Piano Concerto in F‑Sharp Minor

For any aspiring pianist/composer, the creation of a piano concerto is something of a rite of passage. Scriabin was 24 when he composed this—his first work involving an orchestra—in 1896. Rather than follow the barnstorming manners of Tchaikovsky or Anton Rubinstein, Scriabin preferred the subtler style of his then-favourite composer Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor. The opening movement is gentle, charming—sometimes sweetly so, as in its second theme—yet always shy of stating the obvious, the voice of a sensitive and far-from-generic creative intelligence. After this unassuming opening comes the even more confiding second movement, its main theme thought to have been a nursery tune familiar from Scriabin’s childhood, which then undergoes four variations. The finale is the most expansive (in terms of both mood and length), building to a grand climax and ending unexpectedly with a splendidly resonant low F sharp major chord from the piano as its final sound.