Talk: Simon Nicholls on The Notebooks of Alexander Skryabin

Together with professional Russianist Michael Pushkin, Simon Nicholls has translated the writings of the Russian composer Alexander Skryabin (1872-1915). Skryabin’s private journals, presented with relevant letters and other material from the composer and his contemporaries, go far towards explaining the origins of his idiosyncratic world-view. Simon Nicholls has researched original material and comments by Skryabin’s associates and contemporaries and provided commentaries and annotations that dispel popular misconceptions and reveal the constellation of philosophies that shaped the composer’s ideas. The book has been hailed by Marc-Andre Hamelin as “an immensely valuable addition to our understanding of every aspect of this most enigmatic of Russian composers”, and has a foreword by Vladimir Ashkenazy. Illustrated with photographs from the Skryabin Museum, The Notebooks of Alexander Skryabin (2018) is published by Oxford University Press.

In his talk to the SCRSS about The Notebooks, Simon Nicholls will include consideration of Skryabin’s attitude to socialism and a short account of how this mystical idealist was posthumously adopted into the Soviet canon.

Simon Nicholls is a pianist, teacher, and independent researcher. From 2001 to 2017 he made many research trips to Moscow, collecting materials and discussing Skryabin with Russian musicians and academics.