Scriabin: Sonata-Fantasy, Op. 19 -- last assignment

Here is "Sonata-Fantasy" in memoriy of late Yoshikawa-sensei, who gave me this sonata as an assignment. This was the last incomplete assignment.

I recently played "Sonata-Fantasy" before the audience as the very last of the program. The following is what I wrote in the concert pamphlet.

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) published 10 piano sonatas and many other piano works, 5 symphonies and orchestral works, and pioneered a unique acoustic world. "Sonata-Fantasy" in G# minor, published in 1897, is considered an early work with strong influences from Chopin and Liszt, but it is already imbued with a mystical atmosphere typical of Scriabin.

The first movement is andante, in three-quarter time. Scriabin used the words "the stillness of a tropical seaside night," "the gentle moonlight that appears after dusk," and "the turmoil of the deep sea". The second movement is in presto, three-half time, "a vast sea surging with storms."

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Scriabin injured his right hand through excessive piano playing and once gave up the carrier of pianist. In 1892 he completed hist Sonata 1. This first sonata was a personal cry against his unfortunate fate and an acceptance, which was concluded by the final movement of a funeral march. Putting the composers mental state aside (his right hand recovered later), Chopin's "Funeral March" Sonata was apparently the model. We can hear the influence of the finale of the "Funeral March" sonata in the finale of Sonata-Fantasy also. I guess Scriabin was satisfied with the finale so that he premiered it before completing the entire sonata. He also discouraged to skip the finale, by finishing the first movement in E major, which is unusual with the G# minor movement (ending with B major is common). Otherwise amateur pianists would be happy about playing the sweet first movement separately. The first movement has a great instructive value, too.

25 years ago I practiced the finale and it destroyed my right hand. I nearly quitted piano playing.

Let me move on to the first movement. A common understanding of this movement is that this movement is under influence of Beethoven, following the sentiment of "Moonlight sonata". You can see several motives are arranged beautifully. Here are some points I thought about when I played this.

1. The starting phrase is a combination of a sharp Scriabin jump in the left hand followed by an octave descend with ritardando in the right hand. The left hand motive is a question, and the right hand an soothing answer . Can one do it without losing the sense of three-quarter time? Most pianists give up keeping times and change the score setting extra time before the answer.

2. The above question-and-answer appears repeatedly and you cannot rit the latter every time. How do you maintain the idea of answer without changing the tempo?

3. Two proponent melodies are necessary in the sonata form. Here they are both played in p and the characters look similar. How do you make contrast the two melodies?

4. There are repetitions of 1- or 2-bar phrases. Sometimes the repetition comes in an octave below, and sometimes at the same height. In general it is important to change the expression between the neighboring phrases. I used the soft pedal for the latter, treating the latter as an echo. This same issue sets a further difficulty in the finale where pianists cannot change tempo.

5. Contrasting short phrases and long phrases. Long phrases in the end of exposition and the recapture should be played rather evenly (at least in term of tempo). This is quite difficult due to the broad arpeggios in the right hand.

I do not have much to say about the second movement. It plays automatically well if you can play it in a reasonable tempo.

1. Stop practicing and take rest if you feel anything odd in the right hand!

2. The only thing you can fully control is the loudness of the left hand. How expressive it should be?

3. Considering a smooth connection with the first movement, the start should be played ambiguously with both pedals. What is the correct depth of the pedaling? Do you keep the use until the end or are you leading the piece to a lighter touch?

4. There are several points where technically one cannot play in tempo. Unmeasured tempo change in this kind of moto perpetuo might be destructive. If you make use of rubato to hide the technical difficulty, which amount of rubato is allowed?

In preparation I received an face-to-face lesson after an interval of more than 20 years. The teacher is a concert pianist and I knew her performance of "Sonata-Fantasy", keeping the three-quarter time successfully. I thank her for agreeing to teach me once on this occasion and gave me many valuable understandable advises on the interpretation of the sonata as well as the technical ones including the movement of 1st and 5th fingers. Two weeks after the lesson I managed to play it and my performance was acceptable despite of the excessively fast tempo in the finale. This was much more satisfactory than the last time I played at the end of the program 25 years ago (Beethoven Sonata 28).

On the youtube clip I used two hours at the studio and most of the the session time was spent for the first movement. My technique is not stable enough and there are mistakes I could not eliminate even with intensive editing. It is possible to practice further, but there is a risk of injuring my hand. I learned a lot and it is time to move on.

instrument: steinway B211