Scriabin: Symphony No. 1 / The Poem of Ecstasy

In 1899, Scriabin began writing his most ambitious composition to date: the First Symphony. The work still reflects the influence of the traditional four-movement formal scheme. But Scriabin also framed the symphony with an introductory movement in a slow tempo and a monumental choral finale with a text of his own composition, and it is this movement that can be said to occupy the works interpretational centre of gravity. Le Poème de lextase debuted in New York on 10 December 1908, after a performance in Russia had to be cancelled due to the difficulty of the score. When the Russian première finally did take place, on 1 February 1909, it wound up being a true spectacle, as Sergei Prokofiev, then a young composition student in attendance, later testified. Conductor Mikhail Pletnev leads the Russian National Orchestra the Moscow-based ensemble he founded in 1990.