24 PASSAGE: A SPIRITUAL ODYSSEY Scriabin’s Ninth Sonata, known as the ‘Black Mass’, is hallucinatory. How do you approach this work, which lies somewhere between spirituality and obscurity? It is a very sombre, diabolical work, marked by extreme psychological instability and profound sarcasm. It is seductive, but with a dangerous kind of seduction. Alexander Scriabin writes in the score : ‘with an increasingly caressing and toxic sweetness’. That sweetness can kill. There is an almost demonic irony in it. Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 9 is dark and fragmented, filled with tritones and chromaticism. That is what I mean when I speak of psychological instability: the music seems constantly to disintegrate. Johann Sebastian Bach declared that descending chromatic lines lead to hell, while ascending chromatic lines lead to paradise. I find that idea fascinating here. What kind of sound were you looking for in this recording? We explored extremes. In the recording, you can explore the limits of silence and most delicate colours, things impossible to achieve in quite the same way in concert. I didn’t think I could have achieved those nuances until I discovered close- miking.
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