Scriabin's Fifth Piano Sonata
Last night ( Jan. 19, 2019 ) Arcadi Volodos did not play Scriabin’s Fifth Piano Sonata as he had announced and as I had so desperately hoped. Instead, he finished the regular program with Vers la flamme , which is also a piece filled with passion and quite an orgasmic ending, but still…it doesn't have this poem accompanying it: ''I call you to life, O mysterious forces! Drowned in the obscure depths Of the creative spirit, timid Shadows of life, to you I bring daring.'' I first heard the Fifth in the summer of 1989. Scriabin was unknown to me until I attended the William Kapell Piano Competition in Maryland and heard several of the contestants play it. The eventual winner, Haesun Paik , played it in each of the three rounds. It is not every day that I fall in love with a piece of music after hearing it a half-dozen times, but this was an exception. I even drove up to New York to hear her play it in Avery Fisher Hall and then took a road trip to Chattanoog