[f_minor] Scriabin

[James Wright]

I'm afraid that I cannot agree with your assessment at all, Fred.  Not that we can really debate about such things ("à chacun son goût"), but in my view, the Scriabin 5th is an extraordinarily little masterwork.  A reminder that Scriabin's one-movement Sonata Op. 53 is written in 1907, one year before Berg completed his one-movement Sonata Op. 1.  I'm fascinated by the colour-world of this piece, by Scriabin's take on "tonality in transition" and by his almost jazz-like employment of harmonic techniques such as tritone substitution, etc.  If Scriabin's Op. 53 was good enough for Sviatoslav Richter, Glenn Gould and Marc-André Hamelin - all of whom recorded it - it's good enough for me! In the Fall 2008 issue of Glenn Gould Magazine (Volume 13, Number 2) there's an important article on Gould's experimentation with three-dimensional microphone-placement techniques in his recording of the Scriabin 5th (Paul Théberge, "Glenn Gould Remixed: An "Acoustic Choreography" for Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 5," Glenn Gould Magazine 132, Fall 2008).  In 2006, Paul (my colleague at Carleton University) wrote: “In the thirty-six years since Gould recorded this sonata [Scriabin, Op. 53], other artists have pushed the boundaries of music and technology. However, Gould’s [unique recording] technique remains intriguing and, in an era of surround sound systems, may offer new insights into the relationship between music and acoustic space.” http://www1.carleton.ca/research/ccms/wp-content/ccms-files/theberge.pdf Paul secured a digital copy of the original tapes from Sony-BMG, and has been working with it for a few years now.  Watch for the forthcoming release of Paul's Gouldian "Re-Mix" of this recording to be released by Sony BMG sometime later this year ...J. James K. Wright, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor
School for Studies in Art & Culture: Music
A917 Loeb Building, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  K1S 5B6
Email: James_Wright at carleton.ca
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Fax : (613) 520-3905
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:17:11 -0800
From: boyboy_8 at yahoo.com
To: f_minor at glenngould.org
Subject: [f_minor] Scriabin

I hope that I've copied the URL correctly.  Am listening to GG play Scriabin's sonata #5.  Not heard this before and am not overly impressed.  I think GG would have been better off playing more Ravel and certainly Debussy than this mediocre work.  

regards,

Fred Houpt

 		 	   		  
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