Alexander Scriabin - Early Piano Works (Stephen Coombs)

Information

Composer: Alexander Scriabin

1. Piano Sonata in E flat minor: I
2. Piano Sonata in E flat minor: II
3. Piano Sonata in E flat minor: III
4. Valse in F minor, Op. 1
5. Valse in G sharp minor
6. Valse in D flat major
7. Variations on a theme by Mlle Egorova
8. Nocturne in A flat major
9. 2 Nocturnes, Op. 5: No. 1 in F sharp minor
10. 2 Nocturnes, Op. 5: No. 2 in A major
11. Sonate-fantaisie in G sharp minor, Op. posth.
12. Fugue in E minor
13. Canon in D minor
14. Mazurka in B minor
15. Mazurka in F major
16. Etudes in D sharp minor, Op. 8 No. 12
17. 2 Pieces for left hand, Op. 9: 1. Prelude in C sharp minor
18. 2 Pieces for left hand, Op. 9: 2. Nocturne in D flat major
19. Allegro appassionato, Op. 4

Stephen Coombs, piano
Date: 2000
Label: Hyperion
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDH55286

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Review

A subtle‚ stimulating exploration of early Scriabin well­played and beautifully recorded

Stephen Coombs’s ‘The Early Scriabin’ follows his previous Hyperion recitals of Russian music by Arensky‚ Bortkiewicz‚ Liadov and Glazunov‚ but any suggestion that he has moved on to more familiar territory is triumphantly rebuffed in a programme of fascinating rarities played with a touching sensitivity and affection.

Coombs’s accompanying essay – a mine of information and research lucidly and stylishly presented – tells the history of such oddities as the sombre D minor Canon and E minor Fugue (their titles essentially alien to Scriabin’s precociously romantic and far­reaching sensibility; to a composer happy to admit that at nine years old he already ‘knew love in the fullest sense of the word’) or the complex provenance of the masterly E flat minor Sonata. How intriguing‚ too‚ to hear a radically richer second version of the D sharp minor Etude‚ Op 8‚ and to note the subtle indirection of Scriabin’s writing in the first of his two Nocturnes‚ Op 5. He also tells us that Scriabin’s genius received short shrift from the academic ancien régime; allowing him to graduate in piano but not in composition – a chilling reminder of the short­sightedness of too many teaching establishments.

Coombs’s performances are‚ for the most part‚ what painters call ‘low in tone’‚ and even when you wish for greater voltage in‚ say‚ the nightmarish equestrian finale of the Sonata (a quality relished by Bernd Glemser in his recent Naxos disc‚ 7/01) you can hardly wish for more gently persuasive accounts of the Waltzes or the A flat Nocturne‚ a bland Fieldian offering‚ though even here convention hardly disguises an already distinctive voice. He is much less dazzling and rhetorical than‚ for example‚ Leon Fleisher in the Prelude and Nocturne for the left hand (Sony‚ 10/93 – nla) but‚ conversely his playing suggests a subtly characterful and communing alternative. On the other hand he makes a full­blooded as well as finely graded assault on the cadenza just before the return of the principle idea in the Allegro appassionato so that‚ all in all‚ this record is a most impressive achievement‚ as beautiful in sound as it is endlessly thought­provoking.

-- Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/June/Scriabin_early_CDH55286.htm
http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-early-scriabin-mw0001561567
http://www.amazon.com/Early-Piano-Works-A-Scriabin/dp/B000OQF58C

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Alexander Scriabin (6 January 1872 [O.S. 25 December 1871] – 27 April [O.S. 14 April] 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist. Scriabin was one of the most innovative and most controversial of early modern composers, and is considered by some to be the main Russian Symbolist composer. Independently of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed a substantially atonal and much more dissonant musical system. He was influenced by synesthesia, and associated colours with the various harmonic tones of his atonal scale. Scriabin had a major impact on the music world, and influenced composers such as Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scriabin

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Stephen Coombs (born July 11, 1960 in Birkenhead, near Liverpool) is an English pianists. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal College of Music. Coombs is one of the leading English pianists of his generation, active not only as a soloist and recitalist but also as a chamber player and duo pianist. While his repertory includes mainstream compositions, he has become particularly well known for his interpretations of works by lesser-known late-Romantic composers. Coombs has achieved acclaim for his recordings in the massive Hyperion series The Romantic Piano Concerto.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/stephen-coombs-mn0002342760/biography

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