set the recorded sound is pretty good - again the Decca analogue sound for Ashkenazy is vintage 1970s (mainly) and alongside that the ASV 1990s digital is good but not exceptional. I had read criticisms elsewhere of the piano sound afforded the DG sourced discs. The wide dynamic range does mean the louder passages can harangue if the volume is set too high to accommodate the quieter poetic musings but I have to say I was not unduly troubled by the sound at all. As mentioned, gaps in the repertoire are 'plugged' by new recordings mainly performed by new(ish) Decca star Valentina Lisitsa. An example of the 'bittyness' that rather annoys me - disc 1 includes the Op.2 No.1 Etude from Ashkenazy's new (2014) Scriabin recital (review) but Lisitsa is brought in for Nos.2 and 3 because they were not part of the older pianist's recital. Perhaps it is a tiny thing but with Lisitsa recording so much else would it not have made coherent artistic sense for her to record the three Op.2 pieces as a complete group? Particularly since Lisitsa proves to be an impressive interpreter of Scriabin. I like very much the direct simplicity of her approach to the 'early' works that make up the piano works without Opus numbers on disc 9 - this is quite lovely playing of simple music. She has a very clean and articulate technique - I did find myself wondering whether in the more wayward later works - Poème Satanique Op.36 on disc 6 for example - there is a degree of remarkable control; a lack of sense of impetuosity perhaps - that somehow takes something away from the impact this music can have. Anna Gourari is another Decca artist who is called upon to plug a gap - in her case a single short track from her 'Desir' album which is significant for being WoO1 in the Scriabin catalogue. For a miniature she plays it very beautifully so frustrating not to hear more of her work. The eighth disc gives the listener an instant comparison between the various pianistic styles on offer. It contains the last three sonatas - 8 and 10 from Ashkenzy sandwiching the previously mentioned No.9 'Black Mass' from Aimard. The remaining works on the disc are played by Ashkenazy except for the two Op.67 Preludes given by Fergus-Thompson and the two Op.73 Danses by Richter. For all the Satanic allusions the title might conjure the ninth sonata is a condensed complex and elusive work and for all that I admire Aimard's technical skill and musical poise I find it strangely detached. For once Ponti's stormy approach and the crudeness of the recording makes for a more compelling musical journey. The majority of the later works are notable for their compression and the harmonic freedom they display. In a counter-intuitive way it is easy for such short pieces to sound as if they ramble. Richter's brief pair of pieces - from a 1992 live concert in Holland (the audience are attentive but faintly audible) is an excellent example of how to maintain a coherent musical line through these complex scores. However, both he and the recording sound rather crude at the climax of No.2 'Flammes sombres' next to Lettberg who is happy just to let the music be elusive - she plays the notes rather than feeling the need to explain them too. The sound afforded Fergus-Thompson by ASV is more veiled and less immediate which has the effect of blurring some of the inner detail.
So, not surprisingly the effect of bringing together a group of diverse performers and recordings for these piano works is something of a mixed blessing. Individual taste and preference will dictate the balance between perceived 'hits' and 'misses'. Discs 9 and 10 are valuable if 'completeness' is an over-riding consideration as they hoover up between them the early piano works and the token chamber and orchestral pieces. Scriabin's single song is no forgotten masterpiece and the D minor Duett WoO10 could have been written by just about any composer of maudlin Slavic ballads. Why it was considered a good idea to have soprano Anush Hovhannisyan track both of the vocal lines I do not know. I understand that no studio recording is ever anything more than an illusion of a 'real' performance - knowing that it has been stitched together in this way rather rubs that in. Richard Watkins contributes a lyrical Horn Romance that is enjoyable but again no work of great individuality. Roberto Szidon brings his considerable technique to the early un-numbered Sonata which is certainly worth hearing but his 1970 recording is one of the least impressive in the box and his piano not an instrument of great tonal beauty.
Disc 10 includes Scriabin's one foray into the world of quartet repertoire. This is a short Allegretto movement as his contribution to a composite Theme and Variations on a Russian theme work featuring ten Russian composers of varying degrees of posthumous fame from Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov to Nikolai Artsibushev and Alexander Winkler. The Kuss Quartet perform the whole work well if not exceptionally and it contains some interesting movements - although the Scriabin is a less than completely involving 51 second exercise in flowing counterpoint. Rimsky-Korsakov's offering is much more interesting. I did not know the Andante and Scherzo for strings which receive rather sloppy and poor live performances from the Hamburg Strings - on the evidence of the works as presented here again nothing of any great worth. The remainder of disc 10 is better known both as works and - in the case of the Piano Concerto - performances. The Symphonic Poem is curious because although so titled there does not seem to be any extra-musical narrative it is illustrating. As such it is simply a quarter-hour piece of Russian gloom which is not the equal of any of Tchaikovsky essays in the genre. The 1995 performance here from Igor Golovschin and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra is competent but I prefer the extra urgency and Soviet brashness that Boris Demchenko and the USSR Radio SO bring to the work - a full three minutes quicker than Golovschin - on the same Russian Disc mentioned previously for containing the orchestrated Fantasy. The generic nature of the work rather highlights the fact that Scriabin was at his considerable best when he was not trying to emulate any of his contemporaries. The Piano Concerto sits on the cusp of generic and original. Ashkenazy is again at the keyboard and receives strong support from Lorin Maazel and the LPO dating from 1971 with a classic Decca analogue recording in the Kingsway Hall engineered by Kenneth Wilkinson and Stanley Goodall. The sound is remarkably fine for its age with a fractional edge to the string tone betraying its age. This recording has been in the catalogue pretty much continuously and has been challenged in more recent times by the award-winning Demidenko on Hyperion amongst others but to my ear this remains a convincing interpretation.
When Ashkenazy moves to the conductor's rostrum I am less impressed. For two of the three numbered Symphonies this set has selected Ashkenazy's cycle with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from the early 1990s (review). In isolation these performances are perfectly acceptable with fine playing and good engineering. The issue lies with Ashkenazy's overall approach to the works. The catalogue is not exactly over-burdened with complete Scriabin Symphony cycles but other conductors make far stronger cases for individual works or indeed the whole cycle. In direct competition, and available on Brilliant Classics is the ex-EMI Classics set from Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra. This proved to be one of Muti's most successful recordings in Philadelphia and the sheer quality of the orchestra and the weight of tone they can produce utterly overwhelms the Decca performances in every respect. Ashkenazy sounds cautious and in his hands the closing choral movement right down to the rather academic fugal writing sounds effortful and clumsy. At the opposite end of the tonal/opulent spectrum from Muti is Svetlanov and an old cycle from his beloved USSRSO originally on Melodiya. This can still be tracked down on various RCA-twofers at a price and embodies the wild histrionics of Scriabin. Svetlanov's great gift was to perform music at white heat with total conviction - this might result in some unsubtle, even crude recordings but they are exciting and Scriabin in his orchestral music needs that sense of unbridled excitement.
For some reason, Eliahu Inbal's 1979 Frankfurt RSO performance of the 2nd Symphony has been chosen over Ashkenazy. Again this is a perfectly serviceable performance but nothing to make an inattentive listener sit up and take particular notice. Also, for 1979, this ex-Philips recording is nothing special with a couple of curious analogue dropouts and edits rather audible. For the Second and Third Symphonies competition in the catalogue becomes considerably stiffer. Neeme Järvi on Chandos is absolutely in his element and both recordings are classic examples of Chandos production values in the early 1990s and illustrations of just how productive Järvi's relationship with the (then) Scottish National Orchestra was. In many ways it strikes me that Järvi steers the best path between the lushness of Muti and the fevered demonics of Svetlanov. This becomes even more attractive when it can be found on a Chandos twofer at less than £7.00 second-hand (as of August 2015). I see that Dmitri Kitaenko's cycle on RCA also with the Frankfurt RSO has just been re-released at bargain price - I used to own that set in its original release but my memory is that it was rather underwhelming.
The progression from the relatively traditional, almost formal elements of the First Symphony through to the excesses of the Poems of Ecstasy and Fire - which are sometimes called the fourth and fifth Symphonies - are a neat mirror for Scriabin's development as a composer. Certainly by the time you reach the Poem of Ecstasy any sense of being underwhelmed is a dangerous failing in a performance. Fortunately for this box, by some distance the finest orchestral disc is reserved for these two works and is in the hands of Valery Gergiev and his Kirov Orchestra. These performances were originally the fillers for Gergiev's performances of Stravinsky ballets (review) and as such I was not convinced the couplings made for the best of bed-fellows. Here, as part of the Scriabin 'experience' they come into their own as the high-water mark of the composer's aesthetic. His ideal performance would include light displays and a total sensory immersion that seems far less extreme today than it did as a concept over a century ago. They remain two orchestral showpieces but where Gergiev succeeds so well is in being both technically imperious but also retaining a sensual wildness that quite sweeps away any reservations. Järvi includes the work in his twofer with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and there is a typically blazing Svetlanov version amongst many others but for the best balance of beauty, barbarity and brilliance I am not sure I have heard anything better than Gergiev.
Where to go after creating a work intended to saturate all the human senses in one go? At what point does the visionary become delusional? I am not able to pass judgement on the second question but the answer to the first would seem to be Mysterium. Quite possibly the most grandly overblown work ever conceived. Conceived is the important word since Scriabin never got beyond sketching the opening Prefatory Act for the larger work. To quote from the website www.scriabinsociety.com: "Scriabin considered his last music to be fragments of an immense piece to be called Mysterium. This seven-day-long megawork would be performed at the foothills of the Himalayas in India, after which the world would dissolve in bliss. Bells suspended from clouds would summon spectators. Sunrises would be preludes and sunsets codas. Flames would erupt in shafts of light and sheets of fire. Perfumes appropriate to the music would change and pervade the air. At the time of his death, Scriabin left 72 orchestral-size pages of sketches for a preliminary work Prefatory Action, intended to "prepare" the world for the apocalyptic ultimate masterpiece. Alexander Nemtin, the Russian composer, assembled those jottings and co-created the Prefatory Action."
The key-phrase there is 'co-created'. Given the scale of the work, it comes as no surprise that the three sections were created over a twenty-year span. The first section Universe comes from 1972 and as such was recorded by Kirill Kondrashin with his Moscow PO for Melodiya. No surprise that the newer Decca recording is far more sophisticated than the earlier Soviet disc. Kondrashin is around a minute quicker than Ashkenazy which on a forty minute time-frame is not a huge difference. Without a doubt Nemtin has absorbed Scriabin's idiom to a remarkable degree so that where Scriabin - in some form - ends and Nemtin begins I cannot tell. This is a work that has achieved a mythical status due to wildly inflated concept behind it that is described above. In its original three disc set (review), this version - and we are unlikely to get another anytime soon I imagine - did not stay in the catalogue long and as such still commands high prices in the secondhand market. In one of those wonderful vagaries of that market, at the point of writing the original Mysterium set is on sale secondhand for £50.00 with this re-release 18 disc set available for under £34.00. The casualties are the extended essays although most is gained from this work by experiencing it rather than reading about it. I have to admit that on several different occasions I tried to listen to the full 160 minutes in a single sitting. Perhaps for others there would be a transcendent experience, I have to say my mind wandered. The harmony is so endlessly convoluted, the textures thick, the emotional temperature high that in the end I found myself craving clarity and simplicity. I could imagine the work being impressive in a live performance if some brave producer could ever attempt to stage it incorporating as many of Scriabin's theatrical effects as possible - certainly its goal of being a total immersion of all the senses seems much more in tune with the current age than when it was written and for that alone it must be considered a visionary work.
This performance will remain unchallenged I am sure, so any criticism is ultimately pointless. Without a score to hand it is very hard to know whether what we hear is a faithful reproduction of the score on the page. I have a nagging suspicion that Ashkenazy fails to 'drive' the work as much as might help. Another ten minutes of perfumed languor does pall but having said that I was much more impressed by this as a performance than the low-temperature symphonies.
This complete edition finishes with a 'bonus' disc entitled 'Scriabin across the generations'. The cynic in me finds it hard not to see this as a way of Universal marketing some of their younger - very fine - pianists while also paying lip-service to some others not represented elsewhere in the box. But any such collection will spark a debate about performers and performances included over those omitted. So it is good to hear Horowitz and Cherkassky alongside Pletnev and Kissin as well as the younger pianists Trifonov and Grosvenor. Cherkassky's sole contribution is a jewel - the gently ruminative Prelude in D major Op.11 No.5. Trifonov's traversal of the Sonate-Fantasie Op.19 is all the more remarkable for being part of a live recital from the Carnegie Hall. The sheer clarity and articulation are little short of astonishing but in purely poetic terms I find Pogorelich's interpretation more humane and engaging.
Some final details. Playing times across the discs range from remarkable - disc 6 is 83 minutes long - to mean - Gergiev's two Poems total just 43. But in many ways that is an irrelevance and I think the set planners have done a good job laying the music out across the multiple discs. The sound is - as mentioned - variable and certainly if you dip in from disc to disc quite noticeable. However, when any group of pieces is taken in isolation the ear quickly adjusts. As is the norm with these sets it is presented in a simple fold-flat cardboard box with each disc in an identical cardboard slip - only the track-listings and artists on the back differ. There is an 82 page booklet in English, French and German which contains CD listings including producers, recording dates and locations as well as a good essay by Hugh Macdonald and some artist photographs, the text for the finale of Symphony No.1 is included but not for the single song.
Which brings me back to my three Cs. In those terms alone this has to be deemed a successful box. For completeness sake alone it has no direct competition and for returning the three-disc Mysterium to the current catalogue it is unlikely ever to be matched. For those who require the core Scriabin of the main piano works and the three symphonies and two orchestral poems there are strong calls for other performances although Gergiev's contribution is remarkable.
Scriabin was a unique musical voice and this set reinforces that impression beyond doubt.
Nick Barnard
Contents List Disc 1:
Waltz in F minor Op.1 [3:41]
3 Pieces Op.2 [4:30]
10 Mazurkas Op.3 [39:58]
Allegro Appassionato Op.4 [9:11]
2 Nocturnes Op.5 [6:07]
total time: 64:27 Disc 2:
Piano Sonata No.1 in F minor Op.6 [20:42]
2 Impromptus a la Mazur Op.7 [9:29]
12 Etudes Op.8 [33:58]
Alternative version Op.8 No12 WoO 22 [2:34]
total time: 66:43 Disc 3
Prelude & Nocturne for the Left Hand Op.9 [8:56]
2 Impromptus Op.10 [8:01]
24 Preludes Op.11 [34:20]
2 Impromptus Op.12 [9:46]
6 Preludes Op.13 [8:50]
2 Impromptus Op.14 [6:11]
total time: 76:04 Disc 4
5 Preludes Op.15 [7:35]
5 Preludes Op.16 [9:09]
7 Preludes Op.17 [9:54]
Allegro de concert in B flat minor Op.18 [5:46]
Piano Sonata No.2 in G sharp minor Op.19 'Sonate-fantasie' [14:21]
Polonaise Op.21 [1:09]
4 Preludes Op.22 [14:48]
Piano Sonata No.3 in F sharp minor Op.23
total time: 77:26 Disc 5
9 Mazurkas Op.25 [33:03]
2 Preludes Op.27 [2:42]
Fantasie in B minor Op.28 [9:35]
Piano Sonata No.4 in F sharp major Op.30 [8:09]
4 Preludes Op.31 [4:57]
2 Poèmes Op.32 [4:39]
4 Preludes Op.33 [4:11]
Poème tragique Op.34 [3:06]
3 Preludes Op.35 [4:19]
total time: 76:41 Disc 6
Poème satanique Op.36 5:44
4 Preludes Op.37 [6:33]
Valse Op.38 [5:35]
4 Preludes Op.39 [4:57]
2 Mazurkas Op.40 [4:07]
Poème Op.41 [5:01]
8 Etudes Op.42 [14:36]
2 Poèmes Op.44 [2:17]
3 Morceaux Op.45 [2:32]
Scherzo Op.46 [1:17]
Quasi-Valse Op.47[1:20]
4 Preludes Op.48 [3:47]
3 Morceaux Op.49 [2:32]
4 Morceaux Op.51 [6:45]
3 Morceaux Op.52 [3:31]
Piano Sonata No.5 Op.53 [10:50]
total time: 83:04 Disc 7
4 Pieces Op.56 [4:51]
2 Pieces Op.57 [2:33]
Feuillet d'album Op.58 [1:23]
2 Pieces Op.59 [3:52]
Poème-nocturne Op.61 [8:19]
Piano Sonata No.6 Op.62 [11:28]
2 Poèmes Op.63 [2:30]
Piano Sonata No. 7 'White Mass' Op.64 [10:46]
3 Etudes Op.65 [6:18]
total time: 52:00 Disc No 8
Piano Sonata No.8 Op.66 [13:16]
2 Preludes Op.67 [2:43]
Piano Sonata No.9 Op.68 'Black Mass' [8:36]
2 Poèmes Op.69 2:56]
Piano Sonata No.10 Op.70 12:10
2 Poèmes Op.71 [3:40]
Vers la flamme Op.72 [5:02]
2 Danses Op.73 [5:48]
5 Preludes Op.74 [4:56]
total time: 59:07 Disc 9
Canon in D minor WoO1 [1:46]
Romance in F sharp major for voice & piano WoO2 [1:25]
Nocturne in A flat major WoO3 [3:32]
Scherzo in E flat major WoO4 [2:01]
Scherzo in A flat major WoO5 [2:09]
Sonate-fantasie in G sharp minor WoO6 [8:07]
Valse in G sharp minor WoO7 [2:45]
Valse in D flat major WoO8 [2:12]
Variations in F minor on a theme by Mlle Egoroff WoO9 5:06]
Duett in D minor WoO10 [3:42]
Fugue in F minor WoO12 [4:27]
Fugue in D minor WoO13 [3:09]
Mazurka in B minor WoO14 [1:46]
Mazurka in B minor WoO15 [2:03]
Mazurka in F major WoO16 [2:28]
Feulliet d'album de Monighetti in A flat major WoO17 [0:53]
Fantasy in A minor WoO18 [6:27]
Sonata in E flat minor WoO19 [18:51]
Fugue in E minor WoO20 [2:42]
Romance in A minor for horn and piano WoO21 [2:13]
Feuillet d'album in F sharp major WoO25 [0:49]
Klavierstucke in B flat minor Anh.16 [3:07]
total time: 81:30 Disc 10
Variations on a Russian Theme for String Quartet [10:17] by:
Nikolai Artsibushev (1858-19370 / Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) Allegretto -WoO23 / Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) / Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) / Anatoly Liadov (1855-1914) / Jāzeps Vitols (1863-1948) / Felix Blumenfeld (1863-1931) / Victor Ewald (1860-1935) / Alexander Winkler (1865-1935) / Nikolai Sokolov (1859-1922)
Andante And Scherzo for Strings Anh.18 & 20 [5:40]
Symphonic Poem in D minor WoO24 [15:33]
Piano Concerto in F sharp minor Op.20 [27:12]
Reverie Op.24 [4:10]
total time: 64:42 Disc 11
Symphony No.1 in E major Op.26 [46:49] Disc 12
Symphony No.2 in C minor Op.29 [47:41] Disc 13
Symphony No.3 in C minor Op.43 'Le Divin Poème' [46:44] Disc 14
Le Poème de l'extase Op.54 [20:26]
Promethée: Le Poème du feu Op.60 [22:43]
total time: [43:09] Disc 15
Nuances - ballet on late piano works orch. Alexander Nemtin (1936-1999) [30:12]
Preparation for the Final Mystery realised by Alexander Nemtin (1936-1999):
Part I - Universe [41:51]
total time: [72:11] Disc 16
Preparation for the Final Mystery realised by Alexander Nemtin (1936-1999)
Part II - Mankind [52:03] Disc 17
Preparation for the Final Mystery realised by Alexander Nemtin (1936-1999)
Part III - Transfiguration [65:51] Disc 18 Scriabin across the generations
Etude in C sharp minor Op.2 No.1 [2:58]
Etude in D sharp minor Op.8 No.12 [2:14]
Prelude in D major Op.11 No.5 [1:52]
Vers la flamme Op.72 [6:47]
Poème in F sharp minor Op.32 No.1 [3:27]
Etude in C sharp minor Op.42 No.5 3:34]
4 Morceaux Op.51 [7:27]
3 Mazurkas from Op.3 Nos. 4, 6 & 9 [9:00]
Piano Sonata in G sharp minor Op.19 'Sonate-fantasie' [10:31]
total time: [47:50]
