<<  -- 4 --  John Bell Young    SCRIABIN ON DISC

No appraisal of Scriabin's music would be complete without at least a reference to Alexander Nemtin's controversial trilogy Universe, a grotesque pastiche assembled from and based on Scriabin's brief sketches for his unfinished Mysterium: Prefatory Act (Kondrashin, on Russian Disc). As Scriabin originally intended them, these works were ceremonial pieces whose entire raison d'être was the transfiguration of mankind into a higher consciousness, one that had no need of the material world. Thus, the irony here is precisely that they satisfy their own concept only as long as they remain incomplete, that is, in the realm of the conceptual. Once invested with corporeal body, that is, sound, they defeat their own aesthetic and ideological purpose. Thus Nemtin, a distinguished composer in his own right, has indulged in a kind of blasphemy, but what a glorious blasphemy it is. Be warned though -- it is only an image of Scriabin, a kind of speculative adventure into what might have been. Ultimately Nemtin fails, turning out something that is at once bloated, superficial and far too noisy. Universe, though amusing and occasionally fascinating, is little more than a Russian version of Hollywood at its most indulgent.

CONCERTOS

Piano Concerto. This early work is essentially a mazurka on a large scale. Garrick Ohlsson's steady performance is stern, dutiful, and unimaginative (Supraphon); Ashkenazy lacks playfulness and color (London); Neuhaus is imperturbable, idiomatic and elegant, though the All-Union Radio and Television Orchestra, freshly re-organized after World War II in this 1947 recording, is scrappy and unrehearsed (Russian Disc). Michael Ponti is impressive for his enthusiasm and éclat (Allegretto). Samuel Feinberg is fabulous in every respect; at once remarkably transparent and sumptuously detailed; his performance moves along as if on its own private jet stream (Arlecchino). Artur Pizarro's exceptionally elegant reading benefits from modern recording technology, but suffers from the timorous, drab conducting of Martyn Brabbins (Collins). Margarita Fyodorova's magical reading is quite possibly the best of all, every bit the equal of Feinberg for its logic and clarity, but also for its irresistible sweep, grandeur and unfettered rhythmic freedom (Melodiya, yet to be released on CD). Fyodorova's reading of the concerto can be heard at www.mp3.com/fyodorova

Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra. This youthful work, which Scriabin also wrote for two pianos, is rarely played. Even so, it is one work of Scriabin that doesn't overtax Igor Zhukov's limited imagination, though that is, I suspect, largely thanks to Kiril Kondrashin. He turns in a pleasant enough performance with the Moscow Philharmonic (Russian Disc 11004).

PIANO MUSIC

Excluding the sonatas, perhaps the best introduction to Scriabin's piano music is a 2CD set that features the best of his interpreters: Sofronitsky, Goldenweiser, Feinberg, Bekhterev, and Neuhaus (Saison Russe 788032). Each track is an object lesson in Scriabin interpretation, and should go a long way to displacing the innumerable inferior readings that most consumers, given the sheer number of available recordings, are most likely to encounter. The Japanese division of Denon offers the marvelous Sofronitsky in a sumptuously remastered selection of the preludes Op 11, the 3rd sonata, the Prelude for the Left Hand, Op 9:2, the Waltz in A flat, Op 38, Two Poèmes Op 44, Two Pieces, Op 2, the Poème Op 32:2, and the rarely played Impromptus Op 12:2 and Op 14:2 (CDCQ 83286).

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