10 Piano Sonatas

Trotta, Nuccio

The composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a controversial figure: his original and innovative works are, in fact, cloaked in spiritualism and mysticism, and inspired by a synaesthetic concept of art. The Russian musician had a crucial importance, not yet fully recognized, in the evolution of 20thcentury music language and his ten Sonatas, indeed, are noteworthy both for their aesthetic value and historic importance. In Scriabin’s last five Sonatas the characteristic imprint of the composer’s music is fully accomplished through innovative writing techniques. Sonatas six to ten were conceived as studies or fragments of that multisensory mystic work (sounds, perfumes, lights and dances), left unfinished because of the composer’s premature death. The Sonata No. 7 Op. 64 was is entitled it White Mass, because the composer deemed that its bright and heavenly character – as opposed to the darkness of the preceding work – represented the spiritual cleansing of mankind. Different moods alternate in the Sonata No. 8 Op. 66: serenity, anxiety, agitation, impetuosity. A complex work, difficult to perform. The last two Sonatas, No. 9 Op. 68, known as Black Mass (a title not given by Scriabin) and No. 10 Op. 70 are also characterized by a strong expressive density, and share the experimentalism and mystic yearning of the three, preceding sonatas. Original, surprising and visionary works, they lead the interpreter and the listener into a dizzying dimension, in a sound world that is exciting, rich in suggestions and multiform images.

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