Russian composer and pianist.

Aleksandr Skriabin was the only child of a

pianist and a lawyer. Due to the death of his mother when he was one year
old and his father's travels, he was raised by his uncle Lyubov and
grandmother. He began studying piano at the age of eleven with Georgy
Konyus and later with Zverev at the Moscow Conservatory. He also acquired
knowledge of music theory with Taneyev and other musical disciplines with
Anton Arensky and Vasily Safonov.
From 1885 he began to compose music and write poetry, and in 1892 he
completed his studies at the conservatory. He soon showed his talent as a
performer and soon became one of the great Russian pianists of the time,
including Lhevinne and Zverev's pupil Rachmaninov. In his solo recitals,
Alexander Scriabin performed his own works and compositions by Bach,
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt and Chopin. While practising works by
Balakirev and Liszt, he suffered an injury to his right hand, which led him to
compose his Op. 9 pieces, in which the left hand plays a central role.
In the 1890s he published his first works (Op. 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7) in Moscow
until 1894, when he met the publisher Belyayev in St. Petersburg, who would
take over the publication of his works until 1903. As well as being a
publisher, Belyayev became Scriabin's patron and organised several tours for
him as a pianist: the first to Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium in
1895, and the second the following year to Paris, Brussels, Berlin,
Amsterdam and Rome. Meanwhile, Alexander Scriabin continued to write
works such as his Second Sonata and many of the Preludes. In 1897 he
composed his Piano Concerto Op. 20 and the following year he married the
pianist Vera Ivanova.
Scriabin was also a professor at the Moscow Conservatory from 1898 to
1903, at which time he developed his interest in orchestral music, which led
him to compose Reverie in 1898 and his First Symphony the following year.
His interest in philosophy and mysticism was awakened around 1902 and
crystallised when he came into contact in 1905 with the theosophical
movement and Nietzsche's theories on the superman. These doctrines
profoundly influenced Scriabin's work from his Op. 30 onwards.
Suddenly he left his wife Vera and their four children and made a series of
journeys through Italy, Switzerland and Belgium with his young admirer
Tatiana Schloezer. His already developed egocentrism grew even more
because of Tatiana's devotion to him; Scriabin came to limit his life to his
creativity and genius, with no interest in any other aspect. During his stay in
Lausanne he composed his Fifth Piano Sonata and completed the Poem of
Ecstasy for orchestra, which he managed to premiere in 1908 in New York.
Around this time he came into contact with Serge Koussevitzky, who decided
to become his agent, as Belyayev had done in his day. It was Koussevitzky
who convinced him to become his agent, as Belyayev had done in his day.
It was Koussevitzky who persuaded Scriabin to return to Moscow in 1909 and
give the Russian premiere of his Poem of Ecstasy. The great success of the
work in both Moscow and St. Petersburg, with Felix Blumenfeld conducting
the orchestra, made Scriabin one of the most important avant-garde
composers of his country.
Shortly afterwards he decided to return to Brussels, where he concentrated
on the composition of Prometheus, an orchestral work in which he tried to
include a play of coloured lights to accompany the interpretation of the score.
The work was premiered without the illumination in 1911 in Moscow, and
from then on Scriabin returned to writing piano works. These include his last
five sonatas, which consist of a single movement and in which his desire to
move away from the tonal system is already apparent. On a visit to London
in 1914, he developed a wound on his upper lip which became infected. This
led to the septicaemia that caused his death a year later. His last public
appearance was in St. Petersburg on 2 April 1915.