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Scriabin's kingdom of light

By Bradley Winterton
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Friday, Mar 16, 2007, Page 13

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NTCH

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (1872-1915) must be one of the most interesting composers who ever lived. As with many such flamboyant eccentrics, however, his achievements failed to match his extravagant ideas. The really great creators, such as Shakespeare and J.S. Bach, kept their mouths shut about any theories they might have had and focused their energies instead on their imaginative worlds.

But Scriabin's ideas were extraordinary nonetheless, and many of them have found their realization in the world of the modern pop concert. For example, he planned a giant music performance to take place high in the Himalayas, and to include color projections, diffused scent and dancing. It was to last a week, and hopefully bring about the transformation of the world though an excess of ecstasy. It never happened, but adherents of modern dance culture probably entertain similar hopes on many a wild Saturday night.

It's doubtful if patrons of tonight's concert of Scriabin's music in Taipei's National Concert Hall will come expecting an early manifestation of the ambiance of today's clubbing scene. The title Poem of Ecstasy may produce a few smiles, but to most young people a traditional acoustic orchestra can never match the sound systems of the best dance clubs. It could be argued, though, that Alex Scriabin at least did what he could with the technology available to him in his day.

Rudy will perform with the NSO in two concerts in Taipei this weekend.

Many people who met Scriabin thought he was mad, while at the same time being curious about his ideas. One was that music and color are fundamentally linked. Hear the note C and you see red, hear D and you see blue, and so on. This is a reality for some people, especially when under the influence of intoxicating chemicals, and science recognizes the phenomenon with the word "synesthesia." Scriabin and his musical friends discussed it at length, disagreeing only on the details of which color went with which notes.

Particularly interesting is the inclusion in tonight's Taipei program of his Prometheus: Poem of Fire. Scriabin intended this to be performed accompanied by flashing lights, produced by a machine called a "chromola," a piano that emitted light rather than sound. Enquiries have failed to ascertain whether the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) will attempt to comply with the composer's intentions.

But something similar would be easy to arrange — a phone-call to the Ministry of Sound and some ready cash would see it set up in no time. It has to be said, however, that the effect has rarely been attempted in the staid halls of classical music. It should be in Taipei, though. If not, it's an opportunity missed in club-loving, hi-tech Taiwan.

Any accompanying lighting effects would provide the main interest today of the Poem of Fire. But the Poem of Ecstasy is an extraordinary work by any standards, and undoubtedly Scriabin's masterpiece. It contains instructions to the conductor such as "to be played with a rapturous sensual pleasure," "perfumed" and "as languid as possible." It requires orchestral bells and organ accompaniment, and ends in a mood of majesty and rapture.

Scriabin, as can perhaps be guessed from all this, was an ardent follower of theosophy, the late-19th century attempt to integrate all the world's religions, but especially the Oriental ones, and which hoped to attain a direct knowledge of God by getting into ecstatic states. This was at the root of his grand Himalayan project, called the Mysteruim, and is clearly behind his Poem of Ecstasy as well.

The music of the Poem of Fire is largely dissonant and based on what Scriabin called his "mystic chord." The Poem of Ecstasy, by contrast, is an exotic piece of late Romanticism (it was completed in 1908). Both last around 20 minutes.

Beethoven's Prometheus Overture is being added to tonight's concert to highlight the theme of the theft of fire (in Greek mythology Prometheus stole fire from the gods). Guest pianist in the Poem of Fire is Mikhail Rudy, born in Russia, and so a compatriot of Scriabin, but long resident in France. NSO director Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬) conducts.

Even without the addition of flashing lights, Scriabin's music is worth closer attention. I'm not the only person to think this. A couple of years ago I was chatting to an assistant in a music store in Hsimending when he remarked that Lin Hwai-min had just been in. I asked what he'd bought. "Everything we had from some obscure Russian," he replied. Who was that, I asked. He thought for a moment. "Some guy called Scriabin," he replied.

For detailed program information, see Classical Music listings, p14.
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