Alexander Scriabin; Alexander Nemtin - Preparation for the Final Mystery (Vladimir Ashkenazy)

Information

Composer: Alexander Scriabin

Realised by Alexander Nemtin

• Nuances, ballet (Scriabin's piano pieces, orch. Nemtin)
• Preparation for the Final Mystery - Part I. Universe
• Preparation for the Final Mystery - Part II. Mankind
• Preparation for the Final Mystery - Part III. Transfiguration

Alexei Lubimov, piano

Alexandre Ghindin, piano

Thomas Trotter, organ

Anne-Kristiina Kaappola, soprano

Ernst Senff Chor

St. Petersburg Chamber Choir

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor

Date: 1999

Label: Decca

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Review

Around 1903 Scriabin first conceived the idea of Mysterium, a seven day and seven night spritual/artistic experience incorporating music, poetry, visual effects, dancing, and chanting. Preparation for the Final Mystery was meant to usher his audience into the cosmic awareness necessary for Mysterium. Scriabin worked on Preparation mainly during 1912-13. He died in 1915, leaving 53 pages of sketches. Based on his intimacy with Scriabin’s style, and using Scriabin’s 1,000-line text as a guide, composer Alexander Nemtin (1936-1999) embarked on a realization of the work. The result is a massive three-part composition (1.Universe 2.Mankind 3.Transfiguration) for orchestra, wordless chorus and soloists, organ, piano obbligato, and even a “light keyboard”. The project occupied Nemtin for more than 26 years, ironically becoming his life’s work.

Of course, the main question is, “Does it sound like Scriabin”? Well, yes and no. The tone cluster that opens Universe (part one) resembles Tippett, but this soon resolves to the chord (based on fourths and augmented intervals) familiar from Prometheus and the late sonatas. (Reminiscences of Prometheus and the Poem of Ecstasy are ubiquitous.) Nemtin is a late 20th century composer and aspects of his own personality do appear despite his desire to act merely as a musical “medium”. (The grand conclusion to the work sounds more like Schnittke than anyone else.)

It’s questionable whether Scriabin would have actually completed such an expansive work, given that the late piano sonatas and orchestral works demonstrate an increasing concentration of thematic material into shorter forms. Consequently, much of “Preparation” sounds like filler. In many passages harmonic sequences and motifs are repeated seemingly endlessly, then interrupted by impressive orchestral flourishes, but not always soon enough to prevent ear fatigue. On the other hand, Ashkenazy and his assembled forces perform this music as if they believe in every bar. For those enthralled by Scriabin’s cosmology, Preparation will be an ecstatic, mystical experience. Devotees of Scriabin’s late harmonic style will find much to fascinate. Others may find themselves driven batty by more than two and one half hours of endless unresolved cadences.

Nemtin’s 1975 Nuances is a ballet based on orchestrations of Scriabin’s late piano miniatures. The beguiling melodies, delicate orchestration, and brevity of these pieces feel like a light dessert after a very heavy meal (except that the ballet comes first on the discs, so maybe it’s an appetizer). The recorded sound throughout is very detailed and atmospheric, with a wide dynamic range. Whatever one’s reservations about the success of Nemtin’s reconstruction, it would be hard to disagree that the performance itself is exemplary. [2/6/2000]

-- Victor Carr Jr

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Alexander Scriabin (6 January 1872 – 27 April 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist, renowned for his innovative contributions to classical music. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Anton Arensky, Sergei Taneyev and Vasily Safonov. Scriabin composed almost exclusively for solo piano and for orchestra. Initially influenced by Romanticism, his style evolved into more abstract and mystical realms, incorporating complex harmonies and unconventional scales. His most famous compositions include piano works like Etudes, Preludes, and Sonatas, as well as his symphonic work Prometheus: The Poem of Fire. 

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Alexander Nemtin (13 July 1936 – 1 February 1999) was one of the pioneers of electronic music in the Soviet Union. After his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, from 1961 onwards he worked and composed for in a Moscow studio for electronic music, which housed the first Soviet synthesizer (the ANS synthesizer). In 1970 Nemtin began to work on the sketches that Scriabin had left for the "Prefatory Action" of his "Mysterium" project. This reconstruction work, which divided into three parts, finished 26 years later. All parts were heard together for the first time in 1997 in Helsinki under the direction of Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Vladimir Ashkenazy (born 6 July 1937) is a Soviet-born Icelandic pianist and conductor. He studied with Lev Oborin and Boris Zemliansky at the Moscow Conservatory. Ashkenazy won 2nd prize in the 1955 Chopin Piano Competition, 1st prize in the 1956 Queen Elisabeth Competition, and 1st prize in the 1962 Tchaikovsky Competition. He has recorded a wide range of piano repertoire, both solo works and concerti. As a conductor, he has served as principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Czech Philharmonic, the NHK Symphony and the Sydney Symphony.

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