a novel by jim tushinski

Alexander Nikolaievich Scriabin (1872 - 1915) Alexander Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist best known for 10 piano sonatas and four large scale symphonic works, including Le Poème de l'extase (1904). Scriabin is unique in the annals of Russians music for his refusal to use traditional folk songs and rhythms. Instead, Scriabin created his own tonal system that embodied a bizarre patchwork philosophical system he derived from Theosophy and Hinduism. Highly regarded in Russia, where he is considered Chopin's equal, Scriabin was dismissed as a novelty in the West until the latter part of the 20th Century when renewed interest in his piano compositions created a flood of performances and recordings.

The Fifth Piano Sonata

In Van Allen's Ecstasy, the character of Michael Van Allen becomes obsessed with Scriabin's 5th Piano Sonata and suffers a nervous breakdown during his father's performance of the piece in a concert hall.

While familarity with Scriabin's 5th Sonata is not required to appreciate Van Allen's Ecstasy, I have provided an .mp3 file of the piece for interested readers. To download the .mp3 file to a Windows PC, right click the link below and choose Save Target As... from the menu. On a Mac, you can CTRL Click and choose Download Link to Disk.

Scriabin's 5th Piano Sonata

Legal disclaimer: I am providing this .mp3 file for your personal use. It is not to be sold for any reason.

A Note on Sources

While I have used Scriabin in a fictional context, I attempted to stay as close to the facts as possible. I relied on several books and articles for the details of Scriabin's life, primarily Scriabin: A Biography by Faubion Bowers, a rewarding and vastly entertaining work which contains the translations of some of Scriabin's notebooks and poetry that I have quoted and paraphrased in this novel. Other works that helped me understand Scriabin's philosophy, music, and times include Scriabin: Artist and Mystic by Boris de Schloezer (translated by Nicolas Slonimsky), Scriabin by Alfred J. Swan, Daily Life in Russia Under the Last Tsar by Henri Troylat (translated by Malcolm Barnes), Faubion Bowers' preface to the Dover Press score of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy and his translation of Scriabin's poem in the same volume, Hugh Macdonald's liner notes for Giuseppe Sinopoli's 1988 recording of Poem of Ecstasy with the New York Philharmonic, and Nicolas Slonimsky's insightful article in the San Francisco Symphony's program for the January 1995 performance of Poem of Ecstasy.