Programme:
Piano sonatas by Scriabin

The impact of the ingenious composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915), on music which was composed during the twentieth century, can be compared to the impact delivered by composers such as Claude Debussy, Arnold Schönberg, and Igor Stravinsky. The development of the musical language of Scriabin, from Chopin-like late Romanticism to unique mystical-ecstatic modernism, is amongst the most remarkable in the entire history of music since the time of Beethoven. This development can be especially well observed in his sonata cycle. While his first sonatas still include several pieces which contain the features of Romanticism, the cycle consists of concentrated single-part symbolist poems from the fifth sonata.

Jonathan Powell – a pianist of a unique spiritual scale, is one of the best specialists in the music of Russian modernists. He will be performing ten piano sonatas in one night in several countries in order to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Scriabin. Powell’s uniqueness is evident from the fact that in the last few years he has recorded – and has repeatedly entirely performed in one concert – the vast and incredibly difficult cycle of variations by Khaikosru Sorabji (1892–1988), entitled “Sequentia Cyclica” (1949) which lasts approximately eight and-a-half hours.