Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-Sharp Minor

The Russian pianist/composer Alexander Scriabin began his Third Piano Sonata in Paris in 1897, on his travels around Europe. Today recognised as the greatest of his early sonatas, it marks the culmination of what has been described as Scriabin’s first period of composition. Its form follows the standard four movements that Chopin, compositionally one of Scriabin’s greatest influences, used in his own three sonatas. Its opening movement, “Drammatico”, presents—and later develops—a vigorous yet lyrical idea contrasted with a more songlike second theme, somewhat reminiscent of music by Scriabin’s former fellow Moscow Conservatoire student Rachmaninoff—except that Scriabin’s Third Sonata predates anything similar by Rachmaninoff by about 10 years, so it may be safely assumed that the influence was in the other direction. The second movement, “Allegretto”, is effectively a scherzo whose slightly grotesque if playful outer sections are contrasted with a charming central trio section marked con gracia (gracefully). Then follows one of Scriabin’s most attractive slow movements—songlike but with a poignant quality in its occasional dissonances. Just as it is finishing, we hear the very opening theme of the Sonata, only now tinted by the dreamlike harmonic world of the third movement. This leads without a break into the tumult of the finale—a movement whose technical challenges daunted even Scriabin, fine a pianist as he was.