Alexander Scriabin: Complete Piano Sonatas

All ten of Scriabin's Sonatas composed between 1892 and 1913 are reprinted here from the authoritative Russian edition published in 1964. These works abundantly display his technical virtuosity.

Complete Piano Sonatas II-Piano works were at the centre of Alexander Scriabin's compositional output. As an outstanding pianist he began writing mainly miniatures for his instrument in the style of Romantic Piano pieces. But it was also Scriabin who unlike any other composer of his generation contributed to the continuation of the sonata tradition. Particular milestones in his output were Sonatas nos. 4 and 5 of 1903 and 1907 in which we hear forms and harmonies not heard previously. When these works are occasionally given the name 'Poème' Sonatas this indicates that they stem from the time and allude to the compositional context of Scriabin'sdaring Orchestral works 'Le Divin Poème' and 'Le Poème de l´exstase'. The editor Christoph Flamm is an expert in Russian music particularly Piano music. His research for example into Nikolai Medtner and the editions based on these findings are regarded as standard works. For his Bärenreiter edition of Scriabin's Sonata no. 5 Christoph Flamm has drawn on sources which were until recently regarded as lost or could only be consulted with great difficulty. Scriabin's Complete Piano Sonatas will be published in 4 volumes. - Urtext edition based on the latest source research. - With facsimiles which also give information about the rediscovered sources. - Detailed foreword (Ger/Eng) and critical commentary (Eng).

Complete Piano Sonatas I-The Piano Sonatas are regarded as the central works of Alexander Scriabin’s compositional output. No other composer after Beethoven reshaped this genre so radically thereby reinvigorating the tradition of the sonata. Scriabin’s desire not simply to continue the existing tradition but to surpass it is evident as early as his first sonatas. These are exciting works from the pianist’s perspective and in their abundance of expression and wealth of imagination. Up to the third sonata Scriabin developed a distinctive feeling for structural coherence and cyclical unity which at the same time revealed poetic qualities.Thisvolume contains the earlier works; sonatas officially published during the composer’s lifetime as No. 1 op. 6 No. 2 (Sonate-Fantaisie) op. 19 and No. 3 op. 23 as well as the sonatas written during his youth in G-sharp minor (1886) and E-flat minor (1887-89). The edition also includes the virtually unknown fragment of a sonata in C-sharp minor (1887) and the reconstructed parts of a sonata in G-sharp minor (1892) never previously published.The editor Christoph Flamm draws on autograph manuscripts first printed editions and on Russian editions of the 1920s. For the first time the recordings of Sonatas nos. 2 and 3 which Scriabin made in 1908 on paper rolls for the Hupfeld company Leipzig are also taken into account.- Urtext edition reflecting the latest scholarship and taking previously unknown sources into account.- Includes all fragmentary works some published for the first time.- Detailed foreword Ger/Eng) and critical commentary (Eng).

Par HENSELT ADOLPH. The composer and pedagogue Adolph von Henselt (1814?1889) can truly be considered one of the founding fathers of the Russian School of piano playing. He counted among his pupils Nicolai Sergeyvich Zverev, the teacher of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. Rachmaninoff considered Henselt?s Etudes the equal of those by Liszt and Chopin for their great beauty. Henselt?s music was well-known in his time, and in the repertoire of the greatest virtuosos of the 19th century, including Clara Schumann (who premiered his F minor Concerto with Mendelssohn conducting), Franz Liszt, Hans von Bülow, Vladimir de Pachmann and Alexander Scriabin. The two sets of Etudes Opp. 2 and 5 were composed just before Henselt moved permanently to Russia and each set was originally published as two books of six études. This new Edition Peters Urtext edition collects each set in its own volume, together with, in volume 1, a selection of Henselt?s Exercices préparatoires and, in volume 2, two additional etudes. It is edited by Daniel Grimwood, one of the composer?s most highly regarded interpreters, whose recording of the complete Etudes is available from Edition Peters Sounds. This is the only available modern Urtext edition of these important piano works. / Date parution : 2023-06-01/ Etude / Piano

PIANO SONATA NO. 4 from the years 1962–1964 is dedicated to the memory of Fiser’s friend, the pianist Antonín Jemelík, who died tragically. As a tribute to their friendship the composer incorporated into the introduction a quotation from their favourite work, Piano Sonata No. 10, Op. 70,by Alexander Scriabin. The tragedy of the death of the composer’s friend pervades the emotionally intense passage of unison octaves which follows the three-bar quotation. From a compositional point of view this work is a masterpiece of the mid-Sixties. Written as one movement, the piece is divided into numerous mutually contrasting segments which themselves are clearly grouped into two sections, exposition and development. The individual themes are introduced in the first section and thematically expanded in the second section. The motif treatment lies almost exclusively in the fragmenting or curtailing of the theme, or in the use of a combination of several themes, for the most part brief and eloquent. This compositional method, together with a clear-cut manner of execution, mainly semitonal melody and sharply contrastive dynamics, lends force and transparency to the piece. Piano Sonata No. 4 was completed in 1964 together with Symphonic Fresco, Concerto da camera for piano and orchestraand Fifteen Prints after Dürer’s Apocalypseand has earned its rightful place alongside them as masterpieces of Fiser’s œuvre. The work was first performed by Pavel Stepán in Prague’s Rudolfinum in 1965. The new setting for this piece is based on the single edition to date (Panton, 1969); only with regard to a few inconsistencies in the score was it necessary to consult the composer’s manuscript (kept at the National Museum – Czech Museum of Music, acquisition number 297/2006). H 7988, ISMN 979-2601-0447-1