These works are indeed radical. For they give us a fresh
glimpse of the archetype of their forms.
And yet, how strange, how infinitely complex and novel a thing they are.
There is indeed little music that throws into sharper relief the miracle
of communication through material form. A few sounds, broken and
elusive, are struck out of an instrument, die away again. And yet,
through those vibrations, life for an instant is made incandescent. It
is as though much that has hitherto been shy and lonely experience has
undergone a sudden change into something clarified and universal. It is
as though performer and auditor have themselves been transformed into
more sensitive instruments, and prepared to participate more graciously
in the common experience. It is as though in each one the ability to
feel beauty has been quickened, that each for an instant becomes the man
who has never before seen the spring come over the land, and who,
glancing upward, for the first time beholds an apple-bough flowering
against the blue. And Scriabine fills one with the need of making
wonderful and winged gestures. It is as if for instants he transforms
one into strange and radiant and ecstatic beings, into new and wonderful
things.
For this music is full of the wizardry of perhaps the most exquisite
sensibility that has for a long while disclosed itself in music.
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