The Fantasy Op.28 is Scriabin’s last great Romantic milestone.

With his Fantasy Op.28, Scriabin reached the culmination of his first period of pure Romanticism in the tradition of piano writing. The piece is composed in a single movement following a compacted sonata form.

Featuring the thickest textures and most virtuosic writing of the entire first period, the work remains faithful to his predecessors: the harmonically ambiguous introduction, constantly avoiding a full tonic triad, is reminiscent of Liszt and Wagner’s tonal ambiguity. The treatment of the gentle cantabile second theme, which later erupts into a grand climax, closely resembles to Chopin’s Ballades.

A well-known anecdote surrounds this piece: near the end of his life, Scriabin heard his former conservatory colleague Sabaneïv play the work and asked, “who composed that?”, surprisingly demonstrating the ability of Scriabin to forget a piece of such scale.

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{i-tabler:brand-spotify} https://open.spotify.com/intl-fr/track/4fIwY1Skid5QuDHTNJZrEn?si=63cf1922dda642b3

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