A concert dedicated to the 140th anniversary of Alexander Scriabin was held at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture in Astana. The outstanding Russian composer’s works were performed by RK honored creative worker Nurlan Izmailov, Vyacheslav Uzbekov, a professor with the Kazakh National University of Arts and Daniyar Esemhanov, winner of international contests.

Scriabin’s contemporaries knew him as a brilliant pianist, composer, innovator, a gifted teacher, but first and foremost as a bright, extraordinary creative person. Scriabin’s conception of synthesis of the arts is rooted in his philosophical ideas about the world, art and artist. Suffice it to say that he was looking for possible combinations of sound and light, and included in the score of a symphonic poem “Prometheus” the part of a light keyboard, becoming the first composer who used light-music.

Scriabin was adored by Boris Pasternak; Konstantin Balmont and Valery Bryusov devoted poems to him. Scriabin was the reformer in music on the turn of the XIX-XX centuries and his works require the work of the mind and soul. The concert program included three of his sonatas, nocturnes, etudes, mazurka, “Leaf from the album”, prelude, a poem... A variety of genres, especially piano miniatures, is also one of the hallmarks of the composer.

Scriabin’s music is difficult to perform and his works are not frequently played in concerts. Performers need not only a masterly technique, but also the understanding of the composer, his special artistic temperament. This Scriabin’s concert is a real gift for fans of classical music.

Nurlan Izmailov said that he and his colleagues had chosen those works that are close to them in nature, content and tone. Nurlan Izmailov, among other works, performed the original Prelude and Nocturne for the Left Hand, composed by the young Scriabin, when he, a successful concert pianist, overtired his right hand and could not play for a while.

The audience could assess the breadth of the composer’s emotional range, perfectly transmitting high pathos, elegiac reverie and tragic foreboding of the beginning of the twentieth century. Scriabin’s music is spontaneous and dramatic and Kazakhstani pianists wonderfully conveyed its rhythm and contrasts of moods. Their concert was a kind of a story about the distinctive composer, who was called the natural genius, the King of tune.

Natalia Kurpiakova

Photo: Igor Burgandinov