Scriabin

Marking 100 years since his death, this is the first ever set of SCRIABIN COMPLETE WORKS. Drawn principally from Decca’s distinguished catalogue, the set also features no fewer than 64 newly-recorded tracks - over 200 mins of music, newly recorded by Vladimir Ashkenazy and Valentina Lisitsa especially for this set.

Had he lived into the age of recordings instead of dying in 1915, Scriabin would no doubt have relished the idea of listening to a complete cycle of his own symphonic works. Of course, had he lived into the age of recordings, Scriabin would have added only one other work to his oeuvre – the Mysterium for soloists, choruses, and orchestras along with actors, dancers, perfumers, and light projector operators plus percussionists striking bells suspended from balloons – because, according to the composer, at the conclusion of the work's premiere, the world as we know it would have come to an end with the transfiguration of humanity, thereby foreclosing further opportunities for listening to recordings.

Swedish virtuoso Maria Lettberg has recorded all of the published solo piano music for Capriccio, and it is an exceptional offering that fills collectors’ needs admirably. Lettberg has made Scriabin’s music a specialty within her large and varied repertoire, and her performances are consistently insightful, polished, and electric, which places her set among the finest recordings available. Her handling of the ten piano sonatas seems almost effortless and uncannily natural, despite their enormous technical demands and textural and rhythmic complexities, and her vibrant interpretations bear comparison with any other great pianist’s. The preludes, etudes, mazurkas, impromptus, poems, and other short pieces are just as impressive, and Lettberg elevates each to the highest level of execution and expression.

Firma Melodiya presents an album with recordings of Alexander Scriabin’s, Julian Scriabin’s and Boris Pasternak’s works performed by Ludmila Berlinskaya, an Honoured Artist of Russia and prize-winner of prestigious international competitions.

As a composer of orchestral music, Alexander Scriabin is best known for his last two idiosyncratic symphonies, the Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, which are essentially symphonic poems, not symphonies in the conventional sense. The Symphony No. 1 (1900) and the Symphony No. 2 (1901), however, are more recognizable as symphonies in their multiple-movement forms, and their durations are comparable to the expansive symphonies of Scriabin's contemporary, Gustav Mahler. They also share the post-Romantic tendency toward Wagnerian harmonies, rhapsodic melodies, and lush orchestration, which, in Scriabin's case, were developed to express heightened emotional states and mystical transcendence. This 2016 double SACD by Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra presents each of the symphonies on its own disc, and the high-quality multichannel sound is ideal for bringing across the subtle nuances of tone color and the shifting of dynamics that are characteristic of his style.]

John Ogdon's 1971 recordings of Alexander Scriabin's piano sonatas and other works for piano may not be the first choice of devotees of the mystical Russian composer, but this EMI Classics twofer is highly recommended. Those well-acquainted with Scriabin's music will likely hold particular recordings as indispensible – Roberto Szidon's on Deutsche Grammophon, Vladimir Ashkenazy's on London, and Marc-André Hamelin's on Hyperion are celebrated sets – yet in terms of technique and interpretation, Ogdon's performances are every bit their equal and should not be discounted for being less touted.

With this final volume in their three-album series of the symphonies of Alexander Scriabin, Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra present the Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 26, and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Scriabin's last completed orchestral work, sometimes referred to as the Symphony No. 5 in F sharp major, Op. 60. These works bookend the cycle, yet they are quite different in style and form. The six-movement Symphony No. 1 was completed in 1900, and inhabits the lush sound world of Wagner, so the languid melodies, constantly modulating harmonies, and rich orchestral sonorities suggest something of the fin de siècle nostalgia of late Romanticism.