Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was born on 6 January 1872 and began as a pianist-composer writing in the late-Romantic idiom of Frédéric Chopin. Somewhere in the early 20th century he broke away, developing a highly dissonant musical language that transcended traditional tonality independently of Arnold Schoenberg's parallel experiments. He embraced synesthesia and the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, associating specific harmonic tones with colors in a system inspired by theosophy. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia noted that no composer had ever received more scorn or greater love; Tolstoy called his music "a sincere expression of genius." He died on 27 April 1915, a major figure of the Russian Silver Age and the primary symbolist composer of his country. His ten published piano sonatas were reevaluated starting in the 1970s and have since gathered significant acclaim.