The mazurkas of Alexander Scriabin make evident a trait sometimes submerged in his music in larger forms, namely the degree to which Chopin served him as an inspiration. The unusually good booklet notes here by Simon Nicholls outline the history of the form and evocatively quote Liszt and various Russian writers about the ramifications of the mazurka as it developed from Chopin's invention of the genre as part of concert music. Pianist Andrey Gugnin leans toward clarity here rather than highly expressive treatments, and ...
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The mazurkas of Alexander Scriabin make evident a trait sometimes submerged in his music in larger forms, namely the degree to which Chopin served him as an inspiration. The unusually good booklet notes here by Simon Nicholls outline the history of the form and evocatively quote Liszt and various Russian writers about the ramifications of the mazurka as it developed from Chopin's invention of the genre as part of concert music. Pianist Andrey Gugnin leans toward clarity here rather than highly expressive treatments, and this is good: what is interesting in these pieces is to see how Scriabin dealt with Chopin's models and how those remain prominent even as the traits of his mature music begin to take over. The ten mazurkas of Op. 3 date from 1889, when Scriabin was 15. They are clearly in the Chopin mold, but there are splashes of color -- to use a term appropriate to the synaesthetic Scriabin -- that suggest what was to come. In the Op. 25 set, from ten years later, the dance rhythm is still clear in...
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