Scriabin was born on 6 January; he set great store by having been born on (Orthodox) Christmas Day!. He was idolised and spoiled in his youth by his aunt, grandmother and great-aunt, who raised him after his mother, a gifted pianist, died of consumption when Scriabin was only a year old, and his father pursued his career abroad, mainly in Turkey, as a member of the Russian diplomatic corps. This undoubtedly contributed to Scriabin's manic egocentricity later in life. In 1884 he joined Rachmaninoff as a pupil of Zverev, entering the Moscow Conservatory in 1888 and graduating with the second highest medal (to Rachmaninoff's first) in 1892. An injury to his right hand a year earlier through practising Balakirev's Islamey and Liszt's R}.miniscences de Don Juan, both fiendishly difficult, hampered his career as a pianist.

Although he married a young pianist in 1897, much against his aunt's will, by 1903 his life had taken a new turn. He left the Conservatory and Russia for Europe and abandoned his wife Vera and their four children for a devoted young admirer, Tatyana Schloezer, an addict of cult philosophising, whose influence can be seen in the poetic and fanciful titles he now increasingly gave his works, and who, in the words of the Scriabin expert Hugh Macdonald, encouraged him "in his fantastic belief in himself as a godlike fount of creativity and as the possessor of not simply a creative gift but all creative potential in the universe". His previous study of the philosophy of Nietzsche gave way to an intense preoccupation with the theosophical teaching of Madame Helena Blavatzky, the co-founder of that metaphysical doctrine combining Christian traditions and the teachings of Asian higher religions, which maintains that the human spirit is immortal, and death is merely a transition to a higher existence.

The idea of reincarnation, of the "re-embodiment" as a "new being" in a mystical act, amalgamated with Nietzsche's doctrine of God-man, dominated Scriabin's philosophical thinking and theorising from then on. It influenced the spirit of his compositions: the "late" piano works, one of which is characteristically entitled Vers la flamme (Into the Fire), the Third Symphony, subtitled Le Divine Pome (The Divine Poem), and the tone-poems Le Pome de l'extase (The Poem of Ecstasy) and Prom}.th}.e - Le Pome du feu (Prometheus - The Poem of Fire, the score of which indicates the play of coloured lights in its performance). Scriabin dreamed of redeeming mankind with an all-embracing, mystical fusion of the arts. His early death stands in almost absurd contrast to the vastness of his final plans: on 14 April 1915 he succumbed to blood-poisoning stemming from a boil on his upper lip.

Harvey Sachs

Biographical notes (c) 1996, by permission of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

A selection of major works:

Orchestral: Le Pome de l'extase (The Poem of Ecstasy), Prom}.th}.e - Le Pome du feu, Piano Concerto, Rverie, 3 Symphonies (including No. 3 "Le Divine Pome")

Chamber: Fantasy (two pianos)

Instrumental solo: Danses, Etudes, Impromptus, Mazurkas, 10 Piano Sonatas, Pices, Preludes, Vers la flamme