# Scriabin's fantastic third symphony



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Who else totally adores this piece?

I've been listening to it a lot while going to work by train and it only gets better and better. I especially like Ashkenazy's version:






The first parts (Introduction + "Luttes") are my favorite. Dramatic, vibrant music, combined with moments of tenderness and surges of victory and joy, all brilliantly woven together. I love how it has a playful, light, "airy" vibe to it, like it literally takes place in the skies...

How wonderful it must have been to witness Scriabin composing this piece: "Years later, the early writing of the symphony, at a country dacha near Maloyaroslavets during the spring of 1903, was vividly remembered by Pasternak: "Just as sun and shade alternated in the forest and birds sang and flew from one branch, bits and pieces from the Divine Poem, which was being composed at the piano in the next-door dacha, were flying and rolling in the air. Oh God, what a music it was!"


----------



## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

Before I saw this thread, I was just thinking about listening to this for the first time. I will now as soon as I get a chance.


----------



## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Movt 1 has some nice little slidy harmonic finesses but I can't really remember the rest. Might give it another go. He's an interesting character


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

This symphony didn't grab me at all in the beginning but repeated listening paid off.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Garlic said:


> Before I saw this thread, I was just thinking about listening to this for the first time. I will now as soon as I get a chance.


You are in for a roller-coaster of a near all-encompassing manic ride -- I find it both lovely and hysterically over-the top in a truly eccentric -- and highly enjoyable -- way.

The piece was premiered to a select audience of musicians, which included Rimsky-Korsakov, who said the composer had to be "half-mad"

Considering Scriabin's Messianic complex, which seems to have been progressive, I think Rimsky hit it just about on the head at the time


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Over the top, perhaps, but indeed in a very enjoyable way. I wouldn't call it "forced" or "overwrought". It's in fact quite playful.

The cleverness of his later music is enough proof that he never went from half-mad to fully mad. 

Some extra info taken from youtube, so not checked:



> In November 1903 Scriabin played through the piano draft "for the crowd of St. Petersburg composers, and what a surprise! Glazunov was delighted and Rimsky-Korsakov was also very favourable". Announced as "a grandiose creation which transports the listener fantastically into another world", the first "manifestation" took place in Paris on 29th May 1905, under Nikisch for a fee of $750. The Russian premiere in St Petersburg, on 8th March 1906, with Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev at the rehearsals, was directed by Felix Blumenfeld.
> 
> The French language "programme" of the work -not so much Scriabin's (lost) poem as a condensed explanation, by Tatyana and de Schloezer, her brother -centres on the Ego, divided into Man-God and Slave-Man. These forces struggle with each other, experience the discord and concord of human experience, and finally through unity and blissful ecstasy attain freedom "in the sky of other worlds". There are three principal (sonata-form) chapters: "Struggles" (Allegro, "mysterious, tragic", "red" C minor); "Sensuous Delights" (Lento, "sublime", "whitish-blue" E major -the distinguishing key contrast of not only Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov's Second but also Liszt's Faust Symphony); and "Divine Play" (Allegro, "with radiant joy", "red" C major). A short germinal Prologue (Lento, C minor) encloses a trinity of leitmotifs: "Divine Grandeur" (a unisonal bass idea derived from the opening of the unfinished D minor Symphonic Poem [Allegro] of 1896-97; "Summons to Man"; and "Fear to approach, suggestive of Flight". These are combined with, or are the source of, the many various ideas running through the work, reaching a climax in the so-called Ego theme (second subject) of the finale."


----------



## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Yes, I love Scriabin's 3rd, although his 1st is my personal favorite. Scriabin's orchestral works are underrated, that's for sure.


----------



## ccravens (Oct 15, 2013)

Going to listen now, thanks for the tip!


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Garlic said:


> Before I saw this thread, I was just thinking about listening to this for the first time. I will now as soon as I get a chance.





ccravens said:


> Going to listen now, thanks for the tip!


I'm interested in your experiences.


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

When I was a teenager in Boston in the 1960s, I would go to BSO concerts -- and the then conductor, Leinsdorf, would always let the concertmaster Emeritus, Richard Burgin, conduct a subscription concert or two -- which were always better than you thought they were going to be. Once he did "Le Divin Poeme," and it blew me away at the time (of course, Symphony Hall was an easy venue to be blown away in by the right type of music). no recordings existed back then, until Melodiya/Angel came out with the Svetlanov/USSR Symphony recordings -- which featured that hideous Russian wind sound -- and made me wonder whatever I first saw in the piece. Maybe I need to go back and try it again with Ashkenazy or someone else.


----------



## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Yes, he is a remarkable composer, but does not have same name recognition than others.


----------

