Naxos Nietzsche

Alexander Scriabin, whose 150th anniversary we celebrated in 2022, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, one year his junior, were rivals at the Moscow Conservatory as students in both piano and composition. At the piano final exam in 1891, Rachmaninoff was awarded first prize and Scriabin second – it’s fascinating just to imagine what this rivalry between music history’s most famous classmates had been like. Subsequently, they went their separate ways; in particular, Scriabin became drawn to Nietzsche’s Übermensch theory and Blavatsky’s theosophy and his musical style changed drastically, leading to his so-called music of mysticism with the heavy use of progressive harmonies.