Scriabin - The Poem of Ecstasy, Op. 54 / REMASTERED (Ct.rc.: Leopold Stokowski, Nikolai Golovanov)

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Alexander Scriabin (1871-1915) Poem of Ecstasy & Prometheus: Poem of Fire
00:00 The Poem of Ecstasy, Op. 54
Leopold Stokowski
Houston Symphony Orchestra
Recorded in 1960
New mastering in 2022 by AB for CMRR

19:16 The Poem of Ecstasy, Op. 54
Nikolai Golovanov
Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra
Recorded in 1952
New mastering in 2022 by AB for CMRR

Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60    • Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60 ...  
Piano: Alexander Goldenweiser
Nikolai Golovanov
Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra
Recorded in 1947
New mastering in 2022by AB for CMRR
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Here are two complementary versions. Leopold Stokowski strikes us with his magic of timbres / color palette. He unfolds a fairy world that bewitches us and leaves us in weightlessness. Golovanov joins the interpretative ideal of Sofronitsky. The tension and violence of the direction sweeps everything away in its path. An absolutely legendary interpretation.

Premiered in 1908 in New York by the Russian Symphony Orchestra, this one-movement "Orgiastic Poem" exalts the mystical philosophy of the Russian composer. A work that unfolds a bewitching universe of sound and of which Scriabin thought that after its performance "everyone would perish on the field of ecstasy."

"Once again, I am swept away by a wave of creativity. I lose my breath, but oh, what joy!" Isolated but visionary, Aleksandr Scriabin saw his personal creation as reaching out to the divine and universal Creation.

The ambitious Poem of Ecstasy can be likened to a large sonata form. The first part spreads a great sheet of streaming music, a perpetual vibration of diffuse patterns and flashing timbres. "Pouring out streams of hope / Illuminated again / The spirit burns with the ardor of living". It begins with a kind of awakening, very impressionistic in its construction; then a scherzando-like passage gives free rein to a magic close to Rimsky-Korsako: "Brilliant reflections / of a magic light / illuminate the Universe".

Shortly thereafter, the only truly individualized motifs appear, a trumpet call, with a conquering profile, and the sighs of the solo violin: it sounds like two faces of desire, the one that undertakes and the one that longs. But it is especially the trumpet leitmotiv that will be reiterated throughout the work, like a "consciousness of the self" crossing the cosmic quivering: "the Spirit that plays, the Spirit that desires, the all-powerful Spirit, creating while dreaming...".

Suddenly, the electricity of the storms comes to disturb this spiritual blossoming: " Threatening rhythms and dark presentiments / Brutally invade this charming world / [...] Mouths of frightful monsters open up ". The tightening of the motives, which resembles a development, the darkness of the brass, the deliberate confusion recall many passages of Richard Strauss; the glockenspiel maintains its mystical notes in this fracas, "The lightning of the divine will criss-crosses the sky. A sort of recapitulation brings back the initial flutter, the allegro volando, another battle and the affirmation of the trumpet motif.

Towards the end, this main motif, transfigured, "bursts" into a monstrous chime. The coda, which repeats the motif with a moving melodic breadth, manages to make the final C major chord sound like the most phenomenal event ever.

The two recordings reproduced here illustrates the extent to which Golovanov understood the integrality of the composer's music. The demiurgic gestures, the astonishing agogic freedom, that no other conductor has dared to instil into this work, the visionary quality of the orchestral timbre make this recording the very peak of Scriabin discography - testimony to the total identification of a performer with a work. On this recording Alexander Goldenweiser plays a piano tuned as the composer specified, a piano prepared for the work, its tuning having been lowered so that it blends with the orchestra, a supplementary colour, not a soloist element.

Just as exceptional is the recording of "The Poem of Ecstasy" with such violent intensity, such an unyielding crescendo, with such a sublime agogic brutality that it is hard to believe that it remained undiscovered for such a long time.

Alexander Scriabin - Poèmes, Mazurkas, Études, Sonatas .. The Piano Works by Joseph Villa (Ct.rc.):    • Alexander Scriabin - Poèmes, Mazurkas...