Scriabin plays Scriabin ~ Sonata Fantasie ~ Hupfeld Phonola recording 1908

Here is the ’lost’ recording of Scriabin playing his Sonata Fantasie . Originally recorded for the Hupfeld company on piano rolls, these are now ’re-performed’ by me on a Hupfeld Bluthner, this being the same make of piano on which Scriabin made his recording in the Hupfeld studio at Leipzig in 1908. Probably at the same time, he recorded his 2nd and 3rd Sonatas and a number of Etudes and Preludes. Scriabin’s performance of this Sonata accords with contemporary descriptions of the intense and nervous manner of his performance, and the kind of sound he produced. Certainly the manner of his rubati is original and distinctive, quite unlike anything I have heard in performances of this work post Scriabin. Unfortunately, it seems that Scriabin’s interpretative style died with him but however his piano rolls are a means of gaining some idea of this. Scriabin’s ’heirs’ such as Sofrontisky and Horowitz whose recordings are said to be definitive, could not have been directly influenced by him as they never actually heard him play. It is highly unlikely they heard any of Scriabin’s Hupfeld recordings, although they must have known of and probably heard the small number of Welte recordings which did not include any large scale works The writer Alexander Pasternak heard him play and noted that:- “His playing was could not be imitated by producing similar tone or power of softness, for he had a special relationship with the instrument, which was his own unrepeatable secret. As soon as I heard the first sounds on the piano, I immediately had the impression that his fingers were producing the sound without touching the keys. His enemies used to say that it was not real piano playing, but a twittering of birds or a mewing of spiritual lightness was reflected in his playing....“ In the second Presto movement Scriabin improvises, being somewhat different from the published score. Here the momentum is maintained without interruption and driven along relentlessly by the pounding bass octaves which though at first highly regular, drive faster as he approaches the final climax. Scriabin’s recording (the rolls that is, not necessarily this video) can only be regarded as the definitive interpretation. Somehow I think Scriabin would have approved of the ’Visualizations’ seen here, conjured up by the Microsoft media player. This is the first version I have posted, and I am not entirely satisfied with my reading of the dynamics in places.