Both figuratively and literally this is a symphony and a half, and no mistake. A more or less conventional four-movement structure—passionate allegro, yearning lento, feather-light scherzo and stormily urgent finale—is framed or enclosed by a pair of closely related slow movements, the first beginning rather like a dazzlingly aerial (rather than subaqueous) Rheingold prelude, the latter a solemn choral ode to art as the earthly manifestation of God. It ought not to work, and indeed the central four movements do stand up pretty well on their own (the last of them ends a bit abruptly, perhaps) and there have been performances (recordings too, I seem to recall) which omitted the choral finale entirely. And yet in a queer sort of way it does hang together. Partly, of course, because thematic kinship is not confined solely to the outer movements: Scriabin's melodies, hectically chromatic and inflected with a sort of twitching, asymmetrical rhythmic precision, do have a close family resemblance. But this is used not only for the sake of a satisfying unity: it can also give rise, most curiously and disconcertingly, to a lurching ambiguity.
After the intense emotion, the heady fumes of the second and third movements, the gossamer delicacy of the scherzo comes as a vivid contrast, and one wonders whether Scriabin can possibly match this in his trio section. He does so, with an enchanted, glittering texture of high woodwind with piccolo, shimmering upper strings with solo violin and glockenspiel, but so closely are the themes related that within a second or two the almost unbridled passion of the earlier music is glimpsed through the surface, like dark water through sparkling ice. It is the vitality of the imagination, more than anything else, that unifies this work, and it is a pretty formidable imagination that can leash together obvious echoes of Wagner (and no less obvious signs of fellowship with Richard Strauss) with clear predictions of Prokofiev, evidences of a close study of Franck and the legacy of a well-absorbed but rigorous academic training (once or twice in the first movement proper one is aware of a Schumannesque or Mendelssohnian armature beneath the swoonings and allurements; the choral finale incorporates a brief but impeccably strict fugue). And although this is an early work, earlier still than the date of its first performance (1900) would indicate, the later Scriabin, with his audacious harmonic explorations, his mystical fusion of the physical and the spiritual, is audibly present throughout.
An uncommonly interesting addition to the catalogue, in short, especially in such a sympathetic performance as this. It is not an easy idiom to capture; a lot of what is characteristic about it depends upon imaginatively mis-interpreting the score, in a sense. There is a good example of this just before fig. 1 in the first lento, where the magical diminuendo on tremolando strings to a barely audible pppp is not marked in the score—but how obviously, once one has heard it, this reflects Scriabin's imaginative intention! Muti's flexible rubato throughout, his avoidance of clogged textures, his awareness that however languorous the passions of this music it has an impulsive urgency to it, are all evidences of his warm and understanding response to Scriabin, not as a curious and rather fetid cul-de-sac in musical history, but as a restless and bold explorer. The orchestral playing is as sumptuous yet as precise as it must be in such music: the string tone gloriously full yet never glassy on the one hand nor opaque on the other, the woodwind brightly clear, the brass weighty and burnished. The brief solo contributions (the text sung in Russian, of course) are excellent, and the chorus is a good one, if slightly backwardly placed. That, however, is my only reservation about the recording, which discreetly clarifies Scriabin's gorgeousness without ever watering down his colours of over-simplifying his complexity.'