Today we remember Alexander Scriabin as one of music’s great mystical megalomaniacs. Scriabin dreamed of a grandiose fusion of the arts, religion and philosophy, and he saw himself as the messiah who would spread the new gospel among mankind.
Nobody takes Scriabin’s notions seriously today, but much of his piano and orchestral music has survived in the repertory. One Scriabin work that, strangely enough, has never really gained much headway is his Piano Concerto, an early work from 1896.
The music hardly sounds like Scriabin at all. You hear splashy Romantic tunes a la Rachmaninoff and delicate arabesques out of Chopin: a thoroughly conventional Russian late-Romantic concerto. You would think that so accessible and attractive a concerto would have caught on with more pianists ages ago, but such has not been the case.
So one had to be grateful for the enterprise of Dmitri Bashkirov in bringing the concerto to us Wednesday night at Orchestra Hall as the centerpiece of 1994’s first Chicago Symphony concert, marking the start of Daniel Barenboim’s winter residency on the podium.
The respected, 63-year-old Russian pianist-who happens to be Barenboim’s father-in-law-enjoys a strong link with Scriabin through his teacher, Alexander Goldenweiser. For most of the past decade, Bashkirov was forbidden to leave Russia, but, thanks to the new climate of perestroika, he has re-emerged in the West. (His most recent CSO appearance, incidentally, was 33 years ago.)
Bashkirov’s firmly centered tone and ardent, sweeping style are unmistakably Russian; one admired the supple touch he brought to the tender theme-and-variations. But years of enforced isolation appear to have taken their toll on his technique: The pianist simply could not sustain the finale at the brisk tempo he set-even Barenboim seemed taken aback by it-and every run was a hash of wrong or missed notes. Bashkirov should return once he has gotten nerves and fingers under better control.
The program began with an accessible piece of Polish modernism-Tadeusz Baird’s “Canzona” (1979-80), in its local premiere. The 16-minute piece began and ended nearly inaudibly. In between came clashing brasses, wispy string tremolos, a tender oboe solo, more clattering brass, finally a hushed benediction from the lower strings. Baird’s instrumental effects are masterful, but Barenboim’s performance betrayed no sign that a coherent formal structure surrounds those effects.
With a lesser degree of tempo fluctuation than one would have expected, and a dark undercurrent of Russian melancholy, the Tchaikovsky Fifth made a ripe, majestic closing piece. One would have preferred a lighter, more graceful account of the Waltz. But no brass section intones the “fate” motif more powerfully, and no virtuoso can summon a more deeply nostalgic horn solo for the Andante cantabile than the CSO’s Dale Clevenger.
The program will be repeated Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Tuesday evenings.
