Alexander Scriabin's Symphony No. 1, Op. 26, in E major was written in 1899 and 1900. It is an ambitious first symphony, consisting of six movements, the last of which has a chorus and two vocal soloists. This work is one of the first in which Scriabin's idea of art morally transforming a person is clearly expressed. History The composer began to sketch the symphony in 1899. In January 1900 he tried it out at the piano in Moscow with this friend Alexander Goldenweiser. In this version for two pianos the work was played to various musicians, including Lyadov (who later that year conducted the premiere of the symphony, minus the last movement.) Scriabin wrote the bulk of the work in the summer of 1900, working on it intensively in the Moscow district of Daryino. In June 1900 he wrote to the publisher Belyayev that he was "very busy composing for orchestra", and three months later in September he reported: "During the summer I wrote a symphony (6 movements) and am now orchestrating it". Scriabin first showed his symphony to his teacher Safonov at the piano, then to Lyadov when he came to St. Petersburg. Scriabin had prevaricated over the definitive text of the choral finale, which he himself had written, but the artistic committee which presided over the acceptance of works to be published by the publishing house (headed by Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Lyadov) declared: "the vocal part in the sixth movement of your symphony is unperformable, and in such a form this movement of the symphony cannot be published". Despite Scriabin's protestations, when Lyadov conducted the work's premiere on 24 November 1900 (11 November, Old Style), the finale was omitted. Scriabin nonetheless was awarded the coveted Glinka Award (later renamed the Glinka Prize) in November 1900 for this work. It was to be another five months before the symphony was heard in its entirety: the symphony had its first complete performance in Moscow on 29 March 1901 (16 March, Old Style) under the direction of Safonov, in a concert dedicated to the memory of Nikolai Rubinstein. Fifteen years later the critic Arthur Eaglefield Hull wrote that the First Symphony was "a masterly work of great beauty". Instrumentation The symphony is scored for mezzo-soprano, tenor, mixed chorus (SATB), and an orchestra consisting of 3 flutes (3rd also piccolo), 2 oboes, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3