Piano Sonata No.8 - Alexander Scriabin

Performed by an unknown pianist. I - Lento - Allegro agitato - Molto più vivo - Allegro - Tragique - Meno vivo - Tragique. Molto più vivo - Presto - Allegro - Meno vivo - Molto più vivo. Agitato - Presto - Allegro (Tempo I) - Più vivo - Allegro - Tragique - Più vivo - Presto - Pretissimo - Doux, lunguissant: 0:00 Scriabin's Piano Sonata No.8 was composed between the winter of 1912 and summer of 1913, written alongside the ninth and tenth sonatas. It was premiered in Petrograd on 18 November 1915, performed by his former pupil Elena Beckman-Shcherbina. Scriabin played excerpts for close friends, but never premiered it for wathever reason. Stravinsky called it "incomparable", but Scriabin did not return the favor, remarking that Stravinsky had only a "minimum of creativity". It is written in a single movement structured in a modified sonata form. The harmony is largely "atonal" (better yet "multitonal" or "polytonal"), chords acting as independent, self-sustaining tonal centres with their own implied or expressed simultaneous "tonics". Further showing this abandonment of traditional harmony, Scriabin employs the Hexatonic and Harmonic minor scales, with the Mystic chord being the source of most of the thematic material. The sonata is unique in many regards when compared with the rest of Scriabin's late sonatas (Nos 6 to 10); It is the most substantial in length and content, The strinking dissonances and climaxes found in the sixth and seventh sonatas are absent here, and the score mostly lacks the expressive french descriptions abundant in the other sonatas. The mood is also quite ambiguous and nuanced, with strinking alternations between hope and despair. Scriabin's comments on the work were that some parts were "the most tragic episode of my creative work", and described its harmony as "drawn from nature, as if it had existed before [...] .... bridges between harmony and geometry, life visible an life unseen...". Indeed, the thematic organisation is most rationally calculated here; an analysis of the score reveals balanced, geometrically studied structural relationships. The work opens with a lento introduction that introduces a series of motives that will reappear later on; ascending chord from the very outset, an imperious motive, a more delicate dance-like third and a mysterious fourth. The main allegro opens with a rhythmic main theme composed of the mysterious motive with quick descending semiquavers. As the music becomes more intense and ecstatic, a second theme of tragic nature appears, built on most of the material of the introduction. The ensuing development transforms these themes with a striking counterpoint. Notable are the brief moments in which the mysterious motive blooms in a couple of lyrical and almost celestial episodes, which are soon stomped by the fierce return of the tragic material. This substantial development ends with a delirious dance-like presto, which is cut off by the recapitulation of the main themes. This delirious dance returns and is intensified in the coda, before the sonata ends with a gently and languishing chord. Picture: "Pan" (1899) by the Russian artist Mikhail Vrubel. Musical analysis mostly written by myself. Sources: https://tinyurl.com/2yhj2wlf, https://tinyurl.com/2akn3uyk and https://tinyurl.com/2cw7gvfq and https://tinyurl.com/2cfylpq7 To check the score: https://tinyurl.com/2ahe22ge