Piano Sonata No.5 in F sharp major Op.53 (1907)

Alexander Skryabin (1872-1915)

Piano Sonata No.5 in F sharp major Op.53 (1907)

in one movement

Although the Fifth Piano Sonata was written four years later than the Fourth, it is a direct consequence of the earlier work. They share not only the same transcendentally significant key of F sharp major but also an attachment to a con voglia theme which, while it has its own distinctive melodic shape in each of the two works, carries the much same infinitely desirous message. The major difference between the Fourth and Fifth Sonatas is that the latter assumes the one-movement form which Skryabin was to apply to all his subsequent sonatas (Nos.6 to 10). At the same time, even though No.5 is significantly shorter than No.4, it is also significantly more ambitious. That much is clear from from the dramatic introductory gestures, which cover just about all the keyboard from a low rumble, marked Allegro impetuoso con stravaganza, to a high-pitched Presto clatter in the space of eleven bars. It seems like a challenge not only to us but also to a composer who, after such a beginning, can afford to deliver nothing less than momentous.

The first thing Skryabin delivers after that astonishing opening is a kind of preface, marked Languido, which presents the lyrical con voglia theme equivalent to that of the Sonata No.4. To be played accarezzevole (caressingly) at one point, it aspires to an even more seductive quality than its counterpart. Just before a bar of silence that theme is transformed into what then becomes the syncopated first subject in F sharp major of a Presto con allegrezza sonata-form construction. The second subject is an imperioso motif which, though consisting of just four notes, demands attention, not least on its fourth appearance where it is proclaimed fortissimo in quasi tromba (trumpet-like) triads in the right hand. A Meno vivo episode introduces a third theme, also to be played accarezzevole and all the more alluring for its chromatic counterpoint.

The central section renews the challenge of the Allegro impetuoso opening gestures and offers a reminder of the Languido preface with its con voglio theme before developing the sonata-form material – beginning with the four-note imperioso motif and ending with a climactic treatment of the once alluring but now heroic third idea. The recapitulation recalls the three themes much as they were presented in the exposition and is then overwhelmed by an immensely sonorous fff and ecstatico glorification of the con voglio theme. Skryabin avoids the expected F sharp major at this culminant point, preferring E flat major and, under pressure from the impatient Presto gestures from the introduction to the work, no tonality at all.