Hi Ted,
Thanks for those compliments! I really appreciate it. Often I take Scriabin metronome markings with a grain of salt. However in this case, a quarter = 60, after some experimentation, I decided to go with it. I found that in dropping it down to 56, for example, the cantilena melody wasn't as cohesive. At 60, the triplets in the left hand really do move right along! Had I decided to play it slower, there would have definitely been more opportunities for poetry. But playing it at 60, I was able to treat the cantilena with a Wagnerian touch. I really liked it! I too have know this etude for a very long time, so I didn't feel the need to listen to how Horowitz played it, or whomever. Rather, I decided on a fresh interpretation, and am satisfied with the result. It's a lovely piece.
I'm with you--every piano composition offers its own challenges, so every piece can be considered an etude. This notion first dawned on me back when I was in my 40s. I was recording many of the Rachmaninoff Preludes, Op. 23 and 32. (He also write a large group of etudes, of course, the Etudes Tableaux.) As I worked through those preludes, it soon occurred to me that Rachmaninoff's Preludes are actually smaller etudes! There was a famous pianist, might have been Friedman, who said that he had been studying Chopin's little Prelude in A for many years and was still finding new insights in it. That half-page of music was an etude to him! So I believe that every time in any piece that we have to isolate a measure or passage and practice it intensively, well, know it or not, we're playing an etude.
I probably lack the talent to be a composer. As for improvisation, the muse is somehow avoiding me.
David