I've recently found a list of comparative timings of the later sonatas made by my mate Rufus many years ago. Thought they might be of interest.

5th sonata

Richter        9'54''         [rec] 10/1960
Oppitz        10'12"                c1985 (BBC)
Richter       10'45"                1962
Deyanova    10'45"               
Richter        10'57"               9/1972
Steuermann 11'42"                1987
Ashkenazy   11'44"   released  1975
Cornman      11'54"               
Sofronitzky   11'56"                1955
Ogdon         12'05"     released 1971
Horowitz      12'07"                2/1976     
Zhukov        12'57"             late 70s ?

6th sonata

Ashkenazy    11'16"              4/1982
Richter         11'27"              3/1955
Sheppard      11'36"              c1985  (BBC)
Ogdon          12'14"           rel 1971       
Zhukov         12'30"             late 70s ?
Dennis Lee    12'54"              9/1989
Kuerti           14'38"

7th sonata

Ogdon          7'45"               1966 (live - BBC)
Richter         10'45"              4/1965
Ashkenazy    10'45"              6/1977
Ogdon          11'00"          rel 1971
Pontinen       12'05"              6/1984
Cornman       12'25"             
Dennis Lee    13'33"              9/1989  (BBC)
Zhukov         16'15"            late 1970s ?

8th sonata

Ogdon          11'19"          rel  1971
Sofronitzsky  12'30"                1958
Ashkenazy    13'11"               9/1983
Rudy            14'45"               1981
Zhukov         15'48"            late 70s ?

9th sonata

Horowitz        6'08"                1953
Richter          7'23"                6/1966
Sofronitzsky   7'29"                 1958
Sofronitzsky   7'35"                 1960
Ashkenazy     7'53"             rel  1975     
Richter          8'00"                  9/1972
Ogdon           8'22"                  1971
Rudy             8'25"                  1981
Zhukov          8'51"              late 70s ?   
Peter Hill        9'07"                  1989 (BBC)

10th sonata            (no rec dates given)

Ogdon           10'22"                 
Sofronitzsky   11'00"
Ashkenazy     12'07"
Rudy             12'27"
Zhukov          13'10"



       
     

Hi T-P
Just out of interest have you ever played any Scriabin - hearing some of his later works imagine its really quite difficult - something like the 6th sonata is really very fast as well as dramatic - hearing something like this always makes me regret i never had the patience to play 

Member Dough, labouring under the misapprehension that Scryabine's "Poem of Ecstasy" is programme music, has raised a query in the absolute-music thread.

As it happens there is a ready-made response to Mr. Dough's confusion. It comes from Scryabine's brother-in-law Boris de Schloezer:

"Scryabine began to compose the music for Le Poème de l'Extase in 1905; the text, originally titled 'Poème orgiaque,' was begun even earlier, the first sketches dating from 1904. When he started its composition he did not try to draw a precise and strict correspondence between the music and the text. The poetry did not annotate the music; conversely, the words were not translated into musical terms. In 1907, while in Lausanne, I was writing an article on Le Poème de l'Extase for the Russian Musical Gazette in anticipation of its performance in St. Petersburg. When working with Scryabine, I tried to correlate the text with the music; I realized that the music in its free flow accurately followed the progress of the poem. I recall how gratified and even astounded Scryabine was when I pointed out this parallelism to him. But it was not an artificial or intentional parallelism; rather it was a natural result of the oneness of Scryabine's intuitive perception of the total image of the work, which appeared to him in its two aspects. Only when the score was completed and sent to the publishers did Scryabine mark down the principal motives of the work: Motive of Self-Assertion, Motive of Horror, Motive of Will, Ominous Rhythm, and so forth. It follows that there was no preliminary design in Scryabine's mind conditioned or determined by extramusical considerations."

Members will see that it is more a case of parallelism of noumena than anything else such as Liszt-like illustration. We should also bear in mind the fact that as Member Smittims has pointed out the work is in strict sonata form.

Those are good pictures, interesting. Scriabin had two wives (not at the same time). This is well know photo of him.
All I know is that Scriabin wrote  good music. Usually composers come up with a name after composing (or often) or people come with a name (Moonlight Sonata).
Some times we are inspired by some thought, but what comes out is different. We don't know ourselves. Music is good because it frees subconscious.
Often there is a name of composition, but your imagination takes you in a different direction. Who is Lytton Strachey? Was it taken in Paris?

Gide is a gentleman who is reading a book. Did I understand correctly, Mr Grew?
Behind him is Skriabin brother in a law who told us how Poem of Ecstasy was created and the men who is looking on is Lytton Stchey who wrote that famous book Eminent Victorians.
It is very interesting photograph. Victorian times has a bad name in terms of being times of hipocrisy and other vices.
If we deviate from Scriabin topic it would be interesting to know more about this people.
They lived at the same time with Scriabin. (Victorian time was time when Russia was still headed by zar. There were relatively free times and there was free artistic development.
I actually know little about this time, but the parallel is interesting.