# Scriabin - Symphony No. 1 - final movement



## DeepR

I have some comments and questions about this work, in particular about the final movement.

Here's my favorite recording of Symphony No. 1 with the final movement starting at 37:35





First, let me say that the choral finale is one of my absolute favorite moments in music. I've listened to it countless times, including a live performance earlier this year.
After the concert, I read some online reviews and most negative comments were about Scriabin's first symphony. I know this symphony has received quite some criticism and I understand most of it.

_"Completed in 1900, Alexander Scriabin's First Symphony is rarely taken off the shelf, but it found a place in this Barbican programme as the opening gesture of a series in which Valery Gergiev will lead the LSO in the Russian composer's entire symphonic output.
The reasons for its neglect are not hard to discern. While it regularly possesses a generous lyrical impulse, this ponderous 50-minute piece feels closer to an overextended suite than a true symphony. Its initial five sections - including two substantial slow movements and an attractive lightweight scherzo - lead up to a grand finale in which soprano and tenor soloists join the choir in a setting of a poetic paean to art penned by Scriabin himself. Some worthwhile material is thinly spread; overall, the result feels bloated."_

I still love the work anyway, but I'm trying to understand all the criticism.

_"Scriabin's First Symphony was composed during the summer of 1899 and the following January he tried it out at the piano with this friend, Alexander Goldenweiser, in Moscow. In this version for two pianos the work was played to various musicians, including Lyadov, who eventually conducted the premiere of the symphony. Scriabin had prevaricated over the definitive text of the choral finale, which he himself had written, but even worse, the artistic committee which presided over the acceptance of works to be published by the publishing house (headed by no lesser figures than Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Lyadov himself) then declared: 'the vocal part in the sixth movement of your symphony is unperformable, and in such a form this movement of the symphony cannot be published'. Despite Scriabin's protestations, when Lyadov conducted the work's premiere in November 1900, the finale was omitted and it was another five months before the symphony was heard in its entirety. This second performance proved Scriabin's critics wrong."_

Question: Why do you think the committee declared the vocal part "unperformable"?

Some more comments from concert reviews: 
_"Gergiev's forces gave this paean to art a committed performance, the conductor clearly far better suited to Scriabin than, say, to Mahler. The fugal writing still sounded forced, the ending ultimately oddly conventional, but that was not the fault of the performers."

"The final Andante is the most problematic movement - Scriabin setting his own panegyric to the greatness of Art in which mezzo-soprano and tenor soloists exchange then combine in verse as rhythmically foursquare as they are melodically simplistic, with reminiscences of earlier themes introducing the chorus in a stolid fugal episode then a would-be grandiloquent peroration."_

Question: Who agrees with this and why? What is exactly "forced" about the fugal writing?


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## Vaneyes

Some different structure aka different ways of doing things always confuses the few who feel the need to knee-jerk with stupid negative comments. Disregard them and adhere to your ear.

Coincidentally, I'm listening to Muti's No. 1 now. Majestic reading. The accents with strings and percussion are mesmerizing. Just what Alex ordered.


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## kanishknishar

I am hearing the work. I am baffled. The piece probably takes time to be absorbed. Utterly baffled. Is Scriabin the sort of composer where you don't walk away having some sense of melody or harmony?

EDIT 1/2: Hearing the sixth movement. The text's mawkish. I don't find anything noteworthy about the movement so far. (8:30/13:41)

Why did Gergiev decide to program this work and LSO to record and release it?


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## DiesIraeCX

Herrenvolk said:


> I am hearing the work. I am baffled. The piece probably takes time to be absorbed. Utterly baffled. Is Scriabin the sort of composer where you don't walk away having some sense of melody or harmony?
> 
> EDIT 1/2: Hearing the sixth movement. The text's mawkish. I don't find anything noteworthy about the movement so far. (8:30/13:41)
> *
> Why did Gergiev decide to program this work and LSO to record and release it?*


I'm not sure I'm following this correctly. Are you asking why a conductor and a symphony orchestra decided to record and release a work that you don't like (or find baffling)?


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## Pugg

Herrenvolk said:


> I am hearing the work. I am baffled. The piece probably takes time to be absorbed. Utterly baffled. Is Scriabin the sort of composer where you don't walk away having some sense of melody or harmony?
> 
> EDIT 1/2: Hearing the sixth movement. The text's mawkish. I don't find anything noteworthy about the movement so far. (8:30/13:41)
> 
> Why did Gergiev decide to program this work and LSO to record and release it?


As others conductors did , Muti/ Ashkenazy to name jurt two .


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## DeepR

So anyway, the linked recording is the one by Muti.


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## DeepR

Herrenvolk said:


> I am hearing the work. I am baffled. The piece probably takes time to be absorbed. Utterly baffled. Is Scriabin the sort of composer where you don't walk away having some sense of melody or harmony?
> 
> EDIT 1/2: Hearing the sixth movement. The text's mawkish. I don't find anything noteworthy about the movement so far. (8:30/13:41)
> 
> Why did Gergiev decide to program this work and LSO to record and release it?


What did you expect, instant gratification? I suggest you listen some more to this piece (and other pieces) before drawing conclusions about the piece and its composer. It's really not that "baffling" (his later works might be). There are beatiful themes, melodies and harmony throughout and I suppose others hear that too, such as Gergiev...


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## Antiquarian

Vaneyes said:


> Coincidentally, I'm listening to Muti's No. 1 now. Majestic reading. The accents with strings and percussion are mesmerizing. Just what Alex ordered.


 I concur. I assume you are referring to the Philadelphia Orchestra, with the Westminster Choir recording. (1986). This is my go to performance.


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