Classical Music | Piano Music

Alexander Scriabin

Sonata No. 5 in F-sharp Major, Op. 53  Play

Jiyeon Shin Piano

Recorded on 06/02/2010, uploaded on 12/17/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Throughout his compositional career, Alexander Scriabin moved further and further away from the constraints of traditional musical formats and tonalities.  Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53, from 1907 marks the end of Scriabin's Romantic period.  The piece consists of five themes, which intertwine and evolve: an intense, dissonant trill and glissando in the opening; a slow introductory theme; a dance-like presto based on material from the earlier theme and serving as the first subject; a transition marked imperioso; and a meno vivo section that serves as the second subject. 

This sonata, one of the most frequently played of the composer's works, owes a great deal to Scriabin's orchestral Poem of Ecstasy. Both draw on a poem written by Scriabin, of which four lines are affixed to the beginning of the Sonata. The epigraph reads, "I summon you to life, hidden longings! You, drowned in the dark depths of the creative spirit, you fearful embryos of life, I bring you daring!"

Jiyeon Shin