Repertoire: The Essential Scriabin
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- Опубліковано 26 лис 2024
- Scriabin's music constitutes a uniquely captivating sound world, one so original that it tends to get overlooked--at least by me; but thanks to a timely suggestion by one of you very kind viewers, I hereby make amends and offer a basic discography of his keyboard and orchestral music. Fortunately, because he's so distinctive and wasn't terribly prolific, it's very easy to put together an excellent collection of the most important works, and it won't break your bank.
Musical Example courtesy of Capriccio Records.
As Richter said, talking about Sofronitsky as ideal interpreter of Scriabin: “Scriabin isn't the sort of composer whom you'd regard as your daily bread, but is a heady liqueur on which you can get drunk periodically, a poetical drug, a crystal that's easily broken.”
Hey, I liste to Scriabin most days, does that make me mad?
less mad at least than Scriabin himself
Scriabin was a phenomenal composer but I agree that it is rich food. Not exactly a leafy green vegetable in terms of musical nutrition, if the comparison is apt. But he garners strong obsession from me at times.
@@rogierdailly1608 No only when you aren't listening or playing him 🙂
For me the greatest of all Scriabin pianists will always be Sofronitsky.
He defies gravity, the color and imagination of his interpretations are a beacon to all others. And even though the highest level of virtuosity is required to get this music off the ground in Sofronitsky’s playing it is secondary to the music.
A very close second is Joseph Villa.
Feverish, fantastic, virtuosity to burn - really marvelous.
Sofronitsky was fantastic and surprisingly restained in Scriabin, but also a fantastic pianist, full stop, deserves to be acknowledged alongside Richter and Gilels and the like
Thanks for this talk! You inspired me to write a concerto for kazoo and orchestra. In five movements, duration 60 minutes.
Don't forget to leave room for the cadenza. I'm a great improviser.
@@DavesClassicalGuide unfortunately I cannot ask Pierre Boulez to compose the cadenzas... Thanks for your humour! Greetings from The Netherlands!
I'll try and contact Wolfgang Rihm...
Thanks. Scriabin is one of those composers where I’m quite happy having one good realisation of each work, some of which, no surprise, are ones you highlight here. I’m in two minds about the later orchestral stuff, some of it is so “drifty” that I almost always drift away myself and lose concentration.
I know that the experiment of Nemtin to do a performing hypothesis of parts of the Mysterium music isn’t really “by” Scriabin, but Ashkenazy clearly believed in it! Man, I get hypnotised by it for a time, but no surprise I’ve never gotten all the way through.....
yay, Muti & Philly ! so happy their Scriabin cycle made the scathing scrutiny of the Hurwitz cut !
By the way, congratulations on your first year! Absolutely my favorite “go to” on UA-cam!
You briefly mentioned 'Mysterium', Scriabins unfinished megalomaniac piece, intended to be performed in the Himalayas, with no spectators, only participants. Composer Alexander Nemtin spent 28 years, making a performing version of the sketch. I have the Kondrashin version for Part 1 - Universe. Well worth hearing for Scriabin fans. There is an Ashkenazy version of the whole thing on 3 CDs, which I have not yet heard, I think it is available only in the big complete box.
In addition to the symphony set by Ashkenazy, he also recorded the performance version of Mysterium, or rather called 'Preparation for the Final Mystery', a 3CD set full of wonderful weirdness. When experienced live like I did a couple of years ago here in Brussels (Brussels being a bit of a Scriabin place, he lived there in 1908), monster orchestra complete with light organ and fog machine, it is quite hypnotic.
I'll bet.
Thank you for the Theosophy story. Scriabin's stylistic change from late Romanticism to Modernism and his fascination with Theosophy sound very much in parallel with W. B. Yeats.
Alexander Scriabin (who is a vastly underrated composer by the way) is interesting in that most of everything in his oeuvre (with the exception of his early pieces which betray an influence of chopin) are masterpieces, a true descendant of post wagnerian harmonies - Its astonishing to think what he would've accomplished had he lived longer..
WTF? "chopin"???
@@mariosefardi-casella2730 yep, Chopin on crack :)
I don't think so. He was a genius who made astonishing masterpieces through his life, but in his last years he was becoming crazy, and despite that could have brought him sparks of creativity, if he had been more time alive he would have finished composing pieces without any sense. Poem of extase is an example that this masterpiece can't be done by an ordinary mind but by a special mind, that immense creativity needs to proceed from unusual sensations, thoughts and ideas. And maybe he was subconsciously seeing a lot more correlations and patterns in his slow process to becoming ill that combinated with his genius made pieces like his two symphonic poems, the first being for me his magnum opus, the second darker than the first but also interesting, his fifth sonata who made it only in 3 days, and a lot more. But some years after, his last works like his Mysterium or his last sonatas, are for me so dissonant, so out of sense, so dark that I conceive that he was out of his mind to the point he wasn't able to remember some of his earlier works.
For me he has 4 stages:
Chopin's pupil, genius, crazy genius(my favourite), and psychotic. So I think he died at the correct age.
@@danielfeygin1216 a quite genial opinion
Maazel’s Poeme de l’extase with the Cleveland orchestra the most gripping for me personally. It’s been my favorite for years and I haven’t found one that clicks better with me. The fact that Scriabin only lived to 43 I see as one of our greatest losses.
Poem of Ecstasy. First performance I remember was the Monteux/BSO recording. Will have to dig it out and relisten.
Made my day: „Messiaen without the birds“....
I said this once about Scriabin ca. mid 90s in college. 🙂
Dear David,
Thank you very much for fulfilling my wish! I really enjoyed the video.
Warm wishes from Switzerland,
Glad you enjoyed it!
The great Abbado/BSO Scriabin is also available on the DG "Originals" series, coupled with Debussy Nocturnes, adn Rave Daphnis Suite No. 2 and the Pavane. Great disc! The early 70's were Golden age of the BSO.... Must try the Maazel... thanks!
4:12 "He sounds like Chopin on crack." 😂
Thank you for this awesome video! I don’t know his music so well, you are right he really kind of gets swept under the rug. It occurred to me that I have never listened to Prometheus so I just did with that awesome Muti/Philly cycle! Wow - some piece. Not only does it recall “Messiaen without the birds”, but I’m reminded of Florent Schmitt (Symphonie Concertante and his orchestration of the first movement of “Ombres” [there’s a newish record with Vincent Lardaret playing both Ravel concerts as well]) and Szymanowski’s 4th symphony (Symphonia Concertante). I would LOVE to see your videos on these two composers! I know you mentioned Rattle’s cycle in your review of his time in Birmingham - maybe there’s more on your channel that I haven’t found yet. I love these interesting transitional composers and find the way they handled the changing times way more fascinating than things like Beethoven 7 and Brahms 1 which are already etched in my brain! 😂 thanks again! Aaron in Miami
So glad you mentioned Golavonov. Music this wacky deserves a very wacky maestro - which is perhaps why Stokowski was a great Scriabin maestro. I recently listened to the Kitajenko Extase featuring a chorus - oy vey. It might have been passable if slow without the purposeless singing.
They should do a Complete Scriabin Boxed Set next year, a 150th Anniversary edition! And hopefully they'll do it right this time.
From my wife's family, I managed to get hold of a program book for a concert on the fifth anniversary of Scriabin's death by the philharmonic in (at the time) Petrograd. There are perceptive notes by the composer/musicologist Boris Asafyev. These help show that Scriabin, for all his off-putting eccentricities, was very representative of the "Silver Age" in Russian culture, and deeply admired by people such as Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelshtam. I was long disappointed by my inability to hear anything in Scriabin that seemed distinctly "Russian" (unlike with Stravinsky's "Russian" period, or in Mussorgsky). It was only on visits to St Petersburg and hearing Orthodox church bells from across the street that I detected something foundational that can be heard in great Russian piano works--by Rachmaninov most obviously, but also by Prokofiev and Scriabin (especially in the 7th Sonata). With the cultural change in a lot of countries right after WWI, things that were cutting edge around 1905-1915 suddenly seemed very dated, and that happened with Scriabin, years before the 1920s Soviet avant-garde degenerated into compulsory "Socialist Realism." Oddly enough, Scriabin became "modern" again about 40-50 years later, as a soundtrack for Soviet exploits in the cosmos. What's downright uncanny is how that unearthly quality--especially in Prometheus and the late sonatas--is signaled by Asafyev's program notes from 1920.
Though I like performances of the last symphonies by Muti and Maazel, my preference for piano works is mostly with Russians--from Sofronitsky and Richter to more recent performers, such as Volodin, Sudbin, Trifonov. One other thing to check out: riffs on one of the Op. 11 preludes and Opus 32 Poeme by Chick Corea.
Glad youve covered Scriabin Dave. I LOVE his harmonies and building climaxes.Sonatas are superb. Believe he caught Sepsis from cutting his lip whilst shaving? Talk about bad luck! I was taken back by Muti's recording of the 1st Symphony years ago.
Already from 13:00 on, somehow I had the ominous feeling you were going to say Gergiev, and, yes indeed, when you mentioned him, I started to laugh: his Poem of Ecstasy is one of (I think) two recordings I have and listen to the most. I think what "attracts" me to this recording/performance is its sense of raggedness and crudeness emphasizing the falling apart of any normal perception of reality (who can say that being ecstatic is not the same as being crazy?). And the trumpet playing is almost as bad as the one in Bernstein's Mahler 5 with the New York Philharmonic :-) I guess I love this recording like I would love a dysfunctional friend. But quite likely all of the above is just a case of cognitive dissonance. Thank you for recommending the other recordings.
People who believe in “secret societies and strange conspiracy theories ……….. idea of shadowy beings running around controlling everything” …….hmmmmm ……… Sounds eerily familiar. The modern composer who most resembles Scriabin, to my ears, is Rautavaara, whose opera 'Rasputin' aims to evoke the world of Scriabin's infamous contemporary and the twilight of the Tsarist regime you describe.
Indeed ☝🏻
The Trumpet/Kazoo solo was a total scream! So funny...and apt! Btw, one of my favorite things about Scriabin came in a Horowitz interview where he describes meeting Scriabin when Horowitz was very young. Horowitz says Scriabin was sitting there with the weirdest crazy look on his face, and Horowitz imitates the psychotic look he had seen then. Then Horowitz says "you know , he was crazy!" And you are so right, Golovanov is oddly excellent!
I don't think Scriabin was crazy at all - but he was a very shrewd marketeer, who knew that to gain "street cred" as an artist in those days, a reputation as a mystical genius could be very helpful. While he dabbled in all sorts of weird mystical movements, he never truly committed to any of them. And none of that appears to have slowed his enjoyment of the better things in life: good food, good wine, and Tatiana de Schloezer in particular.
He was crazy.
@@wayneblackmonmdjd6870 I think both of you are right. He was also shrewd and exceptionally skilled.
I used to know someone, a Russian, long dead, who saw Scriabin play.
He thought most pianists, Sviatoslav Richter included, didn't "get" Scriabin.
The one exception, in his view, was Horowitz.
A pianist himself, he demonstrated how Scriabin played the Prelude Op11 no10, as he remembered it.
His use of rubato made most pianists, including Horowitz, sound pretty
staight-laced. It was quite an extraordinary experience.
I really like Scriabin. Lettberg and Alexeev have recorded the complete piano works. I very much enjoy both of these complete sets.
Complete Sonatas is the hardest to pick. I think Lettberg is best complete Scriabin set; then you get to the best Sonata set (Hamelin, Ashkenazy), then you get down to individual Sonatas (Richter, Glemser), the difficulty of Scriabin is unbelievable, part of the joy of life is hearing someone else's attempt to reach the unreachable.
Svetlanov and USSR State rocks! I dont know guys if you know his Shchedrin. Pure gold. Btw, I just listened new Messiean Quartet with "Left Coast Chamber Ensemble" and I don't think i heard worse then that. That make me think, maybe we should talk about this masterpiece and the best and worst recordings?
Regards
Irek
The Gergiev “Poem of Ecstasy” sounds horrible! - can’t wait to get it and hear it! Lol...
I love how the siren started blaring when you mentioned Gergiev 🤣
13:17
Thank you very much. Lettberg ordered!
I have become a fan of Vladimir Sofronitsky's performances of Scriabin. I only recently became aware of his work reading about what other Russian pianists thought of him. Not well known in the West. Years ago I first heard the works performed by Ruth Laredo = there are OK.
He's very well known in the West, especially among piano fans.
Lettberg's Scriabin is breathtakingly beautiful, but only scratching surface of the music. I would recommend Sofronitsky or Richter's set in Profil Box set or Alexeev s complete set. Richter's DG recording of 5th sonata is amazing. Nikolai Demidenko made a stunning recording of Scriabin's piano concerto which has never been surpassed to this day in my opinion.
I never found real enjoyment in listening to Scriabin piano music until I encountered the recordings of Sofronitsky. His interpretations opened the door for me.
Yes - Demidenko's Concerto is brilliant. Also his Black Mass and his Prokofiev 'Visions Fugitives'. Am interested to hear whether Alexeev's complete Sonatas is actually worth acquiring. I have Ashkenazy (lives on his nerves (not a bad thing in this music), very fast in the 'insect parts', clear as day, a little forced and clangy in some sections) and Hamelin (powerhouse, tonal contrasts and pedal to die for, unbelievable accuracy and speed, deep and gorgeous recording). Alexeev could stand with Ashkenazy, but are his interpretations better?
@@tomowenpianochannel Alexeev is technically as brilliant as any Russian masters, but his Scriabin interpretation is unlike any other pianists - with very sparse use of the pedal he brings unusual clarity and edge to the music, which is stark contrast to Hamelin or Demidenko, but his complete Scriabin set is well worth hearing. If you like really beautiful and atmospheric version, I'd recommend Fergus-Thompson's ASV recording, now issued by DECCA.
The solo trumpet scared my dog and pissed off the bird!
Love the extract from Sonata 5 and rue how little I listened to my Ashkenazy and Austbo recordings of the Sonatas.
Oh those devilish jumps! It's a very tricky section to play, and all the more rewarding to hear pianists perform it almost effortlessly.
Yes! The long-awaited DH talk about Scriabin! As you said, he truly was an edge-case as far as composers go, and in true Hurwitz fashion, I have a little anecdote to back it up:
My dad has never been a fan of classical music, and I really mean ALL classical music. From Monteverdi to Iannis Xenakis, I've tried and tried to find something that he enjoys, but to no availd. In his opinion, everything written before Ravel is "pathetically pompous", and everything after Ravel sounds like plink plonk. However! Just a few weeks ago, we were driving home after a day out climbing, and I decide to try my luck with we Scriabin in the car, not expecting a very positive response from Verse la Flamme, but, to my suprise, he asked if I can play some more, and some more, and against all odds, he becomes somewhat of a Scriabin fan.
Guess that's just the effect of Theosophy working....
Must be! Great story!
Scriabin can hit in unexpected ways. I've played simply his preludes at random open mics and people have really reacted with interest.
Ah yes, Scriabin, the composer we turn to occasionally when we need some delightful decadence in our lives. One of the most original minds in music history!
You mentioning Svetlanov in this talk made me think of a composer Scriabin had a deciding influence on, and who was championed by Svetlanov: Nikolaj Mjaskovski.
When you listen to Mijaskovski's early symphonies, you notice how heavily he was influenced by Scriabin, at a time when the older composer was still alive. Mjaskovski's 3rd sounds strikingly like Scriabin, but without the obsessive repetitions and the over the top climaxes.
I hope you'll do a talk on Mjaskovski at some time, he's such an underrated and fascinating composer. And it's such a darn shame that there are dozens of recordings of every Shostakovich symphony, even the crappy ones 2, 3 and 12 (since every conductor out there wants to do a full Shostakovich cycle), while half of Mjaskovski's 27 symphonies only have a single recording: Svetlanov's, in his complete cycle, the only one in existance. And those performances are occasionally so wild and wooly that you wonder how those symphonies would sound when recorded with a proper budget and with more rehearsals. Curiously enough, there are quite a lot of recordings of the 6th, his longest symphony (but in my opinion not his best): Kondrashin, Järvi, Liss and others. One wishes Liss would be given the chance to record a complete cycle, he did a terrific 10th too.
I am not Dave but I am sure he said in one of the videos that he considered Mjaskovski to be not so interesting. By the way, what's in your opinion his best symphony?
@@aatim2308
Ah, I must have missed that. Too bad! I think it's a clear case of a composer who's unjustly neglected because the sheer amount of symphonies (27) is intimidating for both performers and audience, and the scarcity and not always satisfying quality of the recordings prevents the music from becoming more well-known. When you've got a couple of good performances of a certain piece, more will follow because people will recognize its qualities. But if the only recording is a under-rehearshed play-through, no-one will feel the need to champion the piece by producing a new, better version.
Btw, Dave had some good things to say about the 25th and 26th symphonies when they came out on naxos - about the music, that is, not about the performances. So maybe... One can hope, right?
As for Mjaskovski's best symphony - I don't have a clear preference. The pre-revolution symphonies (with the Scriabin influence) are beautiful and quite different from his later works. The 3rd is a great example of this early style. Then you get the row of symphonies up to the 11th or so that still show a composer who still didn't have to make much concessions to the soviet doctrines. Later that changed and he was forced to tone down the modernism and complexity of his works, resulting in a simplified and more "popular" but to our ears maybe less interesting style. Still, there are some very nice works among the later symphonies, but it's an uneven bunch. The last one (27) is particularly beautiful and makes me think of Prokofiev's elegiac 7th.
I've always thought Scribian's piano music was under-appreciated by most 'serious' pianists. Garrick Ohlsson went on a big campaign to change that 'state of affairs' a few years ago. I'm sure the truth is that most of them just couldn't play it, and they didn't want to put in the work necessary to learn it. "Promotheus" is a piece I really like. Not only is it a great piano and orchestra work, it also has plenty of tam-tam, here and there.
His Etudes op 8 and 42, Olsson's, are the best reference recordings made in modern times.
Scriabin's genius was evident from the beginning and his early works are notable not due to their Chopinian ancestry but in part because they depart from it so distinctively. Everyone keeps repeating the simplistic "Early Scriabin is like Chopin" because both wrote Mazurkas, Preludes, etc. but rhetorically, harmonically, melodically, contrapuntally, and even technically it's inaccurate and dismissive and undermines the individual achievements of both. It's not you, Dave -- it's everyone. Sorry, just a pet peeve. /rant Two thumbs up on the Muti, my favorite.
He slept with Chopin scores under his pillow. In the background is John Field, the father of slavonic pianism.
I find it's similar to the oft-repeated "Haydn invented the modern string quartet and Mozart perfected it" or some such nonsense. Both perfected their own very personal styles, though it's true Mozart was greatly influenced by Haydn.
Scriabin was his own man, highly individual and not really like anyone else. Wonderfully so. Chopin's influence is undeniable but Bach's and Mozart's influence on Chopin is also undeniable. I think that influence is a too-neat way to categorize and keep things in a certain order but deeper analysis (not really the purpose of these videos) reveals that it doesn't explain much and, heavily emphasized, is easily inaccurate.
Well then, I stand corrected! I agree that facile generalizations such as this can get in the way of appreciating a composer's individuality, but on the other hand, they can also serve as useful points of entry for those unfamiliar with the music. Everything in its proper place.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Not meaning to correct -- just another perspective and "adding" (if I may be so bold) to the knowledge. Agree, comparisons such as these are usually useful, particularly with a composer who marched to the beat of his own tam-tam.
@@iggyreilly2463 Indeed.
This talk inspired me to pull out Boulez/New York Philharmonic, The Poem of Ecstasy, for a listen. I really enjoyed it and I am not a big fan of romantic orchestral stuff. Then, Glenn Gould, Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp minor. More wonderful stuff! If you want to hear Gould play something between Beethoven and Wagner, here's your chnce. More Scriabin for me, I'm afraid.
Thanks for the Scriabin update, David!! However, the essential Scriabin would not be complete without a fleeting mention of Igor Zhukov, Michael Ponti and Ruth Laredo.....
Um, yes, it would be, and it was.
The one quote about Scriabin, I will never forget:
"No one was more famous during their lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after death." (-his biographer)
Its such a nice quote, although I do wonder if Scriabin has really been as ignored as some of his fans suggest. I mean its always been so much easier to get recordings, often by prominent artists, of at least some of his music than the music of so many other composers of his period...
@@murraylow4523 In the west he is mostly ignored alas - in Russia and Asia, he's still a big item for most pianists.
@@rogierdailly1608 His reputation will return. Because music has reached a dead end. Modern music in particular. We need a return to the mysticism and exploration of the boundaries beyond boundaries, which Scriabin embodies. His experimentation with chords and sonorities should be taken up again because it opened multiple avenues for any song, or piece, or structure, to evolve into.
Anyone heard of Michael Ponti? His Scriabin is also very good.
I think Richter's interpretation of Scriabin's 5th is way more passionate and enjoyable and overall better than Lettberg's.
Despite the prevailing consensus that Muti is tops in the symphonies, as well as your highly seductive description of them, I've always found the sound on my copy to be somewhat hazy and lacking in color. Makes me wonder if I have a bad pressing if such a phenomenon exists??? I don't go to Inbal for most of the symphonies, but his interpretation of the 3rd mvt. of symphony 1 is desert island for me, though Fedoseyev and Golovanov are great as well. As for the sonatas, Hamelin may be fast and smooth, but he lacks the inflection of Ashkenazy which brings out the visceral emotional component in the tension and release of the writing. I passed on Gergiev's most recent Scriabin recordings after listening to samples. Especially disappointing was the interpretation of the 2nd mvt of the 3rd symphony, of which his earlier recording of it with the Leningrad Philharmonic is my favorite. I had been hoping that his familiarity with the piece would result in an interpretation at least as good, but it has none of the personality and detail of his previous recording.
Scriabin is the only composer that comes to mind that is more difficult to play on piano than Rachmoninoff (and the music still sounding musical). I am a big fan of his works
Some say Nicolai Medtner is even more difficult to play.
Happy anniversary David. Great Scriabin talk. Might I suggest a video devoted to Furtwangler? You can sheppsrd us through the dross and lead us to his best performances.
Furt-who?
Then I also won't suggest Glen Gould
Ironically enough, Gergiev was the only one live performance I had luck to visit. Maybe that's the reason I didn't like Poème de l'extase. Except the last three minutes, they were still wonderful and... loud. Fantactic experience. But 17 minutes before that- Ugh.
I think that the trumpet I heard was the same as on the disc, Timur Martynov, Gergiev's beloved trumpet player but I might be wrong.
I like Lettberg's playing and admire her scholarship and repertory etc. However do you like the recorded sound on this collection? It's got a bit of a strange wobble in places for me. I thought maybe it was just my rip of the cd. so I grabbed the opus 2 off her youtube feed and, alas, there it is again. Say for instance first 30 seconds of the famous op. 2, no. 1 etude.
I think it's fine.
Wonderful video as usual. We are grateful. Are you considering some Alkan talk?
You mean like this? ua-cam.com/video/feCP4QttVCQ/v-deo.html
You should do a video on the complete works of Rachmaninoff!
Have you seen all of the videos I have done on Rachmaninoff?
@@DavesClassicalGuide was talking about solo piano music
Are Piers Lane’s recordings of Scriabin on Hyperion any good?
Yes.
There's another symphony cycle by Segerstam on Bis, but I don't know how it compares to Muti or Ashkenazy.
It's kind of dull and flabby.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Ok, I won't get the Segerstam then. Thanks David.
Rafael Kubelik's wife was a member of the Theosophical Society and yet he never made a single Scriabin recording. Perhaps he'd just grown sick and tired of Blavatskyan balderdash.
Horowitz always dropped some Sciabian into his concerts. I never quite warmed up to it. Time to try again I suppose. Leads to an episode idea. How about "composers or peices loved more by performers than listeners"? Lord know we already have "composers or peices loved more by listeners than prefromers".
I had a friend who used to swear by Sofronitsky’s Scriabin. He said, “No one gets Scriabin like Sofronitsky”. What say you about this? Thanks.
It's stupid.
I realise you might be returning to Scriabin's piano works, but not mentioning Sofronitsky is a sin worthy of being excommunicated from and by the Church of Theosophy.
Somehow I'll survive the shame.
In the shameless self-promotion category, this pee-on violist would like to boast that the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra has over the years, since 2011, played the 2nd and 3rd Skryabin symphonies, and twice the Poeme d'extase (with the latter of the two performances of the Poeme generally better than the first).
A reasonable output from an unlikely source, eh-?!!?
The “essential” Scriabin should be more like a three minute video!
So snarky! Be nice.
Marc André Hamelin is , maybe, the greatest pianist of our time. I plays like he has 4 hands,
Actually, he has six. Nine fingers on each.