Alexander Scriabin - Complete Piano Sonatas

Alexander SCRIABIN (1872-1915)

The Complete Piano Sonatas

Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 6

Piano Sonata No. 2 in G sharp minor ("Sonata-Fantasy"), Op. 19

Piano Sonata No. 3 in F sharp minor ("Etats d'âme"), Op. 23

Fantaisie for piano in B minor, Op. 28

Piano Sonata No. 4 in F sharp major, Op. 30

Piano Sonata in E flat minor

Roberto Szidon (Piano)

Recordings: Munich, Residenz, Plenarsaal der Akademie der Wissenschaften, 9/1968; 4, 8 & 10/1970; 1/1971

CD Released 2004

Long out of print and desperately sought by fans, Roberto Szidon's legendary recordings of Scriabin's piano sonatas were part of a major revival in the early '70s, which also yielded the celebrated recordings by Ruth Laredo, Michael Ponti, and Vladimir Ashkenazy. With this 2004 reissue, Szidon's performances may be compared to these others and not found wanting. Indeed, Szidon's are superior in many regards, and notwithstanding preferences for more familiar readings, this set will win many converts. Szidon has all the clarity of Laredo, none of the cloudiness of Ponti, and his visceral excitement matches Ashkenazy at every point, though without headlong rushing. The playing is fluid and spontaneous, in keeping with Scriabin's myriad directions on expression and volatile dynamic changes; yet Szidon's interpretations are never so frenetic that the music's rhythms are forgotten. Played precisely, in tempo, the sonatas are often flirtatious and dance-like, and this impulse contributes greatly to the music's delicacy and eroticism. Reissued in Deutsche Grammophon's Trio series, the set also includes the Fantaisie in B minor, which serves as a bridge to Scriabin's mature style and sets up the Sonata No. 4 and the later works nicely. The recorded sound is astonishing for analog, and the splendid digital transfer preserves Szidon's highly nuanced colors and dynamics.

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Recorded between 1968 and 1971, Roberto Szidon’s Scriabin cycle offers a blunt, sometimes over-the-top, and not 100-percent-note-accurate performing style, where climaxes generate both point and mass. He does not articulate Presto movements with the rhythmic verve and supple poise that we hear from Ashkenazy or Hamelin (the Second, Third, and Fourth sonata second movements, or the Seventh’s compact opening section, to cite a few examples), yet the fiery trills in the Sixth and Ninth sonatas boast genuine stinging impact. More fluent, forward-moving renditions of the Op. 28 Fantasy make the music sound more cohesive than it is, in contrast to Szidon’s choppy, stop/start phrasing, although his similarly subjective way with the teenage composer’s Chopin-esque patterns in the 1886 G-sharp minor Sonata-Fantasy is akin to spiking a soft drink, and more power to him. In sum, this is not a Scriabin cycle for “everyday use” (to paraphrase a great line by one of my British colleagues), but one to infrequently mete out in small doses.

Jed Distler (Classics Today)