Sonata No. 3, Mvt. 4 -- Chopin and Etude, Op. 8, No. 3 "Tempestoso" -- Scriabin

Here I've found a remarkable connection between these two pieces that I seem to find endlessly fascinating, and I think it goes well with the now emergent theme of discussing similarities between works on this blog.

The first of the two pieces is the 4th movement of Chopin's 3rd piano sonata, which is rapidly becoming my latest obsession in piano pieces. Unfortunately, it seems that I can't find a recording on youtube that I think is really good, but here's the best I found -- Ivo Pogorelich performing. I think he comes closest to actually simultaneously achieving a resolute character with little variation in tempo which I think the piece demands (even though as the piece progresses the rubato becomes more egregious -- Chopin himself had little stomach for rubato too, as far as I can tell) while also creating a good legatissimo effect, which was so important to Chopin. For some reason it seems like most pianists treat these two qualities (little rubato and legatissimo style) as mutually exclusive, which is really annoying. Also I don't understand the random quietness at the beginning. It's clearly marked forte from the very beginning, and it's supposed to get even louder from there...

Anyway, just for kicks, here's a (what I think is probably highly controversial) rendition by Glenn Gould, in a typical Gould manner. While I appreciate the accentuation of the counterpoint and the uniformity of the tempo (which is perhaps even excessive), there is nothing legato whatsoever about much of it. So it raises some questions (HINT: YOU CAN DISCUSS THIS IN THE COMMENTS). I am personally of the opinion that Gould should basically restrict that style to Baroque music only.

Now on to the Scriabin etude -- I'm pretty sure it was inspired at least in part by the previous piece. I first noticed this just as I was listening to the Chopin work but when I looked further into it there appear to be even more similarities than I thought. So here is the Scriabin etude (performed by some "Michal Direr"). Very few recordings of this one, so the interpretation isn't the best. Furthermore, I chose the one I thought made most obvious the similarities I saw. I was first struck by the similarity between the passage from about 0:50 to 1:00 in the Pogorelich recording and the opening 20 seconds of the etude. Notice also that they are both in B minor, for whatever that's worth. Also they are texturally very similar -- both have their major themes consisting entirely of triplets (although in the Chopin piece there is some interesting polyrhythm later on). In this video (Nikita Magaloff) you can see the sheet music (I don't really prefer this interpretation either). Notice the similarities between the ~2nd half of the page shown at 0:47 in the Gould recording of Chopin and the page shown at 1:24 of the Magaloff recording of Scriabin. Coincidence? I personally think not. (HINT: YOU CAN ALSO DISCUSS THIS IN THE COMMENTS). Have fun.