This Week in Classical Music: January 20, 2025. Scriabin and Schloezer, Part III. Last week, we ended our story in 1905 with Alexander Scriabin and Tatiana Schloezer moving to Bogliasco, Italy, while Vera Scriabin, the composer’s legal wife, remained in Vésenaz, Switzerland, with the children. A tragedy struck when the eldest daughter, age seven, died later that year. The heartbroken Scriabin rushed to Vésenaz, staying there for several weeks, while Tatiana was going mad with jealousy in Bogliasco. She should not have worried, as Scriabin returned to her; and that was the last time he and Vera would meet.
Soon after, Vasily Safonov, the director of the Moscow Conservatory and a friend of the Scriabins, invited Vera to return to Moscow and join the faculty. Safonov, an influential cultural figure in Russia, was Scriabin’s teacher and mentor; they fell apart over Scriabin’s affair with Schloezer, Safonov taking Vera’s side. Vera followed Safonov’s advice, bringing the three children with her (one of them, Lev, would die in 1910, also at the age of seven). An accomplished pianist, Vera continued to perform, playing, almost exclusively and by all accounts very well, her husband's music.
In the meantime, Scriabin and Tatiana were living in Bogliasco; Tatiana was pregnant with their first child while Scriabin was working, feverishly, on the Poem of Extasy (Scriabin’s original title was more shocking, Poéme Orgiaque). Penniless but in good spirits, they often shared one dinner between them. Some financial help came when Scriabin received an invitation to tour the US. Safonov was then the music director of the New York Philharmonic, and the relationship between him and Scriabin had improved. Scriabin arrived in New York in December of 1906. In the following months, his music was featured in several concerts, with Scriabin soloing his own Piano Concerto and the Philharmonic performing his First and Third Symphonies. Some pieces were performed by the Russian Symphony Orchestra of New York, founded in 1903 by Scriabin’s friend Modest Altschuler.
Scriabin’s problems in the US started when Tatiana arrived incognito in New York, though he pleaded with her not to come. For some time, they lived in separate hotels, but that became expensive, and she moved in with him. The United States back then was a rather puritanical country: just several months earlier another famous Russian, the writer Maxim Gorky, was kicked out of the same hotel when it became known that his travel companion, the actress Maria Andreeva, was his mistress, not the wife. Once Tatiana started appearing with Scriabin in public, rumors spread (most likely initiated by the local Russians) that Scriabin was married to another woman. One March 1907 night, Altschuler came running to their room with the news that in the morning a crowd of reporters was expected at their hotel. The scandal was imminent as they intended to seek information about Scriabin’s marital status. The couple fled that very night, borrowing the money for the fare to Europe from Altschuler.
Soon after arriving in Italy, Scriabin and Tatiana moved to Paris, where he worked on finishing The Poem of Ecstasy, and then to Lausanne. The Poem was premiered by Altschuler in New York in 1908; in Europe, it received the Glinka Prize, a prestigious award instituted by Mitrofan Belyaev, an industrialist and patron of arts, and named after the famous Russian composer.
Here is The Poem of Ecstasy, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Boulez.
Scriabin and Schloezer, Part III. 2025
This Week in Classical Music: January 20, 2025. Scriabin and Schloezer, Part III. Last week, we ended our story in 1905 with Alexander Scriabin and Tatiana Schloezer moving to
Bogliasco, Italy, while Vera Scriabin, the composer’s legal wife, remained in Vésenaz, Switzerland, with the children. A tragedy struck when the eldest daughter, age seven, died later that year. The heartbroken Scriabin rushed to Vésenaz, staying there for several weeks, while Tatiana was going mad with jealousy in Bogliasco. She should not have worried, as Scriabin returned to her; and that was the last time he and Vera would meet.
Soon after, Vasily Safonov, the director of the Moscow Conservatory and a friend of the Scriabins, invited Vera to return to Moscow and join the faculty. Safonov, an influential cultural figure in Russia, was Scriabin’s teacher and mentor; they fell apart over Scriabin’s affair with Schloezer, Safonov taking Vera’s side. Vera followed Safonov’s advice, bringing the three children with her (one of them, Lev, would die in 1910, also at the age of seven). An accomplished pianist, Vera continued to perform, playing, almost exclusively and by all accounts very well, her husband's music.
In the meantime, Scriabin and Tatiana were living in Bogliasco; Tatiana was pregnant with their first child while Scriabin was working, feverishly, on the Poem of Extasy (Scriabin’s original title was more shocking, Poéme Orgiaque). Penniless but in good spirits, they often shared one dinner between them. Some financial help came when Scriabin received an invitation to tour the US. Safonov was then the music director of the New York Philharmonic, and the relationship between him and Scriabin had improved. Scriabin arrived in New York in December of 1906. In the following months, his music was featured in several concerts, with Scriabin soloing his own Piano Concerto and the Philharmonic performing his First and Third Symphonies. Some pieces were performed by the Russian Symphony Orchestra of New York, founded in 1903 by Scriabin’s friend Modest Altschuler.
Scriabin’s problems in the US started when Tatiana arrived incognito in New York, though he pleaded with her not to come. For some time, they lived in separate hotels, but that became expensive, and she moved in with him. The United States back then was a rather puritanical country: just several months earlier another famous Russian, the writer Maxim Gorky, was kicked out of the same hotel when it became known that his travel companion, the actress Maria Andreeva, was his mistress, not the wife. Once Tatiana started appearing with Scriabin in public, rumors spread (most likely initiated by the local Russians) that Scriabin was married to another woman. One March 1907 night, Altschuler came running to their room with the news that in the morning a crowd of reporters was expected at their hotel. The scandal was imminent as they intended to seek information about Scriabin’s marital status. The couple fled that very night, borrowing the money for the fare to Europe from Altschuler.
Soon after arriving in Italy, Scriabin and Tatiana moved to Paris, where he worked on finishing The Poem of Ecstasy, and then to Lausanne. The Poem was premiered by Altschuler in New York in 1908; in Europe, it received the Glinka Prize, a prestigious award instituted by Mitrofan Belyaev, an industrialist and patron of arts, and named after the famous Russian composer.
Here is The Poem of Ecstasy, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Boulez.