Complete Piano Works of Scriabin | Michael Ponti, Scriabin

Complete Piano Works of Scriabin | Michael Ponti, Scriabin | Good...

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Complete Piano Wor...

	Complete Piano Works of Scriabin Michael Ponti, Scriabin Vox (Classical), 2002 average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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Scriabin's Piano Works

When talking about Scriabin, of course, maturity is only a relative term. He died in 1915 at only 43 years old. He composed an extensive large collection of piano music. Scriabin was a very complicated person and his life is surrounded by many myths. He is known to only be able to compose after extreme intoxication or physical intimacy. Scriabin was able to express so many different emotions with his music from anger, fear and mystery to light, love and ecstasy. This 5 CD set allows us to hear his development as a composer. The very first piece on the set, the 3 Pieces op. 2, is one of my favorite pieces, the Etude in C sharp minor. These first 3 pieces were composed when he was only 15 years old. The second, a Prelude, gives a taste of things to come in its extreme beauty that Scriabin was able to capture in only 45 seconds. The third is an Impromptu whose melodic and harmonic style as well as the nature of the left hand accompaniment could almost have been lifted from a page of Chopin. Several of the earlier pieces show the influence of Tchaikovsky, and in the more virtuoso pieces, of Liszt. There could scarcely be a greater contrast between this music and the music from the end of Scriabin's life. From the early 1900's he began to be interested in matters divine and mystic, and as these preoccupations found their way into the music, the music became less immediately accessible, less melodic, and distant from what what others were composing at the time. Scriabin began to view the music he composed in the later years of his life as a sort of preparation for some huge project which would bring together his religious, mystic and musical philosophies. His death intervened, and we can never know how his very particular thinking might have developed, nor to what conclusions, musical or otherwise, he might eventually have been led by it all. The music of this period is characterized by new harmonies, based on the interval of the fourth, and mystic chords became associated with him. Fantasie in B Minor is typical of this period, at one moment somber and sad and then burning with a kind of diabolical energy at another. One of my favorite pieces of Scriabin's music is the whole set of 24 Preludes, op.11. The Preludes in the black keys are the most interesting, especially Nos.13-18. Hardly two minutes in length, these short works take the pianist through the whole keyboard with cross hands, accentuating chords requiring all ten fingers to run across the black keys with great intensity. No.13, which starts off in a slow manner, is rich with sustained chords in the left hand and gliding arpeggios in the right which just end on a hanging note. The Preludes in some aspects have connections to Chopin's preludes. Scriabin's teacher was a student of Chopin. The influence is subtle but very real. Scriabin's desire to reach new heights surface in works like the Three Morceaux. The first work, Feuillet d album, is extremely slow and looks so playable to an inexperienced pianist. However, it is full of expression that extends beyond just the fingers and a lot of thought and feeling has to be put into playing it. Anyone interested in Scriabin's music definitely needs to get this set performed by Michael Ponti. It contains all of Scriabin's piano works except for the sonatas and a couple of other works that are also available from Vox Box on a 2 CD set.

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Michael Ponti is definitely a virtuoso, and it's pretty amazing that he played through the whole Scriabin catalog. I felt that his tempos were a little all over the place. His Etudes were kind of abrupt and rushed. Overall I think his interpretations were pretty consistent, and overall he did a great job. He's just not Horowitz or Richter.

Not quite "complete"

The sound is not really so bad as some reviews claim, but the real purpose of my "review" is to alert you that (as several of the reviews mention in passing) this so-called "complete" set omits 13 pieces that spill over to Ponti's 2-CD set of the sonatas. It should really be labelled "Piano Music Vol. 1" and the 2-CD set "Piano Music Vol. 2, including the Sonatas." This is an important consideration if you're intending to supplement another pianist's version of the sonatas (such as Hamelin's excellent set on Hyperion) with the other works.

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Advice for Scriabin collectors

Ponti's Scriabin IS complete. In fact, it's THE most complete set of Scriabin's piano music ever issued! True, VOX's labeling is confusing-as another reviewer stated, this set and Ponti's set of the sonatas should really be labeled "Vol.I and Vol.II." I don't blame other customers for being confused!

Ponti is a great Scriabin player, period. Unfortunately, his recording of the sonatas is one of the great tragedies of recorded music. The sound accorded his sonatas is virtually unlistenable-fryingly over bright treble and boomy bass--it sounds like it was recorded by someone used to recording rock. The recording engineer should be taken out and shot!

It's a tragedy, because the playing is marvellous. The other pieces in that set and the present set are much more listentably recorded. The sound of the present set is better, and not nearly so bad as some reviewers would have one believe. With some fiddling at the tone controls, it can be rendered quite listenable. I found that adjusting the tone controls to treble at 9:00 and bass at 10:00 renders everything except the sonatas much easier to take.

Unfortunately, if one wants Ponti's Scriabin complete (even if one chooses to supplement his sonatas with something in better sound) one has to buy both this set and his set of the "Complete Piano Music" on five CD's. That's actually not so bad--the sets are cheap enough.

However, if merely getting the complete Scriabin is your goal, there are alternatives.

1. There's a really excellent 8-disc set of all Scriabin works with opus numbers available on Capriccio played by Maria Lettberg. This is really first-rate, and can form the basis of your Scriabin collection.

2. Lettberg doesn't play the early sonatas in E-flat minor and G-sharp minor (not to be confused with No.2). One can get these either by Ponti (in his sonata set) or Roberto Szidon (in HIS set of the sonatas, with better sound). Again, both are fairly cheap.

3. Two possibilities here: Lettberg also doesn't play a great deal of posthumously-published early Scriabin. Most of this is available on Coombs's CD of "The Early Scriabin," although he doesn't play the early "Albumleaves" in F-sharp and A-flat and the Fantasy for Two Pianos. All of the pieces Coombs plays plus everything he doesn't are in Ponti's set called "Complete Piano Music". The sound of this set can be rendered fairly listenable with the tone controls.

To sum up: Get Lettberg's set. Add the two early sonatas she doesn't play either from Ponti or Szidon (better sound than Ponti). Add the early pieces from Ponti (which will make your collection absolutely complete) or just Coombs's (better sound, but incomplete). And oh, yes, you might want another set of the sonatas--these pieces are so multi-faceted that you might want more than one interpretation-my personal favorite is Hamelin.

RE the Sonata in E-flat minor: This work has come down to us unfinished. If you're interested, see my comment on Glemser's and Ponti's different solutions attached to "SRS"'s review on the page devoted to Ponti's sonatas.

I hope this helps!

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