Musical memories

  Few people will argue with me if I claim that Liszt's Sonata is one of the greatest pieces of piano music ever composed. Yes, I'd also put in a vote for Scriabin's Fifth Sonata and some of the other works I've written about on this blog, but this piece seems to have it all - beauty, excitement, temper, fantasy, power, mystery, enlightenment. How can that be? By most accounts, Liszt was the greatest pianist ever. He was also quite a composer and champion of other composers' works - from Beethoven (whom he met as a child) to Wagner (his son-in-law). In his longest work for the piano he let out all the stops, and if you are going to perform it, you have to do the same.  I've heard the Sonata many times in concert, each time it was memorable. For example, I'll never forget hearing the wonderful Elisabeth Leonskaja start it in Freiburg with those first mysterious notes and then, when she got to the octave jumps, she missed the mark. I was sitting close enough ...

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...