4/8/20

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Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)

That’s right - another day of Alexander Scriabin! Knowing I wanted to talk about both Prometheus: The Poem of Fire and The Poem of Ecstasy, I figured there would be no better way to do it than to have them back to back, hopefully encouraging a sort of “Scriabin buzz.” The Poem of Ecstasy (or Le Poème de l'Extase) is sometimes referred to as “Symphony No. 4,” much like The Poem of Fire, as it was Scriabin’s most prolific orchestral work before Prometheus. The work is about 20-25 minutes in length and is scored for full orchestra (no light organ this time). After his death, this work gained more recognition than Prometheus, as the piece showcases a delightful balance of Scriabin’s insanity, mastery of orchestral writing, and his departure from Romantic harmony (which we went into depth about yesterday), while also still immediately coming across as a Romantic work.

An important point that I glossed over yesterday was just how crazy this man went - while the mystic chord convulsing anecdote may have given you a good picture, it actually extends quite a bit beyond that. To really see how far off the deep end Scriabin went, it may be telling to take a minute away from The Poem of Ecstasy and instead look at an unfinished composition of his titled Mysterium - a work that was intended to involve senses of smell and touch as well as hearing. In Scriabin’s own words he said this about the work: “There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours.” To further drive the point home, I’d like to additionally quote the Scriabin Society’s biography of Alexander Scriabin, as they wrote this about the work: “This seven-day-long megawork would be performed at the foothills of the Himalayas in India, after which the world would dissolve in bliss. Bells suspended from clouds would summon spectators. Sunrises would be preludes and sunsets codas. Flames would erupt in shafts of light and sheets of fire. Perfumes appropriate to the music would change and pervade the air. At the time of his death, Scriabin left 72 orchestral-size pages of sketches for a preliminary work Prefatory Action, intended to ‘prepare’ the world for the apocalyptic ultimate masterpiece.” Russian composer Alexander Nemtin took almost three decades refining Scriabin’s visions and sketches down to a 3-hour long piece that has been performed on rare occasion.

Alright, with the scope of Alexander Scriabin’s madness in mind, we should probably return to The Poem of Ecstasy, which actually shows quite a bit of brilliance and logic to it all (in contrast Mysterium). One element of the piece which always strikes me as a defining characteristic is its orchestration. Even with its dissonance, Scriabin’s uses of the instruments allows the piece to almost masquerade as a familiar Romantic tone poem. Lush strings often support solo lines in the woodwinds while brass comes in for moments that meant to seem grand and expansive. Examples of this nuanced brass writing include the brazen use of the horn at about 5:45 in the recording linked below, the intense low-range trombone entrance at about 6:45, or even the poignant and dramatic use of the trumpet throughout. Another defining characteristic of Scriabin’s orchestration style is his sustained ornate textures - notice how even in climactic moments (where it would be easy for a composer to default to sustained loud chords across the entire ensemble) Scriabin is intent on having the strings and woodwinds articulating trills, ornaments, and/or arpeggios to create a rhythmic and melodic drive forward. Only at the very end of the piece does Scriabin finally give you a gloriously huge and pure (in a textural sense) chord.

The piece as a whole is quite relentless, always pushing forward to reach a new level of climax. That relentless quality of it, however, is not overbearing, as Alexander Scriabin often gives the listener a break in the chaos or moment of harmonic resolve. With that driving quality in mind, I would encourage you open up to it and to consider this piece as the payoff after having put in the time to understand Scriabin’s orchestral language which he pushed even further in Prometheus. I must say that the most awe-inspiring recording of this piece has to be the 2012 Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall concert conducted by Kirill Petrenko. That recording is really what sold me on this piece, and the only word I could come up with to describe it is “transcendent” - but unfortunately, you have to have access to the Digital Concert Hall (by purchasing a subscription or ticket), so I cannot provide the video below. If you do have access to that service (I, for example, have access through my affiliation with Vanderbilt University), then a link to that exact concert can be found here. I was able to find another very good recording done by Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra with the score (reduced to two pianos) of the piece, which is the video linked below. Feel free to tell me your favorite moment of the piece - mine would have to be the very end when the upon reaching the largest peak of the piece, the entire orchestra cuts out (in an effect that makes it seem to me like time has frozen) before building back up to the final cadence (where an FM7 chord collapses to F7 and then F7b5 before releasing to C major). With that, the last thing I must do is ask for forgiveness in writing about Scriabin two days in a row - hopefully, after listening to two of his most well-known and large-scale works, you can see just how great and influential of a composer he was.