Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (?????????? ??????????? ?????????; sometimes transliterated as Skryabin or Skrjabin) (January 6, 1872 – April 27, 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist.

Biography

Scriabin was born in Moscow. He studied the piano from an early age, taking lessons with Nikolay Zverev who was teaching Sergei Rachmaninoff at the same time. He later studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Anton Arensky, Sergei Taneyev, and Vasily Ilyich Safonov. He became a noted pianist despite his small hands with a span of barely over an octave (at one point he actually damaged his hand from practicing pieces which required greater hand spans). Scriabin, previously interested in Friedrich Nietzsche's übermensch theory, also became interested in theosophy, and both would influence his music and musical thought. In 1909-1910 he lived in Brussels, becoming interested in Delville's Theosophist movement and continuing his reading of Hélène Blavatsky (Samson 1977). Theosophist and composer Dane Rudhyar wrote that Scriabin was "the one great pioneer of the new music of a reborn Western civilization, the father of the future musician," (Rudhyar 1926b, 899) and an antidote to "the Latin reactionaries and their apostle, Stravinsky" and the "rule-ordained" music of "Schoenberg's group." (Ibid., 900-901).

Related Topics:
Moscow - Piano - Nikolay Zverev - Sergei Rachmaninoff - Moscow Conservatory - Anton Arensky - Sergei Taneyev - Vasily Ilyich Safonov - Friedrich Nietzsche - Theosophy - Hélène Blavatsky - Dane Rudhyar - Stravinsky - Schoenberg

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A hypochondriac his entire life, Scriabin died in Moscow from septicemia. For some time before his death he had planned a multi-media work, to be performed in the Himalayas, that would bring about the armageddon, "a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world" (AMG http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=ADFEAEE47F1DD94AA97F20C393327BD3B17BCD10DF7CFB9811326A5DD3A13C49840138E253F89593E4BD3CEB3BF4B32FA44509CCC8EE56F8906037388CE4A366285E36&sql=41:7982~T1). This piece, Mysterium, was never realized.

Related Topics:
Hypochondria - Septicemia

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He was the uncle of Vyacheslav Molotov, the Russian politician and eponym of the Molotov cocktail. Molotov's original surname was Scriabin.

Related Topics:
Vyacheslav Molotov - Eponym - Molotov cocktail

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Pianists who have performed Scriabin to critical acclaim include Vladimir Sofronitsky and Vladimir Horowitz.

Related Topics:
Vladimir Sofronitsky - Vladimir Horowitz

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