Opinions of Scriabin

I. Pro

"If you could only imagine how interesting Scriabin's late works are--his sonatas, The Divine Poem, Ecstasy..."
-S. Prokofiev (from a letter to A. Glagolev, July 22, 1909)
"Yesterday I played your Seventh Sonata and my opinion was not changed. I am looking forward to seeing you, so I can show and tell you what appeals to me the most in it!"
-Igor Stravinsky (from a letter to A. Scriabin of September 1913)
"Let me congratulate you on your last works, and particularly the Ninth Sonata, which I consider a work of inestimable value!"
-Feruccio Busoni (from a letter to A. Scriabin, 1913)
"Scriabin was a Titan of Russian music."
-Fedor Chaliapin
"Scriabin has left a permanent mark on the evolution of contemporary music."
-A. Glazunov
"...Now we realize what a great impact Scriabin made by his quests and discoveries, what influence he had even on those composers whose development took an entirely different course. We are grateful to Scriabin for having expanded the boundaries of our art by his inexhaustible fantasy and his brilliant talent."
-D. Shostakovich
"I will always cherish the sacred memory of the happiness of casting a single glance at the essence of the work of so great a composer as Scriabin was."
-Van Cliburn (1960)

II. Con

"Scriabin's Divine Poem has more convolutions than the Sinfonia Domestica of Strauss and it is charged with more shrieking discords than anything that Vincent d'Indy ever conceived in his most abandoned moments. It was performed with deadly effect. When it was past, the audience called out Mr. Scriabin and took a good look at him."
-New York, 1907
"As a kind of drug, no doubt Scriabin's music has a certain significance, but it is wholly superfluous. We already have cocaine, morphine, hashish, heroin, anhalonium, and innumerable similar productions, to say nothing of alcohol. Surely that is enough. On the other hand, we have only one music. Why must we degrade an art into spiritual narcotic? Why is it more artistic to use eight horns and five trumpets than to use eight brandies and five double whiskies?"
-London, 1924
"We consider Scriabin as our bitter musical enemy. Why? Because his music tends toward unhealthy eroticism. Also to mysticism, passivity and a flight from the reality of life."
-D. Shostakovich, 1931