Alexander Scriabin (Aleksandr Skriabin) was a Russian composer and pianist born on December 25th, 1871 in Moscow. He began his formal study of the piano at the age of 12 and entered the Moscow Conservatory at 17. In his early artistic career from 1891 to 1902, Scriabin produced sets of piano works in smaller forms, modelled on the styles of Chopin and Liszt. The second and third sonatas provide further witness to the fresh vitality Scriabin will bring to this form. During the early years of the century, he devoted much of his effort to symphonic writing. The enthusiasm and intensity in some of Scriabin's works make them seem more brilliantly 'Chopin-esque' than Chopin himself! Scriabin abandons the need for any form of rhythmic beat, instead superimposing different time-values through a layering of harmonic and thematic material. Scriabin died rather abruptly in Moscow, on April 14th, 1915, after developing an untreated infection on his lip beneath his moustache. He was a musical representative of Symbolism, immersed in hazy mystical ideologies derived from Eastern philosophical and religious sources. Scriabin sought to stretch music to its limits of sonorous density and expression towards creating an atmosphere of spiritual and esthetic ecstasy. He eventually envisioned the ideal musical experience as a multi-sensory 'synaesthetic' event, which would also incorporate a visual dimension in the form of a light-and-color display. He left 72 orchestral-size pages of sketches for a preliminary work Prefatory Action, intended to 'prepare' the world for the apocalyptic ultimate masterpiece. Scriabin's music embraces the past and the future, formality and freedom. His remarkable harmonic scheme is like a burgeoning new language but with few cognates.
