Scriabin - Piano Sonata No. 5 [HD]

The Piano Sonata No.5, Op. 53, is work written by Alexander Scriabin in 1907. This was his first sonata to be written in one movement, a format he retained from then on. A typical performance lasts from 11 to 12 minutes.

Although the actual writing took only six days, from 8 to 14 December 1907, some ideas had been conceived much earlier. The initial nine bars of the first theme of the exposition, Presto con allegrezza (mm. 47 ff.), can be found in a notebook from 1905-1906, when Scriabin was in Chicago. Another notebook from 1906 contains the Imperioso theme (mm. 96 ff.), while elements from the Meno vivo (mm. 120 ff.) can also be made out, as well as sketched-out passages for a few other sections.

According to Samson, unlike his later sonatas, the sonata-form of this work still has some meaning to the work's tonal structure.

The work does not contain any perfect cadence, nor any consonant chord.
This is Scriabin's most recorded sonata. Pianist Sviatoslav Richter described it as the most difficult piece in the entire piano repertory, along with Franz Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No.1.