tomekkobialka | Excerpt from Scriabin-Nemtin's Prefatory Action (Tres lent, contemplatif) @tomekkobialka | Uploaded May 2019 | Updated October 2024, 1 week ago.
pf: Vladimir Ashkenazy cond/ Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

One of my favourite excerpts from Alexander Nemtin's monumental "Prefatory Action" project, it is described in the album booklet as follows:

This follows straight on from the end of Part Two, which ends with the banishment of the Superman who has brought wars and havoc to the earth, and his expulsion in the desert, where he recalls his deeds and longs for death. And Death comes to him in the image of the White Sister [four-note ostinato]:

"Fear not, my child, it is I you wished to see.
Blinded by my appearance, you could not recognise me!
Time and again I have come without warning
but feaful of death, you kept running away."

Death tells the exile that having acquired full awareness through insight and repentance, he must now explain it to others...

[Nemtin:] "The exposition of this part falls into two halves. First, the evil-doer's emotions and the recollection of his deeds, and finally, his sinking into complete prostration. I made use here of the Prelude, Op.74 No.2, which Scriabin said 'lasts millions of years'...Then the elaboration begins. The repentant evil-doer goes to the people and finds them still occupied with the same kind of deeds as in the past. They are fighting the same internecine wars..."