Quiet as the grave, except for spam

Dear Scriabin Club,

How are you?  Today is the penultimate (remember that word, and its importance in harmonization?) prelude, and tomorrow will be No. 24, in d minor, I presume, given the circle of fifths approach taken by Mr. Scriabin.

Recently I felt that the difficulty of the preludes was ramping up as we progress through the cycle.  Yesterday’s prelude, not as difficult, was welcome, one I performed many years ago with Mr. Rojas.  I often drove Mr. Rojas to boredom with my slow, romantic interpretations of Scriabin; he once lay down on the floor and began snoring to emphasize the point.  I resolutely kept playing. Then he stood up and begged me to stop.

I’m getting crickets from y’all.  But not everyone!  A spam group from Turkey found one of the posts, and sent no less than 14 comments, none of which will appear.  They were all nice comments.  However, I translated the two words identifying the business of the spammers.  I cannot type these words in a blog seen by children and their parents.  Exciting!  (in a way)

I will post for No. 24 tomorrow.  Do feel free, my dears, to comment on the post, on the music, on how you’ve lost track or are on track, on what your favorite prelude has been, on what you thought of this cycle of pieces.  🙂   Love, Helen

STEVEN 11/23: I’ve been keeping up, better, actually, than I had with Bach or Chopin. I’ve really enjoyed listening to (and not playing!) the awesome strange rhythms. Some of the quieter pieces get lost a little bit with YouTube compression, sadly, but I loved #6 and #24. (Does listening ahead count as keeping up?) Excited to meet soon and chat about them.

HELEN 11/23:  Yes, Steven, listening ahead counts as keeping up!  Thanks for mentioning the strange rhythms.  I’m eager to hear some of Grace’s comments, as she is our resident percussionist.  I’m still hoping that you find somewhere to put at least a keyboard!

GRACE 11/23: I am still on track! I have bookmarked several of the preludes as things to learn some time. And then there are those, like no.14, that I just sort of stare at and wonder how one is supposed to ever play them at speed. The time signatures sure are a fun brain workout! 😳

HELEN 11/23:  I’m so pleased to read that you are making it through this cycle!  And that you consider, for instance, 15/8, “fun.”  You and Steven refer to two of the most octave-intense of the cycle, no. 6 and no. 14.  I love the ending of no. 14, just pounding the keyboard mercilessly.  But not, alas, at tempo.