Alexander SCRIABIN (1872-1915)
The Complete Piano Sonatas
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op. 6 [21:33]
Piano Sonata No. 2 in G sharp minor Sonata-Fantasy Op. 19
[12:19]
Piano Sonata No. 3 in F sharp minor Op. 23 [19:31]
Fantaisie Op. 28 [8:56]
Piano Sonata No. 4 in F sharp major Op. 30 [7:58]
Piano Sonata No. 5 Op. 53 [12:46]
Piano Sonata No. 6 Op. 62 [11:08]
Piano Sonata No. 7 Messe blanche Op. 64 [11:24]
Piano Sonata No. 8 Op. 66 [12:09]
Piano Sonata No. 9 Messe noire Op. 68 [8:40]
Piano Sonata No. 10 Op. 70 [12:56]
Sonate-fantaisie in G sharp minor Op. posth. [7:25]
Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
rec. 1995, All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, UK.
HYPERION CDA67131/2 [70:35 + 75:05]
Is it really twenty years since Marc-André Hamelin set down these famous
recordings for Hyperion in a London church? The record company’s website
lists some of the recommendations and awards it soon acquired, and some of
the overwhelmingly favourable reviews it attracted. The centenary of the
composer’s death might be a good moment to look back at this achievement and
assess its current standing.
The first sonatas, numbers One to Four, as well as the Fantaisie Op. 28,
occupy the first disc. These first four sonatas are all multi-movement ones,
whereas their six successors are all highly concentrated single movement
works. Hamelin resists any notion that these earlier works are in any sense
less important, and they are treated to the same preparation and high
commitment as their successors. Certainly he must have come to the recording
sessions with the notes of all twelve works in his mind and fingers, since
they exhibit formidable accuracy, often at daring tempi. It might seem
paradoxical, but exhaustive preparation must have been needed to produce
such spontaneous-sounding versions as these.
That preparation might well have included a sympathetic reading of the
composer’s many statements of his mystical aims and philosophical interests
in relation to his music. These statements are often dismissed as so much
hot air, but they meant something to Scriabin, and his music would surely
not be the same without the extra-musical ideas that inform it. Certainly
the words used of the Third Sonata, where “the free untamed soul
passionately throws itself into pain and struggle …” seem to describe very
well the unfettered abandon Hamelin brings to this difficult music.
Similarly, the Fourth Sonata’s programme is found in a poem by the
composer concerning flight to some distant star, and certainly in the second
of its two movements, marked Prestissimo volando, the sheer
velocity of Hamelin’s playing achieves lift-off, as he seems to escape the
gravitational pull and earthly bliss of the andante first movement.
It is a wonder that such élan, which we associate with a live performance
before an enraptured audience, can be achieved in a draughty church with
just a couple of engineers for company ... or so one assumes. We expect a
huge cheer at the end — which is not there — but you might find yourself
supplying it in the privacy of your own home when confronted with playing
like this.
The second disc has one-movement sonatas Five to Ten plus the early
unpublished Sonate-Fantaisie in G sharp minor of 1886. The Fifth
sonata opens ferociously with loud thunder in the bass, instantly yielding
to slow soft musings – Hamelin revels in these great and sudden contrasts,
pointing them up quite unapologetically. Yet still the piece is held
together, in part by a sense of intense concentration. If, as here, the
composer writes Impetuoso. Con Stravaganza – Languido then that is
what we are given. Technical innovations abound in these performances of the
later sonatas, where for instance the innocent trill, once a mere melodic
ornament in music, has become a symbol of the soaring ambition of Scriabin’s
art. Yet such trills — influenced perhaps by their use in the late Beethoven
sonatas — can range from angelic flutterings to volcanic thunder, and
Hamelin does justice to each type. Above all there is the sheer ecstatic
propulsion of the swifter passages, where what Scriabin called ‘the uproar
of the elements’ is made audible. Scriabin had his demonic side, and was
fond of the tritone or diabolus in musica. Here one has to wonder
at times if the pianist himself once made some infernal pact in return for
such gifts.
In key solo piano repertoire no-one has the field to themselves. I have
sampled several alternative versions, from Roberto Szidon and Vladimir
Ashkenazy (the 1970s and 1980s benchmarks) through to Håkon Austbo and
Robert Taub in the 1990s and on to Maria Lettberg, Vladimir Stoupel and
Dmitri Alexeev since 2000. These are all very good indeed, though Lettberg’s
is different, being an invaluable eight disc collection of all the published
piano music of Scriabin. Some of the individual sonata performances in those
sets, especially by Szidon and Ashkenazy, come close to matching Hamelin.
However as a set of all ten Scriabin sonatas this version remains
unrivalled. In particular the sense of placing a truly sympathetic
understanding - and such a transcendental technique - totally at the service
of the music is hard to beat. Add to that a still very agreeable recorded
sound, and the outstanding and comprehensive 15-page booklet by Simon
Nicholls, and you have one of the great piano recordings. I doubt the
Scriabin centenary will bring a better one.
Roy Westbrook
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