And yet, Cesar Cui's caustic description of the preludes as
"Bits filched from Chopin's trousseau," is eminently unjust. For even in
those days, when Scriabine was a member of the Russian salon school,
there were attractive original elements in his compositions. There is
real poetry and freshness in these soft-colored pieces. The treatment of
the instrument is bold, and, at moments, more satisfactory than
Chopin's. Scriabine, for instance, gives the left hand a greater
independence and significance than does as a rule his master. Nor does
he indulge in the repetitions and recapitulations that mar so many of
the latter's works. His sense of form is already alert. And through the
silken melodic line, the sweet, rich harmonies, there already makes
itself felt something that is to Chopin's spirit as Russian iron is to
Polish silver.
It is perhaps only in the compositions subsequent to Opus 50 that
Scriabine emerges in the fullness of his stature. For it is only in them
that he finally abandoned the major-minor system to which he had
hitherto adhered, and substituted for it the other that permitted his
exquisite delicious sense of pianistic color, his infinitely delicate
gift of melody, his gorgeous, far-spreading harmonic feeling, free play.
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