– Composer: Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (6 January 1872 — 27 April 1915)
– Performer: Roberto Szidon
– Year of recording: 1968
Fantaisie/Fantasy/Fantasie in B Minor, Op. 28, written in 1900.
This is a single sonata-form movement for piano, which bridges the gap between the Third Sonata and the Fourth Sonata. This is the only piece written in Scriabin’s time as professor at the Moscow Conservatory.
The work is popular with Russian pianists but its existence was forgotten by the composer. When Leonid Sabaneyev started to play one of its themes on the piano in Scriabin’s Moscow flat (now a museum), Scriabin called out from the next room “Who wrote that? It sounds familiar”. “Your Fantaisie”, was the reply. Scriabin said, “What Fantaisie?”
The virtuosic style is close to that of the Third Sonata. The brooding opening gives way to one of Scriabin’s inspired second subjects which is sustained for twenty-six bars. Noticeable are the touches of the canonic treatment. The third theme is close in its massive confidence and chromatic harmony to the world of the Third Symphony. The recapitulation was later expanded and rescored. The emotional line rides on through a long coda, a device used later in the Seventh Sonata…