Paganini: Piano Sonata No.5, Op.53

Introduction

The Piano Sonata No.5, Op. 53, is a work written by Alexander Scriabin in 1907. This was his first sonata to be written in one movement, a format he retained from then on. A typical performance lasts from 11 to 12 minutes.

Composition

After finishing his symphonic poem Le Poème de l'Extase, Op.54, Scriabin did not feel comfortable living in Paris. In early September 1907 he wrote:

"Life is fearfully expensive, and the climate is rotten. The air in the areas where we could find an apartment big enough for us at a reasonable price is frightful [...] you cannot make any noise. You have to wear house slippers after 10 at night."

Scriabin decided to go to live in Lausanne with his pregnant wife Tatyana, since he found the place to be cheaper, quieter, and healthier, and only 7 hours away from Paris. Also, he had his music being printed there, as he had recently broken his long-term partnership with publisher M.P. Belaieff due to financial discrepancies.

In his new peaceful household in Edifice C Place de la Harpe, Scriabin could play the piano without fear of complaints from neighbours, and soon began to compose again, alongside the revisions he was making to the score of Le Poème. On 8 December, Tatyana wrote to a friend:

"We go out a little, having caught up on our sleep. We begin to look normal again. Sasha even has begun to compose - 5th Sonata!!! I cannot believe my ears. It is incredible! That sonata pours from him like a fountain. Everything you have heard up to now is as nothing. You cannot even tell it is a sonata. Nothing compares to it. He has played it through several times, and all he has to do is to write it down [...]."

On late December, Scriabin wrote to Morozova about the imminent completion of his new work:

"The Poem of Ecstasy took much of my strength and taxed my patience. [...] Today I have almost finished my 5th Sonata. It is a big poem for piano and I deem it the best composition I have ever written. I do not know by what miracle I accomplished it [...]."

Although the actual writing took only six days, from 8 to 14 December 1907, some ideas had been conceived much earlier. The initial nine bars of the first theme of the exposition, Presto con allegrezza ^{(mm. 47 ff.)}, can be found in a notebook from 1905-1906, when Scriabin was in Chicago.^{[nb 3]} Another notebook from 1906 contains the Imperioso theme ^{(mm. 96 ff.)}, while elements from the Meno vivo ^{(mm. 120 ff.)} can also be made out, as well as sketched-out passages for a few other sections.^{[2][5][nb 4]}

Scriabin included an epigraph to this sonata, extracted from his essay Le Poème de l'Extase:^{[nb 5]}

Five months after its completion, Scriabin published the work himself in Lausanne, producing an edition with 300 copies. He later gave the autograph as a present to his pupil Alfred La Liberté. In 1971 the pianist’s widow gave the manuscript, along with various other documents, to the Scriabin Museum.

The work was premiered on 18 November 1908 in Moscow by pianist Mark Meitschik.