Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53

A trill and a rumbling left hand send a rush of notes upwards. After a pause comes Languido, with soft chords and a melody marked con voglia, “with desire”.

Presto con allegrezza (very fast, with joy) marks the sonata’s main theme. The right-hand chords fall against the left hand’s leaping accompaniment, so that the phrase is syncopated across the beat.

The slower Meno vivo brings another melody, marked accarezzevole (caressingly), over chromatic inner voices. In the development this theme returns louder and more forceful.

Scriabin wrote the Fifth in 1907. It was the first of his numbered piano sonatas in a single movement, and he kept that form for all five that followed. Its slow, fast and ecstatic passages make up one continuous span.

Above the first bar Scriabin printed lines from his own Poem of Ecstasy, in French and Russian. The first reads: “I call you to life, O mysterious forces!” The next three lines call up timid beginnings of life from the dark depths of the creative spirit.

After the climax of the development, the skipping Presto returns and the themes of the exposition are recapitulated. The quiet con voglia theme from the introduction is then expanded.

The soft introductory song returns estatico and triple forte, high above repeated chords. The harmony is E♭ major, while the sonata’s home key is F♯. On the last page the introductory rushing figure returns, rising, and the piece ends on a rest with no final chord.