Whenever I try to listen to some of Scriabin's later works, like the op. 74, I really don't "get it". I enjoy listening to some of his "Chopinesque" works, like op. 8 no 12, but I don't feel a connection to his later music. However, I feel like I want to gain an appreciation for these works. I am not picking up on the logic behind the musical structure, although I am sure it is hidden in the music. I have been an attentive classical music listener for years, but I don't understand the allure of these pieces. Maybe they are too elusive for me?

Does anyone else feel like this? How should a listener approach these pieces?

His other late works, like Vers la Flamme, the "Black Mass" Sonata, the Two Dances Op. 73, are gorgeous and have a unique kind of intensity. But though I've played and recorded Op. 74, I've never really understood why I found it compelling. It's almost like a distillation of all the bitterness in Chopin's Preludes, poured into a four-minute set of unspeakable pain and loneliness.

Jeffrey, I would like to add that I appreciate those 3 later works too. Sorry, I was referring specifically to the op. 74. He probably wrote a few other hard to access works in that later period.

The austerity of 74 n 2 reminds me a lot of Liszt's Nuage Gris, yet I find that 74 n 2 is more mysterious and haunting.

Also, Scriabin son, Julian, put out a few preludes that sound creepy for a young kid!

The pianistic writing of that particular prelude is straight from Chopin's A minor Prelude, at least the left hand. To that framework he adds these murmuring, ghostly inner voices.. it really is a very disturbing piece.

Maybe listen to some middle period works like Sonata No. 5 if you haven't already done so. You could also try following along with the scores(all available on IMSLP I presume)which may make things easier to understand.

I don't think most non professionals(or maybe even pros) could follow the logic of the later Sonatas as easily as one could in a Mozart or Beethoven Sonata so don't be too critical of yourself in that regard.

If you don't like these pieces after a while, then it's not a problem. It already seems like you have more of an open mind than many.

I felt exactly like that for years.
Years.
Many many years.

And now my main piece (for playing) seems to be his 9th sonata.
(haven't posted this lately, so why not :-)

I might never have "got" late Scriabin except that the 9th sonata was on a Horowitz LP that I kept listening to because of all the other stuff on it -- and I would also hear the Scriabin only because I was too lazy to get up off my butt to skip the piece. So, I heard it dozens and dozens of times without caring, and without really listening -- until eventually I realized, hey this is pretty cool.....

I don't know that you can "make" yourself get it any faster than it might just happen naturally, though. But I'm always thrilled to see that people are interested in it. Once you do get it, it's a wonderful whole different world.

I will echo both components of pianoloverus's advice: Listen to some middle-period Scriabin, like the 5th sonata, and follow along with the score.

(Following along with the score has opened up many pieces to me that might have been otherwise impenetrable, including Symphonie Fantastique and Berg's piano sonata.)

-Jason

Funny.....I think following the score would tend to just get in the way of someone "getting it" when it comes to something like this.

It would for me.
I say if anything, just listen.

I disagree. On the grounds that the score offers insight into the structure and harmony, which may not be immediately obvious in music such as this.

You can't disagree that it would be the other way for some people.

It would be for me.
And even though I'm really into "structure" and "harmony" and everything else we could see in a score.

For really understanding a piece to the fullest, sure.
For "getting" a new musical language, I don't think it would be helpful for most people.

Of course you can disagree about that.

Well, for something like the Symphonie Fantastique, it wouldn't be helpful for those unfamiliar with orchestral scores.

However, I still feel that by not referring to the score, you are throwing away your most important tool (besides your ears, of course ) for understanding said new musical language.

Naturally, there's no reason to always have the score in hand — I certainly don't — but it still is a not insignificant part of the musician's toolkit.

I guess we may have to agree to disagree here.

One reason the score is so useful to me is I'm a very rhythmic person. For a lot of music, if I can't feel where beat one is, I don't feel like I'm "getting" it. I have frequently had the experience of not appreciating the opening theme of a Mozart or Haydn slow movement. I sit there, dumbly experiencing the passage of what feels like an arbitrary sequence of chords, until finally a beat kicks in. Then, when the opening melody is repeated with more accompaniment, it makes perfect sense.

And don't even get me started about music which I "heard" starting on a particular beat for years, and later discovered that I was off. (Brahms 2nd symphony, I'm looking at you!) It's a fascinating, difficult exercise at that point to try to hear it like the composer intended.

Arguably, with late Scriabin, the sense of the beat is less important than many other things. But following along with the score almost always deepens my experience for any composer.

Similarly (as long as I'm rambling on)-- I have a friend who doesn't really listen to classical music much, but she played the piano when she was young, and knows how to read music. When I discovered IMSLP last year, I played her a bit of a recording of a Sibelius symphony, and had her follow the score-- and she *loved* it. She made me play the whole thing. She would never have been interested in listening to a large-scale work like that by itself; her brain literally wouldn't know how to occupy itself for the duration. She kept telling me, "Why have you never showed me these scores before? This is completely different experience!"

Anyway.

-Jason

p.s. Welcome "back", Mark.

(Thanks! Should I pretend I was banned?)

BTW......for many of those years that I was accidentally hearing Horowitz playing the 9th Sonata, I didn't know where the beat was. It sounded to me like the first chord of the piece was an upbeat because (as it seemed) he was playing the second chord louder. And so it felt like the piece was in 3/4 time or something like that. That might have added a few years to how long it took me to "get it."

I have been listing to Op. 74 for quite a while now, and it was really worth it and it clicked. Not a "fun" listening at all, its more like witnessing a traumatic event. But I guess the point of music here is more artistic in nature, and its not meant to be some diversion. It takes a while to appreciate and understand Scriabin's language, but using a score and listening to it, you begin to get a feel for the unity and structure. I am so accustomed to traditional harmonic language, that it is a foreign language (as an aside, if his music were a language, this would be German and Chopin's music would be French). The music seems to go beyond -- into some unknown, uncharted territory of loneliness and mystery. If there is some sense of beauty in it, its grotesque, like the black marbled walls of mausaleum.