German pianist Julius Asal (b. 1997) finds correspondences in the music of Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and Russian romantic and mystic composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) despite their overt, stylistic differences. Juxtaposing their respective sonatas, etudes, and miniatures, Asal finds kindred spirits who express exuberance, nostalgia, and melancholy, often realized in music of chromatic and polyphonic textures. Asal claims the influence of Scriabin’s Op. 6 Sonata No. 1 and the movie Inception with its visionary idea of layered dreams. In dreams, Asal claims, the disparate aspects of reality fuse without any sense of contradiction. Scriabin’s Op. 6 F Minor Sonata frames the album, serving as Prologue and Epilogue, a la the Bach Goldberg Variations, the marking Quasi niente (virtually nothing) expressing the vacuum surrounding all human experience.
Asal improvises two Transitions, meant to connect the austere polyphony of Scarlatti’s works, e.g., the Sonata in F Minor, K. 466 and Sonata in B Minor, K. 87, somber, dark works filled by bitter melancholy, nostalgia, and reverie, with Scriabin’s intricate miniatures, like the Étude in B-flat Minor, Op. 8, No. 11 and the stormy Prélude, Op. 11, No. 14.

Scriabin: Prologue: from Sonata No. 1 in F Minor: bare, bleak chords set a martial tone, a brief pause, then the funereal mood suddenly stops.

Scarlatti: Sonata in F Minor, K. 466. Andante moderato, the music, chromatic and expressive, exploits the opening curve, repeating its drooping, melancholy, ornamental phrases.

Scriabin: Prélude in C Minor, Op. 11, No. 20: Appassionato, explodes in huge gestures, throbbing with tumult and desire. Its last bars subside in resignation.

Scarlatti: Sonatas in C Minor K. 56 and K. 58: two binary works, one fast, one slow, calling for quick dexterity. Playful and learned, they embody Scarlatti’s brilliant aesthetic. The K. 58 is marked Fuga, a deliberately formal procedure that imitates J.S. Bach. Asal speculates it may have been written for the organ.

Scriabin: Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 6: composed in 1892, after having damaged his right hand, Scriabin set this music in the “fateful” key of F minor to protest God’s judgment. In 4 mvmts, a classical design, the piece begins Allegro con fuoco, 9/8, with left hand complexities. The dark, convulsive passion mounts up to a sad 2nd theme in A-flat major. The development section, quite turbulent, pits F in major and minor modes. The music ends quietly. The 2nd mvmt, Adagio, in C minor, proceeds as a melancholy aria in ternary form ending in major. Movement 3 presto, is in F minor, a punishing emotion in compressed Rondo format. The middle theme, in A-flat major, hammers to an unresolved cadence that gallops to the last mvmt, Funebre, that balances with a dirge in F minor reminiscent of Chopin’s Second Sonata funeral march. Darkness triumphs at the end.

Scarlatti: Sonata in F Minor, K. 238: Marked Andante, the tripping, delicate music appears borrowed from a Portuguese folk song “from the Estremadura.” Scarlatti treats the theme canonically, in lightly textured imitation.

Asal: Transition I: gloomy, posing light and heavy tones against each other, the music proceeds stepwise, much like Scriabin or late Liszt. Bell tones emerge mid-way, invoking a chapel scene. A quiet epilogue softly ends the improvisation.

Scriabin: Étude in B-flat minor, Op. 8/11 and Prélude in B-flat Major, Op. 11/21: the first tone of the Étude picks up from Asal’s transition, the mood introspectively dark and murky. The tiny Prélude in the major offers poetic delicacy, the “raindrop” effect we hear in Brahms.

Scarlatti: Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 544: opening polyphonically, Cantabile, the music sings a Spanish sarabande, a tender processional. The right hand ornaments add more than a touch of archaic beauty.

Scriabin: Prélude in E-flat Minor, Op. 16/4: in the “darkest, most somber key of all,” Lento, this piece haunts us with its Lisztian compression.

Asal: Transition II: another bell-tone effect, a kind of march in the Chopin or Scriabin style.

Scriabin: Prelude in E-flat Minor, Op. 11/14; Prelude in B Major, Op. 16/1; Prelude in B Minor, Op. 11/6: the first of these is tumultuously dark, Presto, in the style of Chopin. The second offers a moment of poetic repose, with dreamy, imitative, echo effects. The last reverts to fire, a storm in the bass line that seeks to overwhelm the music’s progress, ending in four fateful chords.

Scarlatti: Sonata in B Minor, K. 87: an extended Adagio in ¾, this music produces an intimate, melancholic sense of introspection, sadly lyrical. The reflective mood flows virtually unbroken, softly echoing a few drooping tropes.

Scriabin: Quasi niente from Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 6: Asal ends as he began, in the nihilist spirit, here played more slowly than before. NOTE: information re tracks 16 -21 could not be added to Zookeeper listing, but is shown on the back of the disc container and inside the enclosed booklet