PIANOFORTE MUSIC OF SCRIABIN
Played by LILIAS MACKINNON
Prelude in C, Op. 13
Prelude in B Minor, Op. 11 Prelude in D Flat, Op. 31 Prelude in E Flat, Op. 56 Prelude No. 4, Op. 74
Mazurka in C Sharp Minor, Op. 25 Tragedy, Op. 34
Reverie, Op. 49 - Poem No. 1, Op. 52
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN , at one time the most discussed of modern musicians, died in 1915, at the ago of forty-three. At that age he had already passed through the three phases that are said to form the artistic development of every creative artist — the imitative period, the grasping after a separate individuality, and the full maturity of spiritual independence.'
Examples of all three phases are in this first programme of this week's Foundation series... For instance, Opus 13, a set of six preludes, and Opus 11, a set.of twenty-four preludes in the manner of Chopin are openly Chopinesque in feeling. With the indefinite tonality of Opus 31, the first of four preludes, the composer is vacillating between onephase and another, while in the violence of Opus 56, No. 1, he has definitely reached the third phase, further exemplified in the extraordinary fourth prelude of five, Opus 74, wrich was his last composition. The fifth mazurka of nine, Opus 25, is again reminiscent of his youthful idol, Chopin while Opus .34, entitled 'Tragic Poem,' is definitely influenced by Liszt, with whom, technically and spiritually, Scriabin had, in his second phase, much in common. In the 'Reverie,' Opus 49, No. 3, Beriabin casts for a moment all theories aside and is calm, contemplative and feminine, while in ' Poem,' the first of three pieces, Opus 52, with its incessant changes of time-signature, and its consequent clarity of design, the composer is approaching, by way of æsthetic experimentalism, his full maturity.
T ILIAS MACKINNON, who has made a special study of the music of Scriabin, was one of the first pianists in this country to give recitals of his music, and, in the course of a recent recital and lecture tour in America, played the Scriabin Concerto in Boston with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Koussevitzky conducting. Miss MacKinnon is a native of Aberdeen, Macfairen gold-medallist, pianist, lecturer, linguist, and a teacher who makes a practice of proving that the anything but ornamental music desk on the pianoforte is anything but indispensable.