Customer Reviews

Alexander Scriabin: The Complete Piano Sonatas

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This amazing collection of Scriabin Piano works is deeply moving, challenging for the listener and brilliantly executed. Scriabin was a composer well ahead of his time in many ways, yet much of his early work is highly romantic and quite beautiful; However you can perceptably follow his development as his works become more modern in nature, and in places he foreshadows composers who would come later with dissonant and almost minimalistic passages.

I find Ms. Laredo's performances inspired and masterful. The works were recorded in 1970, far before the advent of digital reproduction, and occasionally the limitations of the equipment tell with sometimes too soft, sometimes too bright sound quality. I have been too fascinated and enthralled with the music and the performances to be seriously bothered by these minor annoyances.

Finally, I must say a brief word about the packaging, which is beautiful. The stark photograph of Scriabin against a fuliginous black background is so tastefully done that I would love to purchase, frame and proudly display this artwork in my home.

I highly recommend this work to any fan of Scriabin's work, or of romantic piano in general.

I have the following complete sets: Laredo, Taub, Ashkenazy, Hamelin, Mikhailov, Szidon, Ponti, and Ogdon. I have two discs of Glemser and Horowitz, and one disc of: Sofronitsky, Pletnev, Kocyan, Bogdonov, Florentino, Coombs, Trpceski, and Richter.

Here is my list of suggested performances of the sonatas, taken from those I've heard. They are ranked from left to right:

G#m posthumous: Hamelin.

Ebm posthumous: Glemser.

No. 1: Kocyan, then Ashkenazy, then Taub. Kocyan tells a story. Ashkenazy is passionate. Taub is darker.

No. 2: Kocyan, then Glemser or Sofronitsky, then Ashkenazy. Kocyan's fluidity takes it, but Sofronitsky is artistic. Glemser's first movement is beautiful.

No. 3: Laredo or Horowitz. Then Glemser or Taub. Then Ashkenazy or Sofronitsky.

No. 4: Taub or Sofronitsky. The latter has more artistry, the former a more coherent and appropriate tone.

No. 5: Horowitz or Taub. The former has electric genius, the latter has wonderful refinement. Hamelin's is excellent (definitely his best Scriabin performance). I've heard that Richter's is great, but I don't have it.

No. 6: Richter (genius but bad sound quality), then Taub. Hamelin's is athletic and precise, although not mysterious.

No. 7: Glemser, then Laredo. The former brings out all the complexity with precision, the latter is sharp and clear. I have not heard Richter's.

No. 8: Ashkenazy. Then Szidon or Laredo. I've read that Sofronitsky's is good, but I don't have it.

No. 9: Sofronitsky, then Horowitz (all versions), then Glemser, then Szidon and Taub.

No. 10: Horowitz or Taub. Same contrast of styles between the pianists as the fifth sonata. Like the fifth, this is Taub's other brilliant performance.

Other pieces:

Fantasy in B minor: Glemser
Vers la flamme: Sofronitsky or Horowitz, then Laredo.
Piano concerto: Ugorski/Boulez, then Ashkenazy/Maazel. Both are excellent, but I give the edge to Ugorski.
Poem of Ecstasy: Maazel
Prometheus: Ashkenazy/Maazel

Regrettably, the posthumous sonatas are not included and not every performance is outstanding, but it does offer a top-notch third sonata, a great seventh, and solid performances of the first, sixth, eighth, op. 42 etudes, and Vers La Flamme. The 5th sonata is not well-performed here. The 4th has a bouncy feel in the second movement, and the 9th begins with no mystery. The tight (not spacious) analog sound should be braved by Scriabin aficianados, but those new to his music should stick with Taub's complete set (also missing the posthumous sonatas, regrettably), at least at first.

Alexander Scriabin was one of the last of the great Russian Romantic school who became a leader of the modern vanguard. This recording traces that musical evolution brilliantly. Many have associated Laredo with the Baroque or Classical genre but with this CD she proves that there are apparently no areas in which she is not proficient.

The sounds produced here are nothing short of stupendous - from the loudest fortissimo to the quietest pppppp (that is a true marking). The technique is so completely masterful that one almost takes the devilish fingering, concorted chortds and fluttering dynamics for granted. The other outstanding feature of Scriabin's music is the continual "lift" as the music is in a constant state of key changes and transforming "rises".

This is an important CD in that it traces the development of an enormously talented yet ultimately irrational artist. One item of note is that his son, who was remarkably gifted, drowned as a young lad. Otherwise we might have had a father-son musical continuum, the maturation of which we can only surmise. Liked other commentators, I enjoyed the dark, stark cover.

To understand Scriabin one must understand the Sonatas and his reaction to them. One way to understand the Sonatas is by listening to this recording.

Laredo's ability to shape this music into a mystical, otherworldly experience is phenomenal. Unfortunately, I do not feel the remastering was very good. The piano doesn't seem to be able to resonate; everything is a bit too bright and the range of colors I know Ruth is eliciting from the piano doesn't always shine through. Still, the performance is so natural the listener becomes completely unaware of the physical and mental demands required to play these works.

This is a superior collection of Ruth Laredo's playing (prior to her alarming decline in the later 1970s). The performance of the Sonata #4 is overwhelming and, in general, it is sensitive and very skillfull. The engineering quality is also to be commended. The performance of the 6th Sonata, difficult to do well, also stands out. Highly recommended.

A captivating sheer mystical piano experience featuring all piano sonatas by Scriabin. You sit down, close your eyes and fly away to nowhere land, where nothing is like you ever imagined before. Spaces beyond space, timeless moments growing towards eternity. Moments of passionate loving and splashes of total horror, frightning you to the bottom of your toes. A mystical vision of times to come, losing all contact with known reality, forgetting who you were, the dissolvement of personnality, one with all that flowes, this is not just music, it's a mystical raproachment to things long forgotten, experience it

Over the years I have heard live or have procured various pianistic performances of Scriabin's music played by the likes of Hamelin, Ashkenaszy, Horowitz, Richter; yet I have always preferred Ruth Laredo's sensuous, broad,subtle approach to Scriabin's masterpieces. I still believe her "Vers la Flamme" performance is the best for its unique passionate,even erotic persuasions. To be frank, I'm primarily interested in Scriabin's "late" period and have absorbed the beauty and "sensuosity" of sonatas 6 through 10. Listeners and critics vary in their recommendations, their approval or otherwise of the increasing performances of the sonatas now available to the interested listener. Almost all the masters have dominated the bravura format,as Scriabin's works are developed within extraordinary technical demands and exigencies. Hamlin probably reigns supreme, at least,according to most of the reviewers I've read. Opinions will vary, to be sure; reviews may be tendered by professional, musical critics; or, they may simply be reflections, opinions, and reactions of individual listeners intensely focused on Scriabin's inordinately complex music. A problem with the Laredo recording unfortunately, is that it's a"carry over' from an earlier performance recorded in the 1970's. Despite the audio problems, I still love the Laredo dedication to the inordinate, complex virtuosic demands. Her playing remains faithful, to a large extent, to the ever mysterious, subtle, if not lascivious, voluptuous, qualities which all too often haunt those demonic Scriabinesque harmonies. The performances are smooth and not overly percussive,as I have noted in later recorded performances.

I have recently discovered the music of Scriabin. Rather, shall I say re-discovered, as I have up until recently been only familiar with his orchestral music and not his works for piano. This is a splendid recording of some of the most interesting piano music ever written.

The first four sonatas are very much Romantic era music, with the 1st sonata being my favorite. The last six sonatas are extremely complex, yet moving and embody a great sense of mystery within them. It is clear to see how Scriabin was truly light years ahead of his time. These compositions beautifully illustrate the power of music to transfix the listener into experiencing nothing less than blissful paradise.

INTRODUCTION: Beethoven's contribution to the piano sonata is as unquestionable as unsurpassable. Since Chopin never directed much attention to the genre, the ten numbered and two posthumous sonatas of his only true heir, Scriabin, are all the more significant. They make up not only the alpha and omega of his entire life and output but also of 19th century piano sonata writing.

I first encountered Ruth Laredo in her complete mid-1970s survey of Rachmaninov's piano works on Sony, which is serviceable (and certainly a bargain at some £15 in the UK) but quite pedestrian. Her Scriabin Sonatas, recorded a few years before, are similar in that they more often than not are neither bad nor good; what they lack is something to make them stand out in a market that has been blessed with first-class Scriabin Sonatas in the past few decades from Hamelin, Lettberg, Glemser and above all Sudbin.

The two performances to savour here are the 7th and 9th Sonatas, both done with sufficient abandon. On the other hand, the 4th is particularly dull whereas the 8th, as with Szidon, is marred by insufficient technical command--again, the fiendish double roulades are seriously flawed in spite of a very sluggish pacing. Nonetheless, Laredo does my pet Andante movement of the 3rd rather satisfactory.

Three good sets of Scriabin Sonatas have been wrecked by bad (Ogdon), awful (Szidon) and absolutely tragic (Ponti) piano sound. Even if Laredo is pianistically somewhat inferior to these, she is at least considerably better recorded--though the sonics are anything but ideal being largely blurred by far too much reverberance and a boomy bass.

Laredo's Scriabin Sonatas clearly filled a large gap in the market when it appeared in the early 1970s. Since I was not around at the time, her performances do not spark any nostalgia to warrant more than barely three stars.

REFERENCES: 1st, Etudes--Lettberg; 2nd, 5th, 9th--Sudbin; 3rd--Kissin; 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th--Hamelin; 7th--Glemser; Vers la flamme--Horowitz

This set is mostly valuable for being comprehensive as the performances are somewhat wan. Laredo also experiences technical difficulties here and there. Finally, the sound quality of the performance is below average. That said, I'm glad to own it because it includes some unusual pieces and brings all of these wonderful sonatas together.

Not to throw stones, but I really have to wonder whether any of the reviewers giving this set 5 stars are familiar with Scriabin and the many excellent performances of his piano works that have been made. This is a fallback CD set.