150 years ago, on January 6, 1872, Alexander Scriabin was born in Moscow, a composer who will bequeath to his death, 43 years later, a work of incomparable style. What is it that forges the uniqueness of this extraordinary composer? MassWhite, Black Mass, Divine poem, The mystery… The titles of certain works by Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) speak for themselves. A mystical component took hold of this composer. But that was not Scriabin’s only aspiration.
Alexander Scriabin’s earthly journey is fundamentally unfinished, and his entire existence is summed up in the title which embodies this unfinished business: Mysterium.
Of Mysterium, a project that tormented him in 1903, Scriabin could not sketch out more than a prelude entitled The preliminary act. Reconstruction and completion of this Prior act occupied Scriabin specialist Alexander Nemtin (1936-1999) for 28 years! Nemtin ended up publishing a score of over two and a half hours in three parts: Universe, Humanity, Transfiguration, recorded in 1999 by Vladimir Ashkenazy for Decca. Universe, a 40-minute block, had been created by Kirill Kondrachine in 1971.
The importance of Mysterium, unfinished quest, is more symbolic than musical. Composer of Poem of Ecstasy (1904-1906), Scriabin wanted to appeal to the senses. Between 1908 and 1910 he worked on Prometheus or the Fire Poem. Prometheus is at the same time poem, symphony and concerto for piano. Corn Prometheus is much more. A chorus without words is added to the sound palette and the score includes a part for “luce”, or keyboard with lights.
The light keyboard is an instrument invented by Scriabin, each note of which corresponds to a color (C = red; D = yellow; mi = azure, etc.). This “organ of light”, projecting predetermined light beams thanks to this system of equivalences specific to the composer, aims to develop the sensory experience of music; an abstract “sound and light”, in a way. Musically, the composition is built on a chord of six sounds that he calls a “synthetic chord” or “mystical chord” and from which the music is born and progresses.
Mysterium had to push the experience and the quest for Prometheus much further. Scriabin had expressed himself on his objectives: “There will not be the slightest spectator. Everyone will be participant. Representation will require special people, special artists and a whole new culture. There will be an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument generating visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense and a rhythmic articulation of the text ”. “Artificial smoke and lighting” were to “modify the architectural contours” of a “cathedral devoid of stones”, in which this Mysterium would take place. Scriabin imagined a duration, seven days, a place, India or the Himalayas, and drew sketches of temples of smoke and light.
These mystical aspirations were largely based on the precepts of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875. Scriabin, fascinated by philosophy and Eastern mysticism, saw in the outbreak of the war of 1914 the beginning of an apocalypse which would purge the world and would guide him towards universal brotherhood and communion with nature and the cosmos. He will not have time to be disappointed, dying in 1915 of sepsis.
The starting point
Before announcing a new musical language, atonal, and an emulsion of the senses from sounds, Scriabin started from Chopin and the Russian heritage. To be born in 1872 is to see the light of day a year before Rachmaninoff and therefore to have the same musical DNA.
De facto, at the beginning of his life, Scriabin composed mazurkas, studies, preludes and even three nocturnes and three waltzes. That said, there are 90 of the preludes and the later ones really have nothing to do with Chopin.
One thing is speeding up Scriabin’s emancipation. As musicologist Hugh Macdonald sums it up, he is convinced that he is “destined to play a messianic role as a creative artist.” Scriabin is a free electron. Respected by his peers, he is totally on the margins as he is egocentric.
A brilliant pianist, Scriabin showed no interest in the voice as a mediator of texts (no melodies, apart from a Romance), nor for chamber music. He composed for his instrument, the piano, and confided his ambitions to the orchestra. His work represents a total of fifteen CDs.
The simplest gateway to the world of Scriabin is orchestral music. Three very affordable symphonies outline its trajectory from 1899 to 1904, the 3e, “Divine poem”, being influenced by Nietzsche. The creative spirit – in the image of God – is able to redeem the world to lead it to a higher existence. The availability of recordings, especially the references recorded by Evgueni Svetlanov, is very uncertain, but we will try to favor orchestral anthologies associating Prometheus and the Poem of Ecstasy to the symphonies.
The corpus of Piano Sonatas is undoubtedly the best companion to browse the evolution of the language of Scriabin. The 10 sonatas cover two decades, from 1892 to 1913. We can isolate the group of the first three sonatas, which five years separate. But the 2e Sonata is already a “Sonata-Fantasy” and the 3e Sonata (“States of soul” for Scriabin) is based on constantly upset passages from shadow to light. We are in 1897. It is the program of the 3e Symphony, but unsuccessful.
The 4e Sonata (1901-1903) is based on a harmonic work inherited from Tristan of Wagner with an ecstatic ending and contrasts. Between 1904 and 1906, Scriabin composed for orchestra his Poem of Ecstasy, emblematic work, and draws from the poem that this music illustrates a 5th Sonata, a dense masterpiece, in one block.
With the 5e Sonata (1907), Scriabin “accomplishes” a work from a text. In the five subsequent sonatas, he will also start from a principle: that of the “mystical chord” which serves as his starting point. Prometheus (1908-1910). We therefore detach ourselves from the key to enter a system, with chords (the augmented fourth, very important in Scriabin) and particular harmonies, to describe a world of dreams and fear. The “White Mass” (7e Sonata) is that of the mystical unification of beings. Scriabin sees it as a “last whirlwind before dematerialization”.
The last three sonatas are all from 1913: the 8e, tragic, the “Black Mass” (9e) inhabited by the devil (interval of the newt), the 10e, a “sonata of insects born from the sun”.
Scriabine very quickly develops its own language, absolutely unique. This language must then become that of the interpreter, if he wants to convince the public.
Open your unconscious
Pianist Vladimir Stoupel has written a very interesting essay on the challenges posed by Scriabin seen from the angle of the essential but very tedious memorization of his works. “Scriabine very quickly develops its own language, absolutely unique. This language must then become that of the interpreter if he wants to convince the public. […] Certain constructions, like the similarity of structures in Schubert and Brahms, which facilitate the learning of the Brahmsian language, do not exist in Scriabin. This learning process is inevitable, although it can be incredibly tiring, both psychologically and physically, as an exciting conversation is unlikely to be possible if you have to look up all the words in the dictionary. “
Scriabin, he continues, “is a composer who draws entirely from his unconscious and whose works constitute, in a certain sense, a kind of self-analysis. The performer must also engage in this self-analysis and try to open his subconscious to Scriabin’s music. If he succeeds, he will be able to understand the logical relationships (because Scriabin’s music is very logical, with its own logic) and soak up the music. Images and associations that arise from this “self-analysis of the performer with the help of Scriabin’s music” are essential for the enrichment of the interpretation ”.
How far in the interwar years would this creator have taken us, especially after the accidental death by drowning, at age 11, in 1919 of his son Julian Scriabine, himself a composer and pianist prodigy? It is one of the most unfathomable mysteries in the history of music.