An American Escape

In 1906 European immigrants flocked to America looking for new opportunities. The Russian pianist and composer Alexander Scriabin came looking for new possibilities and to escape old problems.

His most recent difficulties included a desperate need for money and a break with fellow composer Anatol Liadov, [who suggested depressingly low prices for the publication of Scriabin’s smaller piano pieces.]

A conservatory friend convinced Scriabin to make the American tour. Scriabin played his piano concerto in Carnegie Hall and performed with modest success in Cincinnati, Chicago, and Detroit.

The money was a little disappointing, but even more disappointing was Scriabin’s effort to get away, at least temporarily, from his mistress, Tatyana Schloezer, who had become increasingly domineering.

Scriabin did everything he could to convince Tatyana not to come to America with him. He warned her that if she came to America, their newborn second child would starve. He told her how terrible the ocean voyage would be. He scared her with stories about writer Maxim Gorky, who was deported from America on morals charges because he had arrived with his mistress. Tatyana came anyway, and the couple somehow avoided deportation.

Although Scriabin didn’t speak English, his manager arranged interview with the press and answered all the questions himself. When Scriabin read the newspaper accounts of his tour he found them quoting things he had never said.

“I don’t know if anyone wanted me because of my music,” Scriabin remarked, “but wherever I went I met with triumph. America loves noise and publicity…after great success.”

In a more formal pronouncement Scriabin offered faint praise, declaring, “I was very favorably impressed by America, and I think that Europeans judge America most immaturely and one-sidedly. Americans are far from insensitive and untalented in art, as is generally thought.”

Alexander Scriabin left America with a few dollars and a lot of unpaid bills, but for a few months at least he had put some of his problems behind him.