Scriabin sonatas

[cauliflower1]

out of all the scriabin sonatas, which one should i start out with? i've never played any atonal music before, and the only scriabin i've played is the etude op 42 no 5. other large scale pieces i've played are chopin's ballade no 3 and scherzo no 2 (i regret taking so much time for something so overplayed  ) and ravel's jeux d'eau. back to the scriabin, i really like nos 5 and 2, but they definitely don't seem like the easiest of the bunch. any ideas?

[davidjosepha]

I think 2 is considered a good one to start with...I'm not familiar with them enough to know their relative difficulties, but my instructor recommended I start with 2.

According to Henle's 1-9 ranking system... (2/3 means it's in between 2 and 3)
2 is 7/8
3 is 8
5 is 8/9
6 is 9
7 is 9
8 is 9
9 is 9
10 is 9

So, according to that, 2 or 3 would probably be your best options for starting. Another one you might want to look at, Vers la flamme, was intended to be Scriabin's 11th sonata, but he published it early cause he needed the money, or at least that's the story I heard. Vers la flamme is marked as 8/9 on the difficulty scale.

[cauliflower1]

thanks for the advice, i LOVE the sonata-fantasy 

[danhuyle]

I started with Sonata no2 because it's the most familiar of the lot plus it's 2 movements. Haven't played the other sonatas. That 2nd movement is a killer.