The Fifth Sonata constitutes a revolution within Scriabin’s output, marking the transitional point between his middle and late periods, both musically and philosophically focused on mysticism. Scriabin himself was fully aware of this change, writing in a letter to his lover Tatianna de Schloezer: “Today I have almost finished my 5th Sonata. It is a big poem for piano, and I deem it the best composition I have ever written. I do not know by what miracle I accomplished it…”

This piece echoes the sonorities of the Sonata No.4, but the two antithetical movements are now fused into a single one — a less conflictual alternation between languid meditation and exultant energy, creating a striking dramaturgy throughout. The one-movement sonata was already explored by Liszt, but Scriabin gave it new life in a genre largely neglected by Russian composers in the modern era (Prokofiev would later follow). The piece bears as an epigraph a poem written by Scriabin himself — the same that opens the next opus, Poème de l’Extase, Op.54:

“I call you to life, O mysterious forces!

Drowned in the obscure depths

Of the creative spirit, timid

Shadows of life, to you I bring audacity!”

The piece opens with a never-before-seen gesture in piano literature — a cosmic explosion across the entire keyboard, shooting into the upper registers like a star in the void. No piano introduction had been so revolutionary since Beethoven’s Appassionata, a century earlier. After this burst of energy, a languid theme floats in the continuum, unfolding a mystic reverie. This is followed by a second theme, filled with shimmering harmonies, reminiscent of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. Although the harmonies are now nearly fully modernist (a sea of French sixths and extended 13th chords…), remnants of tonality remain discernible.

The piece ends in a climax of unparalleled intensity, a moment of transcendence, before concluding with the exact same gesture that opened it. This circular structural idea — to begin and end with the same material — will become a hallmark of Scriabin’s late style, recurring in many of the subsequent works.