| Alexander Scriabin |
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| 1872 births | |
| 1915 deaths | |
| deaths by sepsis | |
| modernist composers | |
| romantic composers | |
| russian classical pianists | |
| russian composers | |
| people with synesthesia | |
| 20th century classical composers | |
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BIOGRAPHY Scriabin was born into an aristocratic family in Moscow . When he was only a year old, his mother, a concert pianist, died from Tuberculosis . Scriabin's father left for Turkey , leaving the young infant with his grandmother and great aunt. He studied the Piano from an early age, taking lessons with Nikolay Zverev who was teaching Sergei Rachmaninoff at the same time. He later studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Anton Arensky , Sergei Taneyev , and Vasily Ilyich Safonov . He became a noted pianist despite his small hands with a span of barely over an octave (at one point he actually damaged his hand from practicing pieces which required greater hand spans). Scriabin, previously interested in Friedrich Nietzsche 's übermensch theory, also became interested in Theosophy , and both would influence his music and musical thought. In 1909-1910 he lived in Brussels, becoming interested in Delville 's Theosophist movement and continuing his reading of Hélène Blavatsky (Samson 1977). Theosophist and composer Dane Rudhyar wrote that Scriabin was "the one great pioneer of the new music of a reborn Western civilization, the father of the future musician," (Rudhyar 1926b, 899) and an antidote to "the Latin reactionaries and their apostle, Stravinsky " and the "rule-ordained" music of " Schoenberg 's group." (Ibid., 900-901). A '', was never realized. He was possibly the uncle of Vyacheslav Molotov , the Russian politician and Eponym of the '' Molotov Cocktail ''. Molotov's original surname was Scriabin. Simon Montefiore in his biography of Stalin, states that despite the shared family name, Molotov was not in any way related to the composer. Pianists who have performed Scriabin to critical acclaim include Vladimir Sofronitsky , Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter . MUSIC Style and influences Many of Scriabin's works are written for the . Aaron Copland praised Scriabin's thematic material as "truly individual, truly inspired", but criticized Scriabin for putting "this really new body of feeling into the strait-jacket of the old classical sonata-form, recapitulation and all" calling this "one of the most extraordinary mistakes in all music." According to Samson the sonata-form of Sonata No. 5 has some meaning to the work's tonal structure, but in Sonata No. 6 and Sonata No. 7 formal tensions are created by the absence of harmonic contrast and "between the cumulative momentum of the music, usually achieved by textural rather than harmonic means, and the formal constraints of the tripartite mould." He also argues that the ''Poem of Ecstasy'' and '' Vers La Flamme '' "find a much happier co-operation of 'form' and 'content'" and that later Sonatas such as Sonata No. 9 employ a much more flexible sonata-form. (Samson 1977) Influence of color
B. M. Galeyev and I. L. Vanechkina (August 2001). "Was Scriabin a Synesthete?" , '' Leonardo '', Vol. 34, Issue 4, pp. 357 - 362: "authors conclude that the nature of Scriabin’s 'color-tonal' analogies was associative, i.e. psychological; accordingly, the existing belief that Scriabin was a distinctive, unique 'synesthete' who really saw the sounds of music—that is, literally had an ability for 'co-sensations'— is placed in doubt.". His color system, unlike most synaesthetic experience, lines up with the '' was to have been a grand week-long performance including music, scent, dance, and light in the foothills of the Himalaya s that was to bring about the dissolution of the world in bliss. While Scriabin wrote only a small number of (1910), which includes a part for a " Clavier à Lumières " - an implement played like a piano, but which flooded the concert hall with coloured Light rather than sound. Most performances of the piece (including the premiere) have not included this light element, although a performance in New York City in 1915 projected colours onto a screen. Scriabin's original colour keyboard, with its associated turntable of coloured lamps, is preserved in his apartment near the Arbat in Moscow, which is now a museum dedicated to his life and works. SEE ALSO External links
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