KMSKA LATE - Marie François - Schmalzigaug and Scriabin

Classical pianist Marie François draws inspiration from the exhibition 'A Red that Sings' at the KMSKA, and in particular from a work by Schmalzigaug in which the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) take center stage.

From this visual starting point, she enters into a dialogue with the sound world of Alexander Scriabin, who assigned a color to each note: C as red, D as yellow, and F-sharp as blue.

The result is not a classical program in keys, but a structure based on color and perception, in which Scriabin functions as a kind of translation machine between image and sound. This implies a clear dramaturgical choice: not a gradual modulation from one key to another, but the unfolding of three autonomous color fields, each with its own psychological and harmonic logic.

The program is structured in three parts, each centered on a single color. The Preludes, Op. 11, serve as pivotal points: they open each color field and make the transition between the worlds audible. Within each block, the color character is further developed through an associative reading of Scriabin’s idiom—from clarity and simplicity to inner tension and dissolution—with, among others, the Fourth Sonata and the Ninth Sonata (“Black Mass”) serving as dramaturgical focal points of the blue field.

In this way, the concert becomes a musical interpretation of color: an exploration of how sound, tonality, and visual perception can reinforce and transform one another, and how a painterly concept can evolve into an auditory journey through light, tension, and resonance.

Program

A. Scriabin

• 24 Preludes Op. 11: No. 1 in C major
• 24 Preludes Op. 11: No. 2 in A minor
• Piano Sonata No. 4 in f# major, Op. 30: No. 4
• 24 Preludes Op. 1: No. 8 in f# minor
• Piano Sonata No. 9 Black Mass
• 24 Preludes Op. 11: No. 5 in d major
• Deux Poèmes Op. 32
• Poème No. 1 in f# major
• Poème No. 2 in d major