The rhythms are joyously, barbarically, at times almost
frenetically, free. They are finely various and depart almost entirely
from the one-two, one-two, the one-two-three, one-two-three that makes
monotonous so much of Chopin. At moments, the tones of the piano march
with some of the now festive, now majestic, now solemn, movement of the
orchestral processionals of a Moussorgsky and a Borodin. And one has
the sense of having encountered only in sumptuous Eastern stuffs, in
silken carpets and golden mosaics, or in the orchestral faery of some of
the Russian composers, in the orchestral chemistry of, say, a
Rimsky-Korsakoff, such brimming, delicious colors. Nevertheless, the
voluptuousness and vehemence are held in fastidious restraint. Scriabine
is always the fine gentleman, intolerant, for all the splendor of his
style, of any excess, of any exaggeration, of any breach of taste. And
throughout the work, there is evidence of the steady, restless
bourgeoning of the exquisite, disquieting, almost Chinese delicacy which
in the work of the last period attains its marvelous efflorescence.
These final works, these last sonatas and poems and preludes of
Scriabine are but the essentialization of the personal traits adumbrated
by the compositions of the earlier periods.
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