Uploaded December 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
- Composer: Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (6 January 1872 -- 27 April 1915)
- Performer: Sviatoslav Richter
- Year of recording: 1993
Poème-Nocturne for piano, Op. 61, written in 1911-1912.
Alexander Scriabin completed his Poème-Nocturne, Op. 61 for solo piano in 1912 and is one of his late 'mystical' works. The Poème-Nocturne displays a profound sensitivity to the previous hundred years of piano literature, as well as a personal voice that is highly intriguing and would cause many composers to write in Scriabin's tonal language, which happened so often that the term 'scriabinistic' was coined to describe that particular style of composing.
The Poème-Nocturne offers a sensual and intriguing musical atmosphere. Like all of Scriabin's mature work, it has a distinctly French flavor to it, featuring textures that are reminiscent of both Chopin and Debussy. In this work, the passionate yearning and the comfort of shadows, dominant in the nocturnes of Chopin, are effectively reordered. The yearning is replaced by ambiguity, emphasized by a large vocabulary of ornamental effect. These ornaments can be found among the works of Debussy. Scriabin uses the groundbreaking textures and ornaments that Debussy seemingly was always capable of discovering, and applies them to the gentle, discreet sensuality of Chopin's nocturnes. With a heightened diversity of sound, and an absence of aria-like departures in Scriabin's Poème-Nocturne, the romantic yearning is replaced by something of an intrigue among lovers. The piano seems to almost describe something perhaps carnal between two people. They may be coupling, sleeping, whispering; Scriabin's sound seems to demonstrate a fundamental truth, that other people's love lives are impossible to actually penetrate. This natural shield that protects the privacy of all lovers is a beautiful thing to hear sensitively illustrated. Demonstrating that one cannot see thwarts the romantic idea that the artist is limitless. This discreet, modernist truth reveals that the composer, like Mahler and Schoenberg, was attempting to be as honest as possible in his music.
- Composer: Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (6 January 1872 -- 27 April 1915)
- Performer: Sviatoslav Richter
- Year of recording: 1993
Poème-Nocturne for piano, Op. 61, written in 1911-1912.
Alexander Scriabin completed his Poème-Nocturne, Op. 61 for solo piano in 1912 and is one of his late 'mystical' works. The Poème-Nocturne displays a profound sensitivity to the previous hundred years of piano literature, as well as a personal voice that is highly intriguing and would cause many composers to write in Scriabin's tonal language, which happened so often that the term 'scriabinistic' was coined to describe that particular style of composing.
The Poème-Nocturne offers a sensual and intriguing musical atmosphere. Like all of Scriabin's mature work, it has a distinctly French flavor to it, featuring textures that are reminiscent of both Chopin and Debussy. In this work, the passionate yearning and the comfort of shadows, dominant in the nocturnes of Chopin, are effectively reordered. The yearning is replaced by ambiguity, emphasized by a large vocabulary of ornamental effect. These ornaments can be found among the works of Debussy. Scriabin uses the groundbreaking textures and ornaments that Debussy seemingly was always capable of discovering, and applies them to the gentle, discreet sensuality of Chopin's nocturnes. With a heightened diversity of sound, and an absence of aria-like departures in Scriabin's Poème-Nocturne, the romantic yearning is replaced by something of an intrigue among lovers. The piano seems to almost describe something perhaps carnal between two people. They may be coupling, sleeping, whispering; Scriabin's sound seems to demonstrate a fundamental truth, that other people's love lives are impossible to actually penetrate. This natural shield that protects the privacy of all lovers is a beautiful thing to hear sensitively illustrated. Demonstrating that one cannot see thwarts the romantic idea that the artist is limitless. This discreet, modernist truth reveals that the composer, like Mahler and Schoenberg, was attempting to be as honest as possible in his music.
