RECORDING OF THE MONTH     CHOPIN Waltzes and Impromptus Vladimir Feltsman £11 post free World-wide VIVALDI The four seasons London Mozart Players/Juritz £12 post free World-wide BEETHOVEN Symphonies 4 and 5 LSO/Yondani Butt £12 post free World-wide

SKRIABIN, Alexander
b Moscow, 6 January 1872
d Moscow, 27 April 1915, aged forty-three

He spent nine years in the Moscow Army Cadet Corps, where music was one of the subjects studied. He entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1888, but left without a diploma. He then made a concert tour as a pianist from 1895-1896, and in 1898 became professor of piano at the Moscow Conservatory, resigning in 1903 in order to live in Switzerland and compose. He went back to Russia in 1909 and in 1910 toured extensively. He died suddenly of a tumour on the lip.

1894 (22)

Piano Concerto

Reverie, for orchestra

1895 (23)

Symphony No 1 in E major

1901 (29)

Symphony No 2 in C minor

1903 (31)

Symphony No 3 in C major, The Divine Poem

1908 (36)

Poem of Ecstasy, for orchestra

1909-10 (37-8)

Poem of Fire - Prometheus, for orchestra, piano, chorus ad lib, organ and colour keyboard

Skriabin also composed: ten piano sonatas (1892-1913); eighty-four preludes for piano; twenty-one mazurkas for piano; eight impromptus for piano; twenty-three studies for piano; fifteen 'poems' for piano.