Scriabin and Schloezer, Half III. 2025
This Week in Classical Music: January 20, 2025. Scriabin and Schloezer, Half III. Final week, we ended our story in 1905 with Alexander Scriabin and Tatiana Schloezer transferring to Bogliasco, Italy, whereas Vera Scriabin, the composer’s authorized spouse, remained in Vésenaz, Switzerland, with the kids. A tragedy struck when the eldest daughter, age seven, died later that 12 months. The heartbroken Scriabin rushed to Vésenaz, staying there for a number of weeks, whereas Tatiana was going mad with jealousy in Bogliasco. She shouldn’t have anxious, as Scriabin returned to her; and that was the final time he and Vera would meet.
Quickly after, Vasily Safonov, the director of the Moscow Conservatory and a pal of the Scriabins, invited Vera to return to Moscow and be part of the college. Safonov, an influential cultural determine in Russia, was Scriabin’s trainer and mentor; they fell aside over Scriabin’s affair with Schloezer, Safonov taking Vera’s aspect. Vera adopted Safonov’s recommendation, bringing the three kids together with her (considered one of them, Lev, would die in 1910, additionally on the age of seven). An completed pianist, Vera continued to carry out, enjoying, nearly solely and by all accounts very effectively, her husband’s music.
Within the meantime, Scriabin and Tatiana have been dwelling in Bogliasco; Tatiana was pregnant with their first baby whereas Scriabin was working, feverishly, on the Poem of Extasy (Scriabin’s unique title was extra surprising, Poéme Orgiaque). Penniless however in good spirits, they typically shared one dinner between them. Some monetary assist got here when Scriabin obtained an invite to tour the US. Safonov was then the music director of the New York Philharmonic, and the connection between him and Scriabin had improved. Scriabin arrived in New York in December of 1906. Within the following months, his music was featured in a number of live shows, with Scriabin soloing his personal Piano Concerto and the Philharmonic performing his First and Third Symphonies. Some items have been carried out by the Russian Symphony Orchestra of New York, based in 1903 by Scriabin’s pal Modest Altschuler.
Scriabin’s issues within the US began when Tatiana arrived incognito in New York, although he pleaded together with her to not come. For a while, they lived in separate lodges, however that turned costly, and she or he moved in with him. The US again then was a slightly puritanical nation: simply a number of months earlier one other well-known Russian, the author Maxim Gorky, was kicked out of the identical resort when it turned recognized that his journey companion, the actress Maria Andreeva, was his mistress, not the spouse. As soon as Tatiana began showing with Scriabin in public, rumors unfold (most certainly initiated by the native Russians) that Scriabin was married to a different girl. One March 1907 night time, Altschuler got here working to their room with the information that within the morning a crowd of reporters was anticipated at their resort. The scandal was imminent as they supposed to hunt details about Scriabin’s marital standing. The couple fled that very night time, borrowing the cash for the fare to Europe from Altschuler.
Quickly after arriving in Italy, Scriabin and Tatiana moved to Paris, the place he labored on ending The Poem of Ecstasy, after which to Lausanne. The Poem was premiered by Altschuler in New York in 1908; in Europe, it obtained the Glinka Prize, a prestigious award instituted by Mitrofan Belyaev, an industrialist and patron of arts, and named after the well-known Russian composer.
Right here is The Poem of Ecstasy, carried out by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra underneath the course of Pierre Boulez.