Scriabin

[7/4]

dusty?

[Larry Kart]

dusty?

No -- that was Wayland Flowers' Blavatsky.

[Late]

Any love for John Ogdon's take on Scriabin? I haven't heard it.

[Stefan Wood]

I like these:

[Michael Weiss]

My favorite is Michael Rudy, Op. 62 through 74, on Calliope

Opus 65, but, hell yeah! How did you come upon this?

I've had this LP since the early 80s. Don't know if it was ever reissued. Your mention of Op. 65 brought me a chuckle. I won $50 in my high school's piano competition for Op. 65 #3.

[Chuck Nessa]

Your mention of Op. 65 brought me a chuckle. I won $50 in my high school's piano competition for Op. 65 #3.

Bet it took a while to make that kind of bread again.

[Larry Kart]

Any love for John Ogdon's take on Scriabin? I haven't heard it.

No. Nor should there be IMO. And I used to own the sucker. It is better than Ruth Laredo's set though.

[Chuck Nessa]

Yeah, I'm generally an Ogdon fan but he doesn't "get" the music as far as I can tell.

[Epithet]

My favorite is Michael Rudy, Op. 62 through 74, on Calliope

Opus 65, but, hell yeah! How did you come upon this?

I've had this LP since the early 80s. Don't know if it was ever reissued. Your mention of Op. 65 brought me a chuckle. I won $50 in my high school's piano competition for Op. 65 #3.

My public library has a 1988 CD issue of it.

I think that piece was the first Scriabin I tried to learn. I'd cramp like nobody's business at Rudy's tempos; I don't think I fingered the left hand right. Of course, I didn't have that financial incentive.

[J.A.W.]

Time to revive this old thread

Any recent Scriabin piano sonatas recommendations?

[mikeweil]

This complete recording by Maria Lettberg has received good to enthusiastic reviews. The piano sound is very good, she is technically well equipped to handle everything without the slightest problems, but display of technical prowess is not her thing: she shows the modernity and musicality of these works with due reference to older composers.

This box has 8 CDs with all solo piano works and a bonus DVD (english too, IIRC) - I am very satisfied with this edition.

Edited October 28, 2012 by mikeweil

[king ubu]

Contrary to above opinions, I enjoy Ogdon a lot.

But I guess best is Sofronitsky (to be found on Brilliant, I've got his 9CD set, but it can be found on a larger Russian pianists set, too).

Also enjoyed some of Horowitz' playing, though with him I'm never quite sure what to think ...

And the Ashkenazy set mentioned at the beginning I enjoy, too.

[StarThrower]

I just received the Lettberg set last week. It's going to take quite a bit of listening for these pieces to sink in. Since Szymanowski was mentioned, I heard his piano concerto like symphony no. 4 performed by Marc Hamelin on the radio the other night. I loved it right off, and ordered an EMI 2 disc set which includes symphonies 2-4, two other orchestral works, and some solo piano music. Should be a good introduction to his music. There are also two versions of his symphonies available on Naxos.

[ejp626]

Also enjoyed some of Horowitz' playing, though with him I'm never quite sure what to think ...

I had this on downstairs:

And my son came down and said it was really nice, like Christmas music. Not really sure how to react to that, but I was glad he enjoyed it...

Edited November 4, 2012 by ejp626

[mracz]

Sofronitsky. Try the 1960 recitals, especially a two-disc set on Japanese Denon (mid-price ordered from Japan) with a a whole bunch of the Poems interspersed with the 8th and 9th Sonatas, or the Arbiter disc which includes his last public concert (Jan 1961), while he was mortally ill with cancer, playing Skryabin's own piano in the Skryabin museum. Very special atmosphere and music-making. He married Skryabin's daughter, and many of his contemporaries (including Richter) regarded him as the definitive interpreter. The studio recordings are often very restrained, but live in concert the music has a darkness of hue and an appropriately sulphurous atmosphere that is without parallel. Feinberg also fantastic, but there are very few recordings by him (sonatas 2, 4 and 5, the last on Arbiter, plus some short pieces. 5 is particularly fine). He was the pianist of the younger generation that Skryabin most admired playing his own music. Richter is phenomenal, the 5th sonata both in the DG set and from Prague, the 9th sonata from Aldeburgh, and an all-Skryabin recital disc from Warsaw on the Parnassus label (formerly on the Music and Arts label). The 1950s Melodiya recordings of a group of etudes plus the 6th sonata are also superb, and there is a bootleg of the 7th Sonata which is particularly astonishing, technically perfect but visionary at the same time, and there aren't many pianists who can bring that combination off! There is a late recording of the late Preludes by Gilels (I think it's in the Brilliant Gilels set) which is marvellous. A shame he didn't record more. Of more recent recordings, Yevgeny Sudbin has impressed me most. BTW Skryabin's piano rolls are worth a listen, particularly in the Appian remasterings, although sadly they don't include the 2nd movement of the 2nd sonata and the 1st and 2nd movements of the 3rd sonata, which don't seem to be generally available. The 2nd sonata gives you a really vivid sense of his extreme tempo fluctuation, and suggests the kind of inspired and improvisatory flair that his contemporaries describe in his performances. No sense whatsoever of his famous subtleties of tone and colour, but hey, it's better to have these imperfect artefacts rather than nothing at all.