Piano Sonata No. 3

Piano Sonata No. 3 by Alexander Scriabin, catalogued as Op. 23, is a work for solo piano in F-sharp minor. Composed during the Late Romantic era, it forms part of the composer's enduring contribution to the keyboard repertoire and is freely available in the public domain through archives such as IMSLP.

Alexander Scriabin began writing Chopin-influenced miniatures and ended his career inventing his own quasi-mystical harmonic system. His ten piano sonatas and many préludes trace the most idiosyncratic stylistic arc in the Russian keyboard literature.

The work is suited to virtuoso-level pianists. As with all repertoire from this period, study editions vary; the public-domain engravings linked here are based on the most widely-circulated nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century editions and are sufficient for serious study, recital preparation, and recording.

About Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin began writing Chopin-influenced miniatures and ended his career inventing his own quasi-mystical harmonic system. His ten piano sonatas and many préludes trace the most idiosyncratic stylistic arc in the Russian keyboard literature.

Key character — F-sharp minor

Intense and yearning. The emotional center of late Romantic and early modernist piano writing.

The Late Romantic Era

The late Romantic era extended Romantic intensity into chromatic, large-scale works by Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Fauré, and the late Brahms. Harmonic ambiguity and dense layered textures begin to point toward the modern.

About the Sonata form

The sonata is the central architectural form of Classical and Romantic keyboard music: typically three or four contrasting movements built around the dramatic dialogue of sonata-allegro form. From C. P. E. Bach's first essays through Beethoven's 32, Schubert's last great cycle, and the Romantic single-movement experiments of Liszt and Scriabin, the sonata absorbs every major shift in keyboard thinking.