As you might know, right now after all the concerts and recording i did, i am now preparing all material for futur releases , means .... writting booklets , doing the editing , the checking , organising musicologists about what i am looking for ...
Not really a peacefull vacation !
Also, i still have in mind to do nice longer new articles (i have in mind : last Glass tour in all Paris , last Vexations , and some other such as my Kiev adventure during the eve of the war , or the Glassworlds, the dreamt success in Carnegie ... )
Anyway , until this time , i wanted to share with you a great discovery . Specially if you are a Scriabin lover.
As few might know, Scriabin is my fav composer ! Yes ! Scriabin and not Liszt or Glass or Satie or i don t know whom
And .... honestly .... he is also the reason i worked with Gerard Frémy (assistant of Heinrich Neuhaus) and Oxana Yablonskaya (who studied with Alexander Goldenweiser) .
Maybe i was dreaming about that ?
It was also the very first international competition i won , the first concerto i played with orchestra ( i was 17 then ) , i shared with him my serious first love (and deception ! of course it always go together) , my search for absolute and also the unknown (yes i even read Blavatsky ! even if most of the time i had to take aspirin every 10 lines! ) the dark ....
Well to sum it , Scriabin is (since my 16) the composer whom i feel the most close and ... when i play his music i feel completely at home
myself at 18, unfortunately only the end was taped : )
a little juveline with a not strong technique at all , but ... very romantic and masculine approach of this fantastic music
So what is my discovery about ?
Well today i read an article from the incredible label Arbiter records (link to article here) where a wonderful letter from Siloti's daughter describle Scriabin ! Yes !!
So to avoid you lot of search , here it is ! (of course if you visit the page you will have tons of other interesting things if, like me, you love russian music)
the letter :
it s translation !
Kyriena on Scriabin
Scriabin was a very delicate and sensitive person.
His eyes often bore an expression as if he was “in a different world” as it were…
He was of modest height, with small and elegantly shaped hands. Once after having sung something, he put his hand at the edge of a table and started tapping against it with his fifth finger. When my mother, having noticed this, looked at him curiously, he said that the pinky concerns him and he is testing it.
It was hard to find good performers of his music. I have heard a recording of a ‘poem’ by Sofronitsky, who performed it very well, in a true Scriabin style, but with a slightly added romanticism.
Among other pianists who play Scriabin well, too many treat the loud sections with too harsh a tone. He himself performed them certainly in a loud fashion, providing the inner drama, without harshness…
translated by Dmitry Rachmanov
And to finish ... the wonderful Scriabin performing himself
