Alexander Scriabin

Pianist, visionary composer and mystical theorist, Alexander Scriabin heralded the music of the 20th century, evolving from Romanticism to atonality and developing the concept of synesthesia. Born into an aristocratic Moscow family on January 6, 1872, Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was the son of a diplomat who spent his time abroad and a pianist who died of tuberculosis when he was one. Taken care of by his grandmother and an aunt who gave him his first piano lessons, the child grew up alone in an essentially feminine and protective environment. His uncle enrolled him at the Cadet Military School in Moscow, where he was given a schedule that allowed him to study piano, but the prospect of a career in the army did not appeal to him. After private lessons with Georges Cornus and Nikolaï Zverev, he was admitted to the Moscow Conservatory in 1988, where his teachers were Vassili Safonov (piano) and Sergueï Taneïev (composition). He won a gold medal and continued to study fugue and counterpoint with Anton Arenski, but his indiscipline and disagreements with the latter meant that he did not sit the final exam. Nevertheless, he made the acquaintance of Sergei Rachmaninov, their friendship tinged with rivalry. On leaving the Conservatoire in 1892, he quickly found a publisher, Jurgenson, for his first works, strongly inspired by Chopin, notably a Waltz op. 1 (1885) and Ten Mazurkas op. 3 (1889). He discarded this influence and embarked on a more personal style in Sonate n° 1 op. 6 (1892). In 1894, the publisher Balaieff offered him a contract and financed his European tours, enabling him to play his own compositions, but Scriabin injured his right hand. He composed the Prelude and Nocturne for the left hand, Op. 9 (1894). His recovery allowed him to tour Europe, playing in Paris for a few months before a series of concerts in Russia. In businessman Mikhail Morozov and his wife Margarita Morozova, he found a couple of patrons who introduced him to their Moscow salon for private performances. In 1896, Scriabin composed his Piano Concerto No. 1, which he premiered the following year in Odessa, conducted by Safonov. The year 1897 was significant for Scriabin's marriage to Vera Ivanovna Issakovitch, a brilliant pianist who gave birth to six children before they separated in 1905, and who continued to support his work. He also met composer Alexander Visotsky, who introduced him to occultism and mysticism. In 1898, he began teaching piano at the Moscow Conservatory, but tired of rivalries, resigned in 1903. His affair with a pupil, Tatiana de Schloezer, led to their marriage in 1905 and the birth of three children. In the meantime, his first three orchestral works were premiered: Rêverie (Moscow, March 24, 1899) and Symphony no. 1 in six movements (March 29, 1901), conducted by Safonov, followed by Symphony no. 2 (St. Petersburg, January 25, 1902), conducted by Liadov. In 1904, the couple moved to Switzerland, where they completed one of their best-known works, Symphony no. 3, known as "Poème divin", premiered in Paris by the Orchestre Colonne conducted by Arthur Nikisch on May 29, 1905. At the end of 1906, Scriabin left for an American tour organized by Modest Altschuler, until March 1907, when the couple lived in Paris, then Brussels, where their interest in synaesthesia and theosophy developed. Planned for St. Petersburg, the symphonic poem Le Poème de l'Extase was finally premiered in New York on December 10, 1908 by Altschuler and his Russian Symphony Orchestra, preceding the Russian premiere on February 1, 1909. Now financed by Sergei Koussevitzky, Scriabin toured the Volga by steamship, dedicating his most ambitious work to him, Prometheus or Poem of Fire, premiered in Moscow on March 15, 1911. A masterpiece of maturity, it calls for an orchestra, keyboards (solo piano, celesta, organ), mixed choirs and a keyboard with lights projecting beams whose colors correspond to precise notes, such as red for C, bright yellow for D, orange for G, green for A, and so on. In addition, Scriabin created a "mystical chord" that allowed him to break free from tonality(C, F sharp, B flat, E, A, D). According to the composer, the failure of the first attempt was due to the malfunctioning of the device supplied by the English company Remington. Other attempts, by Altschuler in New York in 1915 and Safonov in Moscow after Scriabin's death, also failed. The ensuing falling-out with Koussevitzky led Scriabin to re-sign with Jurgenson. In 1914, he toured England, where he played Prométhée conducted by Sir Henry Wood, followed by a piano recital. The same year saw the publication of one of his last piano pieces, Vers la flamme op. 72, based on the arithmetical rule of the golden ratio. Back in Russia, he gave a final concert in Petrograd on April 15, 1915. He left a last unfinished work, Le Mystère, begun in 1903 and sounding like the culmination of his ideas. Apart from sketches for a seven-day performance, only L'Acte préalable, itself incomplete, has survived. Completed by Alexander Nemtin, who devoted twenty-eight years to it, it was recorded in 1972 with an orchestra of several hundred musicians by Kirill Kondrachine for the Melodiya label. Whatever the reason for his death, whether the bite of a black fly or an abscess on his lip that caused blood poisoning, Alexander Scriabin died in Moscow on April 27, 1915, at the age of 43.