Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was one of the many remarkable Russian musicians and composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, creating, as the empire was in rapid decline and revolution in the near future, some of the greatest music of the era. He was the son of a pianist and became a virtuoso on the instrument receiving, just barely past his teens, the Gold Medal, the highest honor of the famed Moscow Conservatory.
Later, he taught at the institution for several years before leaving to focus solely on writing and performing, including spending six years in western Europe and touring America in 1906. He became fascinated by mystic teachings and abandoned religion to delve deeply into esoteric philosophy. While Scriabin wrote a few symphonies, a pair of tone poems and some other pieces, he is best know for composing more than 200 works for the piano.
He wrote 23 mazurkas, the name coming from a fast-tempo Polish folk dance genre, and these date from 1888 to 1903 and these are redolent with beautiful melodies, strong emotion and, even as the liner notes that the young composer was under the spell of Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann, it adds that there is a distinctive characteristic of "poetic improvisation, full of magic and charm" and that, as the pieces became more complex and with greater feeling and atmosphere, Scriabin demonstrated the marks of a mature creator.
The pianist for this 1995 recording issued four years later by Naxos is Beatrice Long, a Taiwanese artist who teaches at the Brooklyn Conservatory for the campus there of the City University of New York, and her excellent playing is beautifully recorded. Her rendering of these amazing short pieces has lately been a tonic for tense and troubled times and anyone seeking such a balm could benefit from listening to this excellent recording.
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