Skryabin and the Piano
by Stuart Scott
Alexander Skryabin made a great reputation for himself as a
concert pianist and he managed to do this during a golden age
of pianism when Rachmaninov, Lhevinne and Hofmann were playing
and the public were used to hearing such giants of the keyboard.
This fact alone suggests that Skryabin was, from early in his
career, a pianist of some calibre.
There is no shortage of comment by writers or musicians who
knew Skryabin, worked with him or heard him play, attesting
to his outstanding abilities as performer or composer. Indeed,
Safonov who championed Skryabin and performed his orchestral
music as often as he could, called him “a great pianist and
a great composer”, and Montague Nathan writing in 1917 maintained
that he “showed exceptional talent as an executant,” and that
it was this that contributed to the establishment of his world
wide reputation.
Skryabin never played any other composer’s music after his conservatoire
recitals and he was never without his critics whose bad reviews
were based on their dislike or misunderstanding of his music
as much as his piano technique. Critics who wrote enthusiastically
about his recitals usually showed some insight into his work
as a composer, but without doubt he had a highly personal style
of playing which suited his own music admirably.
After his last piano recital given in Moscow in1915, Grigori
Prokofiev writing for the Russian Musical Gazette said, “What
makes Skryabin’s music ravishing is simply the enchantment of
his performance. The tone is marvellous, despite a continuous
sharpness, even clanging ‘mezzo piano’, but he achieves extraordinary
effects. Don’t forget he is a wizard with the pedal, though
his ethereal sounds cannot quite fit the hall. He breaks the
rhythmic flow and something new comes out each time. This suffuses
the performance with freshness. Never has he played his Fourth
Sonata with a more mastery or sincerity as he did yesterday.
What power he put in the theme in the second movement! Yet the
actual sound was not big. The secret is in the energetic rhythm”.
The complaints of some other critics are apparently borne out
by the only remaining record of his playing which are transcriptions
of his performances from Welte-Mignon piano rolls, reissued
on disc in recent years. Although they seem to confirm a nervous,
erratic and arhythmical approach to performance, one must remember
that the recordings were reconstructed by engineers through
mechanical means and this is never more apparent than in the
pedalling to be heard on these recordings. They only serve to
show certain aspects of his approach in a purely clinical manner
without having the means of combining these (mainly by Skryabin’s
individual use of the pedal) to form an overall sound picture.
It must also be remembered that tempos could be affected by
the piano roll recording method and with so many variables,
one cannot rely on the result as being totally representative
of Skryabin’s performance.
It is well known that Skryabin did not play a piece in the same
way at each performance. He played according to mood declaring
that “a piano composition is many facetted … alive and breathes
on its own. It is one thing today, and another tomorrow, like
the sea. How awful it would be if the sea were the same every
day and the same forever, like a movie film!” It is also well
known that Skryabin’s playing was extremely free as far as rhythm
is concerned and there is still a Russian tradition in playing
his music in a kind of ‘sempre rubato’, but there is of course,
still the virtually unanswered question about his own approach.
Skryabin did not use the direction ‘rubato’ in any of his manuscripts
but maybe he assumed that pianists would approach his music
in that style. Alternatively of course, rhythmical accuracy
could have been a weakness in him as a performer, particularly
as it is reported that he had played other composer’s music
with an unsteady rhythm. But Skryabin’s music depends so much
on rhythm for good effect that it is difficult to imagine a
concert pianist of his time being able to get away with this
and still cause so much interest and excitement whenever he
played.
In 1916, a well respected piano teacher in Petrograd, N. N.
Cherkass, published a book entitled, “Skryabin as Pianist and
Piano Composer”. Here he went to great lengths to point out,
giving reasons, why he thought Skryabin was a bad pianist, but
the book does contain a certain objectivity which is useful
to the musicologist. However, even he seems to contradict himself
on some points, particularly when citicizing Skryabin’s pedal
technique. He writes, “ He [Skryabin] took his foot off the
pedal only to put it down again but in rare instances played
entirely without pedal.” He maintains that had Skryabin been
capable of a correct legato, he would not have overused the
pedal. But later, when Cherkass speaks of harmonic control he
says, “Skryabin had an amazing ability. His innate sensitivity
to harmonic clarity kept him in line ………he could separate voices
clearly.”
Skryabin would use the pedal to help create the desired effect
for his compositions. The pedal was a necessity for his slow
changing harmonies. The use of the pedal in his music is not
always for a legato effect, but mostly for sustaining harmonies,
and often, there are staccato notes played above a held sonority
creating tonal balances and sustained effects not previously
used by other composers. It is possible to think of him playing
in a kind of very clear, transparent way to achieve an effect,
but much of his music calls for a lot of sustained atmospheric
sonorities.
It is clear from Skryabin’s compositions that he was a master
when it came to pedal techniques and tonal balance, and according
to Cherkass and others, he played with great accuracy, placing
him amongst the great virtuosos of his day. There is no doubt
also, that he created a great impression on his audiences, his
magnetism and wizardry causing Sabaneyev to describe his performances
as “secret liturgical acts” where listeners felt “electric currents
touching their psyche”. During his performing career, Skryabin
was looked upon as a magician of the keyboard, producing effects
that no one else could ever hope for, even when performing his
music sympathetically.
His reputation as a composer and a pianist went hand in hand
and we should not perhaps try to evaluate Skryabin’s piano technique
when compared to other virtuosos who were performing music of
quite different character, but it is interesting to note that
his unique voice as a composer required a new technique from
the performer. Skryabin knew how to create the desired effects
in his own compositions quite naturally, but other performers
had to learn new approaches when dealing with his music, and
this took time. This might go towards explaining why Skryabin’s
own performances were always more successful than any of his
contemporaries. The handful of other pianists, Hofmann and Rachmaninov
amongst them, who did use his music in recitals were not always
successful, according to his critics and followers, in evoking
that other worldliness or ethereal atmosphere so necessary in
any performance of his music.
When Skryabin died, Rachmaninov gave a series of recitals in
memory of his friend but by all accounts Skryabin’s friends
were outraged at the presentation of his music. Prokofiev, who
was present at one of the recitals (Nov.18th 1915)
in which Rachmaninov played the fifth sonata, later noted that
Skryabin’s performances were immediately attractive and enticing
with subtle shades of colour and rhythms which made the music
fly and soar, whereas “with Rachmaninov all its notes stood
firmly and clearly on the ground”. Rachmaninov’s playing was
that of a nineteenth century virtuoso whose performances were
always controlled and refined, technically brilliant with a
good sense of form. In the Russian Music Gazette, Grigori Prokofiev
wrote, “the audience was generous in its appreciation, though
it distinctly sensed that something was wrong. Rachmaminov played
with his usual technical perfection and the musical quality
natural to him, but in his approach to Skryabin’s works, he
did not (or did not wish to) grasp the basic nature of his music
– the unprecedented emotional saturation of Skryabin’s creative
power … As if seeking a logic in Skryabin’s harmonic structure,
Rachmaninov artificially condensed the tempi. This showed the
harmonic line with extraordinary clarity, but the vital spirit
had gone! … You should have seen the disappointment with which
the admirers of Skryabin’s later piano works looked at each
other as they heard the innocuous and prosaic interpretation
of the Satanic Poem, or the academically chilled treatment of
the Second and Fifth Sonatas.”
Hofmann’s style too, was not entirely suited to Skryabin’s music
in that he was restrained from reading between the lines by
his perfectionist approach, meticulously observing the printed
page. Clearly, Skryabin had a new approach to pianism which
was recognised by his teacher Safonov as early as 1888 when
he remarked that, “Skryabin possessed in the highest degree
what I always impressed on my students: the less like itself
a piano is under the fingers of a player, the better it is”.
Many recognised and appreciated this new approach to the piano
including Eaglefield Hull who heard Skryabin perform at the
Bechstein Hall , London in 1914. He wrote, “Everyone was struck
by what appeared to be almost a new kind of pianism. His playing
was so easy, so refined, quiet and unassuming, yet so beautifully
ethereal in the softest passages, so rich and organ like in
the mezzo parts, yet so satisfying in the fortissimo, and his
pedal effects were quite magical in effect. It appeared as though
this new music had brought along with it a new kind of playing”.
And so it did, because concertgoers had to review their understanding
of piano music and pianism. No longer could one approach Skryabin’s
music as they might Chopin or Liszt’s. New pedal effects were
directly involved in producing new tone and colours, and there
was little evidence to suggest that technical brilliance was
exploited for its own sake.
As a presenter of his own works, sheer technical brilliance
had no great attraction for Skryabin and he always regarded
the creative side of his art as being more important than performance.
That is not to say however, that he didn’t see the significance
of performance. He knew that his reputation as a composer was
dependant upon self advertisement and only through performance
could he realise a following for his music and its objectives.
As one might expect, in his student days Skryabin was indeed
interested in virtuosity and became a little jealous of Josef
Lhevinne’s miraculous technique. Lhevinne was a fellow student
at the Moscow Conservatory and it was Skryabin’s wish to outshine
him by playing Balakirev’s Islamey and Liszt’s Don Juan Fantasia
more brilliantly. He over practised and badly injured his right
hand. He couldn’t use it at all for a while and this gave rise
to his Two Pieces Op.9 for left hand alone, which he often used
in recitals much later in his career but he was indeed lucky
not to have had his concert career cut disastrously short by
this reckless action. Whilst being unable to use his right hand,
he developed the technique of the left, which many writers have
assumed accounts for the difficult left hand parts in his compositions
for the piano.
Skryabin was never allowed to forget his folly as all through
his concert career his right hand remained weaker than his left,
and this often worried him. However, his wish to play the Don
Juan Fantasia brilliantly was granted when he presented it in
his final examination recital winning a gold medal. But soon
after, at the outset of his concert career, Skryabin was still
very much concerned about the weakness of his right hand as
Julius Engel described in his biographical sketch of Skryabin
published in Musical Contemporary, 1916 – “In 1893 he wore on
both arms red woollen over-sleeves, obviously homemade and very
conspicuous. When playing in public, before he began, he would
point to his right hand as if asking for indulgence”. Never
again, in the whole of his career, did he over practise. Often
an hour or an hour and a half a day would suffice when concert
dates were approaching.
Much later in his career Skryabin himself did admit to one other
weakness. He told G. E. Conus that if he had to be examined
in sight-reading, “I should come a cropper over a Kuhlau Sonatine”.
Skryabin never considered himself a good sight reader but this
was no handicap for a concert pianist. His general musicianship
seems to have been more than adequate, although he had no time
for academic exercises. He always wanted to apply his musicianship
to the development of his own art, much to the annoyance of
some of his professors at the conservatory. He would often give
demonstrations of new orchestral works from the full score manuscript
and positively revelled in improvisation at the piano. Like
all concert pianists he had a good ear and an excellent memory,
and he appears to have been a child prodigy too, as at the age
of six he was able to play a piece he had heard for the first
time, and at eight gave a rendering of a Bach Gavotte and of
Mendelssohn’s Gondolier’s Song, without music, after only one
hearing.
So what was it then, that really held his audiences? For some
it was his philosophical ideas, for others it was fashionable,
but for many it was a number of things, not least of all his
music because he had many followers who identified with and
understood his music. They understood all that was new in his
striving. They recognized that Skryabin, unlike other concert
pianists, was not interpreting the printed notes, but recreating
his music as he played. In this way the listener was involved
directly in the creation of the new music.
Although Skryabin’s beginnings were, to some extent, Chopinesque,
he soon developed a highly individual style in his compositions,
and as Alfred Swan remarked, it was not so much his words and
philosophical ideas but “the exquisite sounds and harmonies,
the incantational rhythms and magic formulae that he extracted
from the piano”, that held his audiences. Swan went on to describe
recitals which he attended in St. Petersburg, given in Skryabin’s
last years when his reputation as a concert pianist and composer
had been secured. “The spell was real, he said, “and when the
concert was ended no one thought of leaving. With a mighty wave,
the audience would rise from their seats and rush towards the
platform screaming, applauding, hurling at the triumphant composer,
names of pieces that they wanted to be repeated or played over
and above the programme. A second concert then began, often
lasting half as long as the first and not until the composer
was utterly exhausted would he be allowed to retire”.
As a teacher, Skryabin insisted to his pupils that the first
quality to be sought for in performance was intoxication, and
as a performer he constantly strived for, and for the most part,
successfully achieved his aim. Skryabin’s success was gained
with “a technique of nerves”, to use his own words, and on the
platform at least, a charismatic personality. Maria Nemenova-Lunz
(1879-1934), one of Skryabin’s pupils, said that “when he sat
at the piano his whole body, his hand gestures and movements
of the head, so characteristic of him, seemed to translate the
mood and meaning of the music into action”. It was his platform
personality and performance then, which attracted and held his
audience perhaps. His physical appearance had little to do with
the attraction. He was not very imposing, rather small and in
the words of Sabaneyev, “insignificant in appearance and unnoticeable
in a crowd”. In 1909 Sabaneyev was to describe him further saying
that, “he had an insignificant little beard and a fluffy, surprisingly
dashing moustache, a sort of survival of his ‘officerism’. His
physiognomy was nervous, livid; he gazed absentmindedly upward;
he had brown eyes, small but with wide open lids, with a sort
of intoxication in his glance. There was something of a wild
animal in his eyes, not a beast of prey, but some little creature
such as a marmot. He was affable and exquisitely polite – but
in his politeness there was an awful distance from all these
people who surrounded him with friendly effusiveness”.
In summing up then, there seems to be plenty of evidence to
suggest that Skryabin was indeed a pianist of some calibre.
He captured the imagination of his followers and held his audiences.
His recitals were events not to be missed. They caused excitement
in the musical world and he was hailed as a star, not only by
the public but by fellow musicians, some of whom were of an
older generation. He possessed all the basic qualities of a
concert pianist. His memory and technique were excellent. He
learned things quickly, had a very good sense of pitch and his
pedal effects were outstanding. Safanov, his piano professor,
said of his pedal technique, “He made the instrument breathe”.
When Skryabin was playing he told his class, “Don’t look at
his hands; look at his feet”.
We know that he had small hands and that his right hand troubled
him from time to time but this appears to have been nothing
too serious as he never had to cancel a performance because
of it. What he lacked in his right hand he seems to have more
than made up for in the technique of his left. His phrasing
was subtle and precise, and in the words of his pupil, Maria
Nemenova-Lunz, “he worried more than anything else about sound.
‘You must caress the keyboard. Don’t pound it as if you hate
it’, he would say. He worked indefatigably on tonal shadings.
He made us repeat a note forever. He helped us find ways of
striking it to get separate colours. He kept us interested in
the sound and life of the instrument. How valuable for technique!”
The only two areas of his technique where there remains any
doubt in the minds of a number of people, are his tone quality
and rhythm. In 1906, the critic of the New York Herald was complaining
of his “small tone” and Richard Aldrich in the New York Times
wrote of his lack of “any considerable command of richness in
depth of tone”. However, the number of critics mentioning this
is small in comparison to the number who do not and Skryabin’s
pupil Nemenova-Lunz offers further insight into this aspect
of Skryabin’s approach to the piano when she wrote of his interest
in sound production as already mentioned, and in admitting,
“It is true that he did not have a frightening fortissimo. He
did not much like ‘materialistic sonority’. He always said that
the deepest forte must always sound soft”. It is clear that
Skryabin did not seek the brilliant and crashing Lisztian fortissimo
of the nineteenth century tradition but a more rich and rounded
organ-like quality which would help his music soar as he intended.
As far as the allegation of playing everything with an unsteady
rhythm is concerned, it is difficult to establish the truth
of the matter, but again, his pupil Maria Nemenova-Lunz states
that, “He wouldn’t accept music without rhythm. He made us think
out every formal passage by likening it to speech or talking”.
Also, in 1914, the London Times praised his “effortless energy
of rhythm” and the following year a Moscow critic wrote, “He
breaks the chains of strict rhythm and makes rhythm sound anew
every time he plays, filling his performances with freshness”.
As with his approach to sound production, Skryabin had a new
approach to rhythm. He probably played quite freely but as noted
earlier, a good performance of his music depends so much on
rhythm to attain that energy and subtle dance-like quality which
is so much his very own, Strict adherence to time signatures
in his music produces a performance without any true Skryabin
spirit. The magic has disappeared, and this may point to one
of the reasons why his followers were so aghast at the performances
given by Rachmaninov and others in the early part of the twentieth
century.
Stuart Scott
