Scriabin mystery. Alexander Scriabin: “Strong and mighty is the one who has experienced despair and conquered it”

BIOGRAPHY

Quest (continued)

These moods, merging with Scriabin's unshakable conviction in the great, life-changing power of art, led him to an idea that was a further development of the ideas of the finale of the First Symphony and the unrealized opera. It was the intention mysteries”, which from now on became the central matter of his life for him. "Mystery" was presented to Scriabin as a grandiose work in which all types of arts are combined - music, poetry, dance, architecture, etc. However, according to his idea, it should not have been a purely artistic work, but a very special collective "action ”, in which no more or less will take part, like all of humanity! It will not be divided into performers and listeners-spectators. The execution of the "Mystery" should entail some kind of grandiose world upheaval and the advent of some new era.

The formation of Scriabin's idea of ​​the "Mystery" was influenced by the mystical "teachings" widespread among some of the intelligentsia. Scriabin imagined India to be the venue for the performance of the “Mystery”, the “action” was to be performed in a temple specially built for this with a dome in the shape of a hemisphere, standing on the shore of the lake so that, together with its reflection in the water, a ball shape was formed - the most perfect form.

In the idea of ​​the "Mystery", despite its extreme phantasmagoria and isolation from reality, the specific historical situation of the era was reflected in its own way, albeit in a bizarrely distorted form. The feeling of the inevitable death of the existing system, the brewing crisis of bourgeois society was felt in their own way by those who welcomed the coming revolution, and those who feared it. In the minds of the idealistically and mystically inclined circles of the intelligentsia, the expectation of great social upheavals took the form of a premonition of "world catastrophes" and death, filled them with fear and aroused deeply pessimistic moods. This kind of mood found a particularly vivid reflection in the work of some symbolist poets.

However, unlike many of his contemporaries, Scriabin was fundamentally far from decadent, pessimistic moods. On the contrary, from the moment the idea of ​​the "Mystery" arose, he was seized by a tremendous spiritual uplift. Realizing his main, as it seemed to him, life "mission", he is imbued with deep optimism. "Mystery" seemed to him a great, joyful holiday of the liberation of mankind, and the brewing social storms were perceived as signs of a gradual approach to this holiday. A little later, in 1906, he wrote to his former student M. Morozova: “The political revolution in Russia ... and the revolution that I want are different things, although, of course, this revolution, like any ferment, brings the onset of the desired moment."

Thus, an exceptionally complex relationship was formed between Scriabin's general worldview and his musical creativity. As often happened in the history of art, an outstanding artist, sensitively feeling and artistically truthful, embodying certain aspects of the reality surrounding him with great power, turned out to be above his limited ideological views. Thanks to this, the musical works created by Scriabin during the years of full creative flowering are incommensurable in their objective content and historical significance with those idealistic philosophical ideas with which he subjectively associated his art.

From the moment the concept of The Mystery arose, it became for Scriabin the main, ultimate goal of his work. This idea was hatched by him until the last years of his life, while growing and expanding over the years. However, its grandiosity and, most importantly, the absolute fantasticness and real impracticability, which Scriabin himself, obviously, could not but realize in the end somewhere in the recesses of his soul, forced the composer to postpone the direct implementation of the Mystery plan, although some musical material Gradually, he nevertheless arose.

In Russian music of the early 20th century Alexander Nikolaevich Scriabin occupies a special place. Even among the many stars of the Silver Age, his figure stands out with a halo of uniqueness. Few of the artists left behind so many unsolvable mysteries, few succeeded in a relatively short life make such a breakthrough to new horizons of music. (…)

hallmark creative biography Scriabin had an extraordinary intensity spiritual development, which entailed profound transformations in the field of musical language. His ever-seeking, rebellious spirit, which knew no rest and carried away to ever new unknown worlds, resulted in rapid evolutionary changes in all areas of creativity. Therefore, it is difficult to talk about Scriabin in terms of established, stable assessments; the very dynamics of his path encourages him to take a look at this path and evaluate both its ultimate goals and the most important milestones.

Depending on the point of view of researchers, there are several approaches to periodization composer's biography of Scriabin. So, Yavorsky, who considered Scriabin's work "under the sign of youth", distinguishes two periods in it: "the period youthful life with its joys and sorrows, and a period of nervous restlessness, searching, yearning for the irretrievably departed. Yavorsky connects the second period with the end of the composer's physical youth and sees in it, as it were, the gradual elimination of innate emotional impulsivity (from the Fourth Sonata through the "Poem of Ecstasy" and "Prometheus" to the last preludes). We will return to Yavorsky's point of view, which is as interesting as it is debatable. Now it is necessary to say about another tradition, which is to a greater extent rooted in our musicology.

According to this tradition, the composer's work is considered in three main periods, which are distinguished according to the most notable milestones in his stylistic evolution. The first period covers the works of the 1880-1890s. The second coincides with the beginning of the new century and is marked by a turn to large-scale artistic and philosophical concepts (three symphonies, the Fourth and Fifth sonatas, "The Poem of Ecstasy"). The third, later one, is marked by the idea of ​​Prometheus (1910) and includes all the composer's subsequent work, unfolding under the sign of the Mystery. Of course, any classification is conditional, and one can, for example, understand the point of view of Zhitomirsky, who singles out Scriabin's works created after Prometheus as a separate period. However, it still seems to us more expedient to adhere to the above traditional scheme, taking into account the fact of the constant renewal of Scriabin's composing path and noting, as we review the "great periods", their internal qualitatively different phases.

So, first, early period. From the point of view of the final results of stylistic development, it looks like only a prelude, a prehistory. At the same time, in the works of the young Scriabin, the type of his creative personality has already been completely determined - exalted, reverently spiritualized. Subtle impressionability, combined with mental mobility, were obviously innate qualities of Scriabin's nature. Encouraged by the whole atmosphere of his early childhood - the touching care of grandmothers and aunts, L. A. Scriabina, who replaced the boy early dead mother, - these features determined a lot in the later life of the composer.

The inclination to study music manifested itself already at a very early age, as well as during the years of study in the cadet corps, where the young Scriabin was sent according to family tradition. His first, pre-conservatory teachers were G. E. Konyus, N. S. Zverev (piano) and S. I. Taneev (musical and theoretical disciplines). At the same time, Scriabin discovers a gift for writing, demonstrating not only an exciting passion for what he loves, but also great energy and determination. Children's classes were continued later at the Moscow Conservatory, which Scriabin graduated with a gold medal in 1892 in piano with V. I. Safonov (at the conservatory, in addition, he took a class of strict counterpoint with Taneyev; with A. S. who taught a class of fugue and free composition, the relationship did not work out, as a result of which Scriabin had to give up his diploma in composition).

The inner world of the young musician can be judged from his diary notes and letters. Particularly noteworthy are his letters to N. V. Sekerina. They contain the sharpness of the first love experience, and impressions of nature, and reflections on life, culture, immortality, eternity. Already here the composer appears before us not only as a lyricist and dreamer, but also as a philosopher, reflecting on the global issues of being.

The refined mentality formed since childhood was reflected both in Scriabin's music and in the nature of feeling and behavior. However, all this had not only subjective-personal prerequisites. Heightened, heightened emotionality, combined with hostility to everyday life, to everything too rough and straightforward, fully corresponded to the spiritual disposition of a certain part of the Russian cultural elite. In this sense, Scriabin's romanticism merged with the romantic spirit of the times. The latter was evidenced in those years by the thirst for “other worlds” and the general desire to live “a tenfold life” (A. A. Blok), spurred on by the feeling of the end of the era that is being lived out. It can be said that in Russia at the turn of the century, romanticism experienced a second youth, in terms of strength and sharpness of life perception, in some ways even superior to the first (we recall that among Russian composers of the 19th century, who belonged to the “new Russian school”, romantic features were noticeably corrected by the topic of the day and ideals of new realism).

In Russian music of those years, the cult of intense lyrical experience especially characterized the representatives of the Moscow composer school. Scriabin, along with Rachmaninov, was here a direct follower of Tchaikovsky. Fate also brought the young Scriabin to Rachmaninov in the musical boarding school of N. S. Zverev, an outstanding piano teacher, educator of a galaxy of Russian pianists and composers. In both Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, the creative and performing gift appeared in an indissoluble unity, and in both of them, the piano became the main instrument of self-expression. Scriabin's piano concerto (1897) embodied the characteristic features of his youthful lyrics, and the pathetic elation and high degree of artistic temperament allow us to see here a direct parallel to Rachmaninov's piano concertos.

However, the roots of Scriabin's music were not limited to the traditions of the Moscow school. From a young age, more than any other Russian composer, he gravitated towards Western romantics - first to Chopin, then to Liszt and Wagner. The orientation towards European musical culture, together with the avoidance of the soil-Russian, folklore element, was so eloquent that it later gave rise to serious disputes about the national nature of his art (this issue was most convincingly and positively covered later by Vyach. Ivanov in the article “Skryabin as national composer"). Be that as it may, those researchers of Scriabin who saw in his “Westernism” a manifestation of a craving for universality, universalism, are apparently right.

However, in connection with Chopin one can speak of a direct and immediate influence, as well as of a rare “coincidence of the mental world” (L. L. Sabaneev). The young Scriabin's predilection for the piano miniature genre goes back to Chopin, where he manifests himself as an artist of an intimate lyrical plan (the mentioned Concerto and the first sonatas do not disturb this general chamber tone of his work too much). Scriabin took almost all the genres of piano music that Chopin met: preludes, etudes, nocturnes, sonatas, impromptu, waltzes, mazurkas. But in the interpretation of them one can see their own accents and preferences. (…)

Scriabin created his first sonata in 1893, thus laying the foundation for the most important line of his work. Ten Scriabin sonatas- this is a kind of core of his composing activity, concentrating both new philosophical ideas and stylistic discoveries; at the same time, the sequence of sonatas gives a fairly complete picture of all stages of the composer's creative evolution.

In the early sonatas, Scriabin's individual features are still combined with an obvious reliance on tradition. Thus, the aforementioned First Sonata, with its figurative contrasts and abrupt changes in states, is resolved within the boundaries of the romantic aesthetics of the 19th century; the whirlwind scherzo and mournful finale evoke a direct analogy with Chopin's sonata in B-flat minor. The essay was written by a young author during a period of severe spiritual crisis associated with a hand illness; hence the special sharpness of tragic collisions, "murmuring against fate and God" (as it is said in Scriabin's draft notes). Despite the traditional appearance of the four-movement cycle, the sonata has already outlined a tendency towards the formation of a cross-cutting theme-symbol - a trend that will determine the dramatic relief of all subsequent sonatas by Scriabin (in this case this, however, is not so much a theme as a leittontonation, played out in the volume of a “gloomy” minor third).

In the Second Sonata (1897), the two parts of the cycle are united by the leitmotif of the “sea element”. In accordance with the program of the work, they depict "a quiet moonlit night on the seashore" (Andante) and "a wide, stormy expanse of sea" (Presto). The appeal to pictures of nature again reminds of the romantic tradition, although the nature of this music rather speaks of "pictures of moods". In this work, the improvisational freedom of expression is perceived in a completely Scriabinian way (it is no coincidence that the Second Sonata is called a "fantasy sonata"), as well as the demonstration of two contrasting states according to the principle "contemplation - action".

The Third Sonata (1898) also has the features of a programme, but this is already a program of a new, introspective type, more in line with Scriabin's way of thinking. The comments to the essay speak of “states of the soul”, which then rushes into the “abyss of sorrow and struggle”, then finds a fleeting “deceptive rest”, then, “giving in to the flow, swims in a sea of ​​​​feelings”, in order to finally revel in the triumph “in the storm liberated elements". These states are respectively reproduced in the four parts of the work, imbued with a common spirit of pathos and strong-willed aspiration. The result of the development is the final episode of Maestoso in the sonata, where the anthemically transformed theme of the third movement, Andante, sounds. This technique of the final transformation of the lyrical theme, adopted from Liszt, will acquire an extremely important role in Scriabin's mature compositions, and therefore the Third Sonata, where it was first realized so clearly, can be considered a direct threshold to maturity. (…)

As already noted, the style of Scriabin's compositions - and in the early period he acted mainly as a piano composer - was inseparably linked with his performing style. The pianistic gift of the composer was duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The impression was made by the unparalleled spirituality of his playing - the finest nuances, the special art of pedaling, which made it possible to achieve an almost imperceptible change in sound colors. According to V. I. Safonov, "he possessed a rare and exceptional gift: his instrument breathed." At the same time, the lack of physical strength and virtuoso brilliance in this game did not escape the attention of the listeners, which ultimately prevented Scriabin from becoming an artist on a large scale (we recall that in his youth the composer also suffered a serious illness of his right hand, which became the cause of deep emotional experiences for him ). However, the lack of sensual fullness in the sound was to some extent due to the very aesthetics of Scriabin the pianist, who did not accept the open, full-voiced sound of the instrument. It is no coincidence that halftones, ghostly, incorporeal images, “dematerialization” (to use his favorite word) attracted him so much.

On the other hand, it was not for nothing that Scriabin's performance was called the "technique of nerves." First of all, the exceptional looseness of the rhythm was meant. Scriabin played rubato, with wide deviations from the tempo, which fully corresponded to the spirit and structure of his own music. It can even be said that as a performer he achieved even greater freedom than that which could be accessible to musical notation. Interesting in this sense are the later attempts to decipher on paper the text of the author's performance of the Poem op. 32 No. 1, which differed markedly from the known printed text. A few archival recordings of Scriabin's performance (produced on the phonol and Welte Mignon rollers) allow us to note other features of his playing: a subtly felt rhythmic polyphony, the impetuous, "heavy" character of fast tempos (for example, in the prelude in E-flat minor, op. 11 ) etc.

Such a bright pianistic personality made Scriabin an ideal performer of his own compositions. If we talk about other interpreters of his music, then among them were either his direct students and followers, or artists of a special, "Scriabin" role, which was, for example, in a later time V. V. Sofronitsky.

Here, the orientation of the young Scriabin to the style of Western European romantic music, and above all to the work of Chopin, has already been noted more than once. (This orientation played the role of a certain historical relay race: for example, in the piano music of K. Szymanowski, the Chopin tradition developed already clearly in the Scriabin vein.) It should be recalled again, however, that romanticism, as a kind of dominant personality of Scriabin, was not limited to purely linguistic manifestations, but gave direction to everything development of his creativity. From here comes the pathos of Scriabin the discoverer, possessed by the spirit of renewal, which ultimately led him to abandon his former stylistic guidelines. We can say that Romanticism was both a tradition for Scriabin and at the same time an impulse to overcome it. In this regard, the words of B. L. Pasternak become clear: “In my opinion, the most amazing discoveries were made when the content that overwhelmed the artist did not give him time to think and he hurriedly spoke his new word in the old language, not understanding whether it was old or new. Thus, in the old Mozart-Fieldian language, Chopin said so much stunningly new in music that it became its second beginning. So Scriabin, almost by the means of his predecessors, renewed the feeling of music to the ground at the very beginning of his career ... "

Despite the gradual evolutionary development, the offensive new period in the work of Scriabin is marked by a rather sharp boundary. Symbolically coinciding with the beginning of the new century, this period was marked by major symphonic ideas, unexpected for the former miniature lyricist. The reason for such a turn should be sought in the emerging system of philosophical views, to which the composer now seeks to subordinate all his work.

This system was formed under the influence of the most different sources: from Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to Eastern religious teachings and modern theosophy in the version of the "Secret Doctrine" by H. P. Blavatsky. Such a motley conglomerate looks like a random compilation, if you do not take into account a very important circumstance - namely, the selection and interpretation of the named sources, characteristic of symbolist cultural environment. It is noteworthy that the composer's philosophical views took shape by 1904 - a milestone in the history of Russian symbolism and had many points of contact with the latter. Thus, Scriabin's attraction to the way of thinking of the early German romantics, to the ideas expressed by Novalis in his novel "Heinrich von Ofterdingen", was in tune with the belief in the magical power of art, which was professed by his contemporaries of the Young Symbolists. Nietzsche's individualism and the Dionysian cult were also perceived in the spirit of the time; and Schelling's doctrine of the "world soul", which played a significant role in the formation of Scriabin's ideas, owed its spread to Vl. S. Solovyov. In addition, Scriabin's reading circle included Ashvaghosha's "Life of the Buddha" translated by K. D. Balmont. As for Theosophy, the interest in it was a manifestation of a general craving for the irrational, mystical, subconscious. It should be noted that Scriabin also had personal contacts with representatives of Russian symbolism: for many years he was friends with the poet Y. Baltrushaitis; a volume of Balmont's poems served him as a reference book when working on his own poetic texts; and communication with Vyach. Ivanov during the period of work on the "Preliminary Action" had a noticeable impact on his mystery projects.

Scriabin did not have a special philosophical education, but from the beginning of the 1900s he was seriously engaged in philosophy. Participation in the circle of S. N. Trubetskoy, studying the works of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, studying the materials of the philosophical congress in Geneva - all this served as the basis for his own mental constructions. Over the years, the composer's philosophical views expanded and transformed, but their basis remained unchanged. This basis was the idea of ​​the divine meaning of creativity and the theurgic, transformative mission of the artist-creator. Under its influence, the philosophical "plot" of Scriabin's works is formed, depicting the process of development and formation of the Spirit: from the state of constraint, surrender to inert matter - to the heights of harmonizing self-affirmation. Ups and downs on this path are subject to a clearly built dramaturgical triad: languor - flight - ecstasy. The idea of ​​transformation, the victory of the spiritual over the material becomes, therefore, not only the goal, but also the theme of Scriabin's compositions, forming an appropriate set of musical means.

Under the influence of new ideas, the stylistic range of Scriabin's works is noticeably expanding. Chopin's influences give way to Liszt's and Wagner's. In addition to the method of transforming lyrical themes, Liszt is reminiscent of the spirit of rebellion and the sphere of demonic images, Wagner is reminiscent of the heroic warehouse of music and the universal, all-encompassing nature of artistic tasks.

All these qualities have already marked the first two symphonies Scriabin. In the six-movement First Symphony (1900), ending with a choral epilogue with the words “Come, all the peoples of the world, // Let us sing the glory of art,” Scriabin’s orphism, faith in the omnipotent forces of art, was embodied for the first time. In fact, this was the first attempt to realize the idea of ​​the "Mystery", which in those years was still vaguely looming. The symphony marked an important turn in the composer's worldview: from youthful pessimism to strong-willed awareness of his strength and calling to some lofty goal. In the diary entries of this time we read remarkable words: “I am still alive, I still love life, I love people ... I am going to announce my victory to them ... I am going to tell them that they are strong and powerful, that there is nothing to grieve about, that losses No! So that they are not afraid of despair, which alone can give rise to real triumph. Strong and mighty is he who has experienced despair and conquered it.”

In the Second Symphony (1901) there is no such internal program, the word does not participate in it, but the general structure of the work, crowned with solemn fanfare of the finale, is sustained in similar tones.

In both compositions, for all their novelty, the discrepancy between language and idea is still visible. Immaturity is especially marked by the final parts of the symphonies - the too declarative finale of the First and the too ceremonial, mundane - Second. About the finale of the Second Symphony, the composer himself said that “some kind of compulsion” came out here, while he needed to be given light, “light and joy.”

Scriabin found these "light and joy" in the following works - the Fourth Sonata (1903) and the Third Symphony, "The Divine Poem" (1904). The author's commentary on the Fourth Sonata speaks of a certain star, now barely twinkling, "lost in the distance," now flaring up into a "sparkling fire." Reflected in music, this poetic image turned into a whole series of linguistic finds. Such is the chain of crystal-fragile harmonies in the initial “star theme”, which ends with the “melting chord”, or the “flight theme” of the second movement, Prestissimo volando, where the struggle of rhythm and meter gives the feeling of a swift movement rushing through all obstacles. In the same part, before the reprise section, the next effort is depicted by “suffocating” truncated triplets (more precisely, quartoles with pauses on the last beats). And the coda is already a typically Scriabin final apotheosis with all the attributes of ecstatic figurativeness: radiant major (gradually replacing the minor mode in Scriabin's works), dynamics fff, ostinato, “bubbling” chordal background, “trumpet sounds” of the main theme… There are two parts in the Fourth Sonata, but they are merged with each other as phases of development of the same image: according to the transformations of the “star theme”, the languidly contemplative mood of the first part turns into an effective and jubilant pathos of the second.

The same tendency to compress the cycle is observed in the Third Symphony. Its three parts - "Struggle", "Enjoyment", "Divine Game" - are connected by the attacca technique. As in the Fourth Sonata, the symphony reveals the dramaturgical triad "languor - flight - ecstasy", but the first two links in it are reversed: the starting point is the active image (first part), which is then replaced by the sensual-contemplative sphere of "Delights" (second part) and the joyfully elated Divine Game (final).

According to the author's program, "The Divine Poem" represents "the evolution of human consciousness, torn off from past beliefs and mysteries ... consciousness that has passed through pantheism to the joyful and intoxicating assertion of its freedom and the unity of the universe." In this "evolution", in this growing self-consciousness of a man-god, the defining moment, a kind of starting point, is the heroic, strong-willed principle. (…)

The "Divine Poem" was perceived by contemporaries as a kind of revelation. The new was felt both in the warehouse of images and in the free, full of contrasts and surprises character of the general sound flow. “God, what was that music! - B. L. Pasternak recalled her, describing his first impressions. – The symphony was constantly collapsing and collapsing, like a city under artillery fire, and everything was built and grew from debris and destruction ... The tragic power of the composition solemnly showed its tongue to everything decrepitly recognized and majestically stupid and was swept away to madness, to boyishness, playfully spontaneous and free, like fallen Angel".

The Fourth Sonata and the Third Symphony occupy a purely central position in Scriabin's work. The concentration of the utterance is combined in them, especially in the "Divine Poem", with a variety of sound palette and the still clearly felt experience of predecessors (parallels with Liszt and Wagner). If we talk about a fundamentally new quality of these compositions, then it is connected primarily with the sphere of ecstasy.

The nature of ecstatic states in Scriabin's music is quite complex and cannot be unambiguously defined. Their secret is hidden in the depths of the composer’s personality, although here, obviously, both the “purely Russian craving for extremeness” (B. L. Pasternak) and the general desire for the era to live a “tenfold life” affected. In close proximity to Scriabin is the cult of Dionysian, orgiastic ecstasy, which was glorified by Nietzsche and then developed by his Russian followers, primarily Vyach. Ivanov. However, Scriabin's "frenzy" and "intoxication" also show his own, deeply individual psychological experience. Based on the nature of his music, as well as verbal explanations in the author's remarks, commentaries, philosophical notes and his own poetic texts, it can be concluded that Scriabin's ecstasy is a creative act that has a more or less distinct erotic coloring. The polarity of "I" and "not-I", the resistance of "inert matter" and the thirst for its transformation, the joyful triumph of the achieved harmony - all these images and concepts become dominant for the composer. The combination of "supreme sophistication" with "supreme grandiosity" is also indicative, coloring all his compositions from now on.

With the greatest completeness and consistency, such a figurative sphere was embodied in the "Poem of Ecstasy" (1907) - a composition for a large symphony orchestra with the participation of five pipes, an organ and bells. In comparison with the Third Symphony, there is no longer a “struggle”, but soaring in certain heights, not the conquest of the world, but the bliss of owning it. Elevation above the ground and emphasizing emphatically vivid emotions attract attention all the more because the poetic text to the Poem still mentions the “wild horror of torment”, and the “worm of satiety”, and “the decomposing poison of monotony”. At the same time, this poetic version of the work (completed and published by Scriabin in 1906) has tangible parallels with the main, musical version. The poetic text is quite detailed, structurally rhythmic (the refrain is the lines: “The playing spirit, the wishing spirit, the spirit that creates everything with a dream ...”) and has a directed, “crescendoing” dramaturgy (the final lines of the Poem: “And the universe resounded with a joyful cry “I am! "").

At the same time, Scriabin himself did not regard the literary text of the Poem as a commentary on the performance of music. Most likely, we have before us a characteristic example of the syncretism of his thinking, when the image that excited the composer was simultaneously expressed both in the language of music and through philosophical and poetic metaphors.

Scriabin wrote The Poem of Ecstasy while living abroad, which did not prevent him from following the events of the first Russian revolution with interest. According to the Plekhanovs, he even intended to provide his symphonic opus with the epigraph "Get up, get up, working people!" True, he expressed this intention with some embarrassment. It is impossible not to pay tribute to his embarrassment: to associate in this way the states of the “spirit playing, the spirit of desire, the spirit surrendering to the bliss of love” can only be a very big stretch. At the same time, the electrified atmosphere of the era was reflected in this score in its own way, defining its inspired, even inflated emotional tone.

In The Poem of Ecstasy, Scriabin first comes to the type of one-part composition, which is based on a complex of themes. These seven themes in the context of the author's comments and remarks are deciphered as the themes of "dream", "flight", "creations that have arisen", "anxiety", "will", "self-affirmation", "protest". Their symbolic interpretation is emphasized by their structural immutability: the themes are not so much subject to motive work as they become the subject of intense coloristic variation. Hence the increased role of the background, entourage - tempo, dynamics, rich amplitude of orchestral colors. The structural identity of the themes-symbols is interesting. They are brief constructions, where the primordially romantic lexeme of impulse and languor - a leap followed by a chromatic slip - is formed into a symmetrical "circular" construction. Such a constructive principle gives the whole a tangible inner unity. (…)

Thus, the traditional sonata form appears noticeably modified in the Poem of Ecstasy: we have before us a multi-phase spiral composition, the essence of which is not the dualism of figurative spheres, but the dynamics of an ever-increasing ecstatic state.

A similar type of form was used by Scriabin in the Fifth Sonata (1908), a companion to the Poem of Ecstasy. The idea of ​​the formation of the spirit here acquires a distinct shade of a creative act, as evidenced by the lines of the epigraph already borrowed from the text of the Poem of Ecstasy:

I call you to life, hidden aspirations!
You drowned in the dark depths
creative spirit, you fearful
Embryos of life, I bring you boldness!

In the music of the sonata, respectively, the chaos of the “dark depths” (opening passages), and the image of the “life of embryos” (the second entry theme, Languido), and the “daring” of active, strong-willed sounds are guessed. As in the "Poem of Ecstasy", the motley thematic kaleidoscope is organized according to the laws of sonata form: the "flying" main and lyrical side parts are separated by an imperative, with a touch of Satanism, binder (Misterioso's note); an echo of the same sphere is perceived Allegro fantastico of the final installment. At the new stages of musical development, the presence of the main image in a constrained contemplative state is noticeably reduced, the increasing intensity of movement leads in the code to a transformed version of the second introductory theme (estatico episode). All this is very reminiscent of the end of the previous, Fourth Sonata, if not for one important touch: after the culminating sounds of the estatico, the music returns to the mainstream of the flight movement and breaks off with whirlwind passages of the initial theme. Instead of affirming the traditional major tonic, a breakthrough is made into the sphere of unstable harmonies, and within the framework of the sonata concept, there is a return to the image of the original chaos (it is no coincidence that S. I. Taneev sarcastically remarked about the Fifth Sonata that it “does not end, but stops”).

We will return to this extremely characteristic moment of the work. Here it is worth noting the interaction in the sonata of two opposite tendencies. One is emphatically "teleological": it comes from the romantic idea of ​​the final comprehension-transformation and is associated with a steady striving for the final. The other, rather, has a symbolist nature and causes fragmentation, understatement, mysterious transience of images (in this sense, not only the sonata, but also its individual themes “do not end, but stop”, breaking off with bar pauses and as if disappearing into a bottomless space). The result of the interaction of these tendencies is such an ambiguous ending of the work: it symbolizes both the apotheosis of the creative mind and the ultimate incomprehensibility of being.

The Fifth Sonata and the "Poem of Ecstasy" represent a new stage in Scriabin's ideological and stylistic evolution. The new quality manifested itself in the composer's coming to the one-part form of the poem type, which from now on becomes optimal for him. Poemness can be understood in this case both as a specific freedom of expression, and as the presence in the work of a philosophical and poetic program, an internal “plot”. Compression of the cycle into a one-part structure, on the one hand, reflected the immanent musical processes, namely, Scriabin's desire for an extremely concentrated expression of thoughts. On the other hand, “formal monism” (V. G. Karatygin) meant for the composer an attempt to realize the principle of higher unity, to recreate an all-encompassing formula of being: it is no coincidence that during these years he was interested in the philosophical concepts of the “universum”, “absolute”, which he finds in works of Schelling and Fichte.

One way or another, Scriabin invents his own, original type of poem composition. In many respects, it is oriented towards Liszt, however, it differs from the latter in greater rigor and constancy. The thematic multiplicity as a result of the compaction of the cycle to a single-movement structure does not greatly shake the proportions of the sonata scheme in Scriabin. Rationalism in the field of form will continue to be a characteristic feature of Scriabin's style.

Returning to the Fifth Sonata and the "Poem of Ecstasy", it should be emphasized that within the framework of the average period of creativity, these compositions played the role of a certain result. If in the first two symphonies the concept of the Spirit established itself at the level of an idea, and in the Fourth Sonata and the Divine Poem it found adequate expression in the sphere of language, then in this pair of works it reached the level of form, giving perspective to all further major creations of the composer.

O. Mandelstam

Late period Scriabin's work does not have such a clear boundary that separated the early and middle periods. However, the changes that his style and his ideas underwent in the last years of his life indicate the onset of a qualitatively new stage in the composer's biography.

At this new stage, the tendencies that characterized Scriabin's works of previous years reach their utmost sharpness. Thus, the everlasting duality of Scriabin’s world, gravitating towards “highest grandiosity” and “highest refinement”, is expressed, on the one hand, in a deepening into the sphere of purely subjective emotions, extremely detailed and sophisticated, and on the other hand, in a thirst for the great, cosmic in scope. On the one hand, Scriabin conceives large compositions of a super-musical and even super-artistic scale, such as "The Poem of Fire" and "Preliminary Action" - the first act of the "Mystery". On the other hand, he again pays attention to the piano miniature, composing exquisite pieces with intriguing titles: “Strangeness”, “Mask”, “Riddle”…

The later period was not uniform in regard to its temporary deployment. Generally speaking, there are two phases. One, covering the turn of the 1900-1910s, is associated with the creation of Prometheus, the other, post-Prometheus, includes the last sonatas, preludes and poems, which are marked by further searches in the field of language and close proximity to the concept of the Mystery.

"Prometheus" ("The Poem of Fire", 1910), a work for a large symphony orchestra and piano, with organ, choir and light keyboard, was undoubtedly Scriabin's most significant creation "in the pole of grandiosity." Arising at the point of the golden section of the composer's path, it became the gathering focus of almost all of Scriabin's insights.

Noteworthy is the program "Poems", associated with ancient myth about Prometheus, who stole the heavenly fire and gave it to people. The image of Prometheus, judging by the works of the same name by Bryusov or Vyach. Ivanov, was very much in line with the mythological disposition of the Symbolists and the significance attached in their poetics to the mythologeme of fire. Scriabin also constantly gravitates towards the fiery element - let's mention his poem "To the Flame" and the play "Dark Lights". In the latter, the dual, ambivalent image of this element is especially noticeable, as if including an element of a magical spell. The demonic, god-fighting principle is also present in Scriabin's "Prometheus", in which the features of Lucifer are guessed. In this regard, we can talk about the influence of the theosophical teachings on the idea of ​​the work, and above all, the “Secret Doctrine” of H. P. Blavatsky, which the composer studied with great interest. Scriabin was fascinated by both the demonic hypostasis of his hero (his statement is known: “Satan is the yeast of the Universe”), and his luminous mission. Blavatsky interprets Lucifer primarily as a "bearer of light" (lux + fero); Perhaps this symbolism partly predetermined the idea of ​​light counterpoint in Scriabin's Poem.

Interestingly, on the cover of the first edition of the score by the Belgian artist Jean Delville, commissioned by Scriabin, Androgyn's head was depicted, included in the "world lyre" and framed by comets and spiral nebulae. In this image of a mythological creature that combines male and feminine, the composer saw the ancient Luciferic symbol.

However, if we talk about pictorial analogues, and not at the level of signs and emblems, but in essence of artistic images, then Scriabin's Prometheus evokes associations with M. A. Vrubel. In both artists, the demonic principle appears in the dual unity of the evil spirit and the creative spirit. Both of them are dominated by a blue-lilac color scheme: according to Scriabin's light and sound system, fixed in the Luce line (see below for more details), it is the key of F-sharp - the main key of the Poem of Fire - that corresponds to it. It is curious that Blok saw his “Stranger” in the same scale - this, according to the poet, “a devilish fusion from many worlds, mostly blue and purple” ...

As you can see, with an external connection with the ancient plot, Scriabin interpreted Prometheus in a new way, in tune with the artistic and philosophical reflections of his time. For him, Prometheus is primarily a symbol; according to the author's program, he personifies the "creative principle", "the active energy of the universe"; it is "fire, light, life, struggle, effort, thought." In such a maximally generalized interpretation of the image, it is easy to see a connection with the already familiar idea of ​​the Spirit, the idea of ​​becoming world harmony out of chaos. The successive relationship with previous compositions, especially with the "Poem of Ecstasy", generally characterizes this composition, for all the novelty and unprecedentedness of its concept. Common is the reliance on the multi-theme form of the poem type and the dramaturgy of continuous ascent - typically Scriabin's logic of waves without recessions. Here and there, symbolic themes appear that enter into complex relationships with the laws of sonata form. (…)

Note (…) the similarity with general plan"Poems of Ecstasy": in both works, the development is impulsive, undulating, starting from the antithesis of languor - flight; here and there fragmentary, kaleidoscopically motley material submits to a steady movement towards the final apotheosis (where the sound of the choir is added to the orchestral colors in the second case).

However, this, perhaps, ends the similarity between Prometheus and Scriabin's previous works. The general coloring of the “Poem of Fire” is already perceived as something new, due, first of all, to the harmonic finds of the author. The sound base of the composition is the “Promethean six-tone”, which, in comparison with the previously used whole-tone complexes, carries a more complex range of emotional nuances, including the expressiveness of semitone and low-tone intonations. "Blue-lilac Twilight" really flows into the world of Scriabin's music, which until recently was permeated with "golden light" (to use Blok's well-known metaphor).

But there is another important difference here from the same "Poem of Ecstasy". If the latter was distinguished by a certain subjective pathos, then the world of Prometheus is more objective and universal. There is also no leading image in it, similar to the “theme of self-affirmation” in the previous symphonic opus. The solo piano, at first as if challenging the orchestral mass, then drowns in the general sounds of the orchestra and choir. According to the observation of some researchers (A. A. Alshvang), this property of the "Poem of Fire" reflected an essential moment in the worldview of the late Scriabin - namely, his turn from solipsism to objective idealism.

Here, however, serious reservations are required regarding the peculiarities of Scriabin's philosophical and religious experience. The paradox was that Scriabin's objective idealism (one of the impetus for which was Schelling's ideas) was an extreme degree of solipsism, since the recognition of God as some kind of absolute power became for him the recognition of God in himself. But in the composer's creative practice, this new stage of self-deification led to a noticeable shift in psychological accents: the author's personality seems to recede into the shadows - as a mouthpiece of the divine voice, as an implementer of what is predetermined from above. “... This feeling of being called, destined to carry out some single task,” B. F. Schlozer reasonably notes, “gradually replaced in Scriabin the consciousness of a freely set goal, to which he aspired while playing, and from which he, in the same way, could voluntarily refuse. In him, in this way, the consciousness of the individual was absorbed by the consciousness of the deed. And further: “From theomachism through self-deification, Scriabin thus came through his inner experience to the comprehension of his nature, human nature, as a self-sacrifice of the Divine.”

For the time being, we will not comment on the last lines of this quotation, which characterize the outcome of Scriabin's spiritual development and are related to his mystery plans. It is only important to note that already in "Prometheus" this way of thinking turned into an increased objectivity of musical ideas. As if Scriabin's "Spirit", no longer feeling the need for self-affirmation, turns its gaze to its creation - the world cosmos, admiring its colors, sounds and aromas. Fascinating brilliance in the absence of the former "tendentiousness" is a characteristic feature of the "Poem of Fire", giving reason to perceive this work among the composer's later ideas.

However, this brilliance of the sound palette is by no means valuable in itself. We have already mentioned the symbolic interpretation of the musical themes of Prometheus, which act as carriers (sound equivalents) of universal cosmic meanings. The method of "symbol-writing" reaches a special concentration in the "Poem", given that the "Promethean chord" itself - the sound basis of the work - is perceived as the "chord of the Pleroma", a symbol of the fullness and mysterious power of existence. Here it is appropriate to speak about the meaning that the esoteric plan of the "Poem of Fire" as a whole has.

This plan goes directly back to the mystery of the "world order" and includes, along with the symbols mentioned, some other hidden elements. It has already been said about the influence of theosophical teachings on the idea of ​​the Poem of Fire. Scriabin's work connects with Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine" both the very image of Prometheus (see Blavatsky's chapter "Prometheus - Titan"), and the theory of light-sound correspondences. Numerical symbolism also seems not accidental in this series: the six-sided “crystal” of the Promethean chord is similar to the “Solomon seal” (or the six-pointed symbol that is symbolically depicted at the bottom of the score cover); in the Poem there are 606 measures - a sacred number that corresponds to the triadic symmetry in medieval church painting associated with the theme of the Eucharist (six apostles to the right and left of Christ).

Of course, the scrupulous counting of time units and the overall alignment of the form, including the precisely observed proportions of the “golden section” (the composer’s surviving working sketches speak of this work), can be regarded as evidence of rational thinking, as well as familiarity with the metrotectonic method of G. E. Konius ( who was one of Scriabin's teachers). But in the context of the concept of Prometheus, these features acquire an additional semantic load.

In the same connection, we note the purely rationality of the harmonic system: the “total harmony” of the Promethean six-tone can be perceived as the embodiment of the theosophical principle “Omnia ab et in uno omnia” - “everything in everything”. Of the other significant moments of the work, it is worth paying attention to the final part of the choir. The sounds sung here e - a - o - ho, a - o - ho- this is not just a vocalization of vowels, performing a purely phonic function, but a variant of the sacred seven-vowel word, personifying in esoteric teachings driving forces space.

Of course, all these hidden meanings, which are addressed to the “initiates” and which can sometimes only be guessed at, form a very specific layer of content and in no way cancel the direct power emotional impact"Poems of Fire". But the very presence of them in the late Scriabin serves as the most important symptom: his art is less and less satisfied with purely aesthetic tasks and more and more strives to become action, magic, a signal of connection with the world mind. Ultimately, such messages became very important for Scriabin in his approach to the Mystery.

However, even as a purely artistic phenomenon, Prometheus was a milestone in Scriabin's composing path. The degree of innovative radicalism here is such that the work has become a kind of emblem of the creative quest of the 20th century. The author of the “Poem of Fire” is close to the avant-garde artists by the study of the artistic “limit”, the search for a goal at the edge and beyond the edge of art. At the micro level, this manifested itself in the details of harmonic thinking, at the macro level, in going beyond music into new, previously unknown forms of synthesis (“light symphony”). Let's take a closer look at these two sides of the work.

In Prometheus, Scriabin first comes to the mentioned technique of pitch determinism, when the entire musical fabric is subordinated to the chosen harmonic complex. “There is not a single extra note here. This is a strict style, ”the composer himself spoke about the language of the Poem. This technique is historically correlated with the advent of A. Schoenberg to dodecaphony and is among the largest musical discoveries of the 20th century. For Scriabin himself, it meant a new stage in the embodiment of the principle of the Absolute in music: the “formal monism” of the “Poem of Ecstasy” was followed by the “harmonic monism” of the “Poem of Fire”.

But besides pitch combinatorics, the very nature of Scriabin's harmonic complexes, oriented, unlike Schoenberg's dodecaphony, to the chordal vertical is also noteworthy. The latter was associated by Sabaneev with the concept of "harmony-timbre" and contained the germ of a new sonority. In this regard, the actual phonic side of the Promethean chord, which is demonstrated by the first bars of the "Poem of Fire", attracts attention. It is known that Rachmaninoff, listening to the work, was intrigued by the unusual timbre coloring of this fragment. The secret was not orchestration, but harmony. Together with the fourth arrangement and the pedal held for a long time, it creates a bewitchingly colorful effect and is perceived as a prototype of the sonorous cluster - another insight of Scriabin into the music of the future.

Finally, the structural nature of the "Promethean six-sound" is indicative. Having arisen by alteration of the chords of the dominant group, during the creation of the "Poem of Fire" it is emancipated from the traditional tonality and is considered by the author as an independent structure of overtone origin. As shown by Scriabin himself in the mentioned working sketches of Prometheus, it is formed by the upper overtones of the natural scale; here is a variant of its quarter arrangement. The later works of the composer, where this structure is supplemented by new sounds, reveal a desire to cover the entire twelve-tone scale and a potential focus on ultrachromatic. True, Scriabin, in the words of Sabaneev, only looked into the "ultrachromatic abyss", never going beyond the traditional temperament in his works. However, his arguments about “intermediate sounds” and even about the possibility of creating special tools for extracting quarter tones are characteristic: they testify in favor of the existence of a certain micro-interval utopia. The harmonic innovations of Prometheus also served as a starting point in this respect.

What was the light part of the “Poem of Fire”? In the line Luce, the top line of the score, with the help of long-held notes, Scriabin recorded the tonal-harmonic plan of the work and at the same time its color-light dramaturgy. As conceived by the composer, the space of the concert hall should be painted in different tones, in accordance with the changing tonal-harmonic foundations. At the same time, the Luce part, intended for a special light clavier, was based on the analogy between the colors of the spectrum and the keys of the fourth-quint circle (according to it, the red color corresponds to the tone before, orange - salt, yellow - re etc.; chromatic tonal foundations correspond to transitional colors, from purple to pink).

Scriabin sought to adhere to this quasi-scientific analogy between the spectral and tonal series for the reason that he wanted to see some objective factors behind the experiment he was undertaking, namely, the manifestation of the law of higher unity that governs everything and everyone. At the same time, in his vision of music, he proceeded from synopsy - the innate psycho-physiological ability of color perception of sounds, which is always individual and unique (Sabaneev recorded discrepancies in color hearing in Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov, citing comparative tables). This is the contradiction of Scriabin's light and music idea and the difficulty of its implementation. They are also aggravated by the fact that the composer imagined a more complex pictorial series, not reducible to simple illumination of space. He dreamed of moving lines and shapes, huge "pillars of fire", "fluid architecture", etc.

During the lifetime of Scriabin, it was not possible to implement the lighting project. And it was not only the technical unpreparedness of this experiment: the project itself contained serious contradictions, if we compare the sophisticated visual fantasies of the composer with the extremely schematic view to which they were reduced in the part of Luce. As for the engineering and technical initiative, it was destined to play an important role in the future fate of the "light symphony" and light music in general - up to the latest experiments with moving abstract painting, which is able to give an effect close to "fluid architecture", and " pillars of fire...

Let us mention in this connection such inventions as the optophonic piano by V. D. Baranova-Rossine (1922), the color-light installation by M. A. Skryabina, and the electronic optical sound synthesizer ANS (Alexander Nikolaevich Skryabin) by E. A. Murzin (in the Museum of A. N. Scriabin), the Prometheus instrument, developed by the design bureau at the Kazan Aviation Institute, and the Color Music apparatus by K. N. Leontiev (1960-1970s), etc.

Interestingly, as an aesthetic phenomenon, Scriabin's idea of ​​visible music turned out to be extremely consonant with the artists of the Russian avant-garde. So, in parallel with Prometheus, V. V. Kandinsky (together with the composer F. A. Hartman and the dancer A. Sakharov) worked on the composition “Yellow Sound”, where he realized his own musical perception of color. M. V. Matyushin, the author of the music for the futuristic performance Victory over the Sun, was looking for links between vision and hearing. And A. S. Lurie in the piano cycle “Forms in the Air” created a kind of quasi-cubist musical notation.

True, all this did not yet mean that the “Poem of Fire” was expected in the 20th century exclusively by the “green light”. The attitude towards Scriabin's synthetic idea, as well as towards the "total work of art" in the Wagnerian or Symbolist version in general, changed over the years - up to the skeptical denial of such experiments by composers of the anti-romantic direction. I. F. Stravinsky in his "Musical Poetics" postulated the self-sufficiency of musical expression. This self-sufficiency was defended even more decisively by P. Hindemith, who created a caustic parody of the Gesamtkunstwerk in his book The World of the Composer. The situation changed somewhat in the second half of the century, when, along with the “rehabilitation” of the romantic way of thinking, interest in the problems of synesthesia, in the artistic forms of “complex feeling”, was renewed. Here, both technical and aesthetic prerequisites began to contribute to the revival of the light symphony - the guarantee of the ongoing life of the Poem of Fire.

But let's get back to Scriabin's composing path. The writing of Prometheus was preceded by a rather long period of time, from 1904 to 1909, when Scriabin lived mainly abroad (in Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium; tours to the USA also belong to 1906-1907). Judging by the fact that it was then that the most fundamental works were created or conceived, from the Divine Poem to the Poem of Fire, these were years of increasing creative intensity and spiritual growth. Scriabin's activities were not limited to concert tours. His compositional ideas were updated, the circle of philosophical readings and contacts expanded (including communication with representatives of European theosophical societies). In parallel, Scriabin's fame grew in Russia and abroad.

It is not surprising that upon his return to Moscow, he was already a crowned master, surrounded by an environment of devoted admirers and enthusiasts. His music was performed by the most prominent pianists and conductors - I. Hoffman, V. I. Buyukli, M. N. Meichik, A. I. Ziloti, S. A. Koussevitzky and others. included K. S. Saradzhev, B. V. Derzhanovsky, M. S. Nemenova-Lunts, A. Ya. Mogilevsky, A. B. Goldenweiser, E. A. Beckman-Shcherbina (later the circle was transformed into the Scriabin Society).

At the same time, during these last five years of the composer's life (1910 - 1915), the circle of his direct human contact noticeably narrowed. In the apartment on Nikolo-Peskovsky, where Scriabin's music was played and there were talks about his "Mystery", an atmosphere of some unanimity reigned (carefully guarded by the composer's second wife, T. F. Schlozer). However, among the visitors to the Scriabin house were not only enthusiastic listeners, but also enterprising interlocutors. Suffice it to say that N. A. Berdyaev, S. N. Bulgakov, M. O. Gershenzon, Vyach. I. Ivanov.

The composer had a particularly close friendship with the latter. She was imprinted in one of the poems by Vyach. Ivanov, where there are, for example, the following lines:

A two-year term was given to us by fate.
I went to him - "on the light";
He visited my house. Waiting for a poet
For a new anthem high reward, –
And remembers my family clavier
His fingers are magical touches ...

The poet later wrote: “... the mystical underlying foundation of worldview turned out to be common for us, many particulars of intuitive comprehension were common, and in particular, the view of art was common ... I recall this rapprochement with reverent gratitude.” We will return to the general view of art later. It should also be noted here that such a circle of contacts, with its well-known tightness, was very favorable to the plans and ideas that Scriabin hatched in the last years of his life.

Actually, they all came down to one thing - to the idea and implementation of the "Mystery". Scriabin conceived the "Mystery" as a grandiose quasi-liturgical act, in which different types of art would be combined and which would finally accomplish a universal spiritually transforming act. This idea, towards which the composer went very consistently and purposefully, was the result of an exaggerated sense of his own "I". But Scriabin came to it not only through the path of a solipsistic philosopher. He drew the consciousness of his own divine mission in a brilliant musical talent, which allowed him to feel himself the master in the realm of sounds, and therefore, the executor of some higher will. After all, the synthesis of all types of artistic and in general human activity in the coming "cumulative work of art", which both Scriabin and his symbolist contemporaries dreamed of, should be accomplished, according to their ideas, under the sign of the "spirit of music" and under the auspices of music as the highest of the arts. From this point of view, Scriabin's belief in his own vocation and intention to immediately put his project into practice look psychologically motivated.

The last creation of Scriabin was supposed to concentrate the magical power of art by means of artistic synthesis and by means of a rite-ritual, in which there would be no actors and spectators, and everyone would be only participants and initiates. Following the program of the "Mysteries", the "priests" are, as it were, involved in some kind of cosmogonic history, observing the development and dying human races: from the birth of matter to its spiritualization and reunion with God the Creator. The act of this reunion is supposed to mean "the fire of the universe", or universal ecstasy.

In the description by Scriabin himself of the setting for the performance of the Mystery, legendary India and a temple on the lake are mentioned; processions, dances, incense; special, solemn clothes; symphonies of colors, aromas, touches; whispers, unknown noises, sunset rays and twinkling stars; incantatory recitatives, trumpet voices, brass fatal harmonies. These semi-fantastic dreams were combined with quite earthly affairs: finding funds for the construction of a special room with an amphitheater where the action was to be played out, taking care of the performing musicians, discussing the upcoming trip to India ...

Scriabin did not realize his project, his plans were disrupted by his sudden death. From what he had planned, he managed to write only a poetic text and fragmentary musical sketches of the "Preliminary Act" - the first act of the "Mystery".

The idea of ​​"Preliminary Action", born not without the influence of Vyach. Ivanov, arose, apparently, not by chance. This work was conceived by the composer as an approach to the "Mystery", but in fact it was supposed to be its compromise, realizable version - it was too grandiose main idea, the utopianity of which Scriabin, perhaps subconsciously felt. The surviving sketches allow us to guess the nature of the alleged music - refined, complex and meaningful. The Scriabin Museum has 40 sheets of draft sketches of the "Preliminary Action". Subsequently, attempts were made to reconstruct it - either in the form of a choral composition with the part of a reciter, where Scriabin's verse text was used (S. V. Protopopov), or in a symphonic, orchestral version (A. P. Nemtin).

But the music of the Mystery can also be judged by the written, finished compositions of Scriabin, which he created in the last years of his life. The sonatas and piano miniatures that appeared after "Prometheus" became, in essence, the bricks of the future musical building and at the same time - the "initiatory school" for the listeners-participants of the "Mystery".

Of the five late sonatas almost textually resonates with the mentioned sketches of the "Preliminary Action" Eighth (perhaps that is why Scriabin himself did not play it on the stage, seeing in it a fragment of a future more important idea). On the whole, the sonatas are close to each other in the sophistication of the language and the reliance on a single-movement poem composition, already tested before by Scriabin. At the same time, the world of the late Scriabin appears here in various guises.

So, the Seventh Sonata, which the composer called the “white mass”, is close to the “Poem of Fire” in terms of the structure of music. The composition is permeated with magical, incantatory elements: fatal "blows of fate", swift "cosmic" whirlwinds, the incessant sound of "bells" - sometimes quiet and mysteriously detached, sometimes booming, like an alarm. The music of the Sixth is more chamber, gloomy concentrated, where in the harmony of the “Promethean six-tones” minor, low-frequency colors dominate.

The contrast between the Ninth and Tenth Sonatas is even stronger. In the Ninth Sonata, the "black mass", the fragile, crystal clear theme of the side part turns into an infernal march in the reprise. In this act of “desecration of the sacred” and rampant diabolism (in place of the former apotheoses of divine light), the demonic line of Scriabin’s music, touched upon earlier in the Ironies, the Satanic Poem and some other compositions, culminates. (Sabaneev connects the idea of ​​the Ninth Sonata with the paintings by N. Shperling hanging in the Scriabin house. “Most of all,” he writes, “A. N. complained about the picture where the knight kisses the emerging hallucination of the medieval Mother of God.”)

The Tenth Sonata is conceived quite differently. This magical beauty of music, as if filled with fragrance and birdsong, the composer himself associated with the forest, with earthly nature; at the same time, he spoke of its mystical, otherworldly content, seeing in it, as it were, the last act of the disembodiment of matter, "the destruction of physicality."

In area piano miniatures A sign of the late style is a specifically interpreted programming. In itself, the program principle in piano music at the turn of the century was not a novelty - one can recall at least the preludes of C. Debussy. Scriabin is also close to Debussy by the nature of his interpretation: a minimum of external pictorialism and a maximum of psychologism. But even in this comparison, Scriabin's music looks more introspective: in terms of the titles of the pieces, it is not Clouds or Steps in the Snow, but Mask, Strangeness, Desire, Whimsical Poem...

Usually, programming entails an element of figurative concretization, and this element is present to some extent in Scriabin's plays. Thus, “Garlands” are based on the form of a chain of small sections, and “Fragility” is framed in a functionally unstable, “fragile” structure, which can be interpreted both as a sonata form without development, and as a three-part form with a coda (synthetic form type). At the same time, such specification is very conditional. Appealing as if to non-musical realities, Scriabin never goes beyond the bounds of immanent musical expressiveness, only sharpening and concentrating it in a new way.

As already noted, in the later period, Scriabin's work continued to evolve actively. This, in fact, forces us to single out the last, post-Promethean stage in it, which indicates further changes in the field of musical language and at the same time - about the results of the entire composer's path.

One of these outcomes is the increased hierarchy of the language system, where harmony enjoys the right of absolute monopoly. It subjugates all other means of expression, including melody. Such a dependence of the horizontal on the vertical, or rather, the idea of ​​a melody as a harmony decomposed in time, Scriabin himself defined by the concept of “harmony-melodies”. The whole "Poem of Ecstasy" is already based on "harmony-melodies". Starting with Prometheus, where the principle of complete pitch determinism of the whole operates, this phenomenon is recognized as a regularity.

And yet it would be wrong to speak in this connection about the complete absorption of the melodic principle by the harmony. Scriabin's melody also had its own logic of evolutionary development. From the extended romantic cantilena of his early opuses, the composer went to the aphoristic type of utterance, to the motivic fragmentation of the line and the increased suggestive expressiveness of individual intonations. This expressiveness was exacerbated by the symbolic interpretation of themes in the mature and later periods (let's call for example the theme of "will" in the "Poem of Fire" or the theme of "dormant shrine" from the Ninth Sonata). Therefore, one can agree with Sabaneev, who noted that in his later years, Scriabin, although he ceases to be a melodist, becomes a “thematicist”.

If we talk about the proper harmonic system of the late Scriabin, then it developed along the path of further complication. The logic of its development consisted of two opposite tendencies. On the one hand, the circle of functionally comparable elements narrowed more and more, eventually reducing to one type of authentic sequences. On the other hand, as this narrowing progressed, the very unit of Scriabin's harmony, namely the chord vertical, became more and more complex and multi-component. In the compositions of later opuses, after the six-tone "Promethean chord", eight- and ten-tone complexes appear, which are based on the semitone-tone scale. (…)

Rhythm and texture generally appear in the late Scriabin in a renewed function. It is they who sometimes stimulate the linear stratification of harmony. A special role belongs to such cases of ostinato (as in the prelude just mentioned). In addition to influencing harmony, the ostinato principle carries an independent meaning. Together with him, Scriabin’s music, which is “anthropocentric” in its origins, cultivating the quiveringly changeable moment of human feeling, seems to be invaded by some kind of transpersonal force, either the “clock of Eternity”, or the infernal danse macabre, as in the Ninth Sonata or in the Dark Flame ". One way or another, before us is another innovation of recent years, another evidence of the ongoing composer's search.

The late period of Scriabin's work raises many questions, and one of them is related to his qualitative assessment. The fact is that the official Soviet musicology regarded him, rather, in a negative way. The disappearance in later compositions of contrasts - consonance and dissonance, ups and downs, tonics and non-tonics - was seen as a symptom of a crisis, a final impasse. Indeed, the figurative-stylistic range of Scriabin's music narrowed over the years; restrictions were imposed by the very principle of "total" harmony, reliance on the same type of sound structure. At the same time, the composer's language system was not absolutely hermetic; new patterns arose in place of old patterns. The narrowing was accompanied by deepening and detailing, penetration into the microparticles of sound matter. The renewed, specifically condensed expressiveness, examples of which we have seen above, determines the unconditional value of later opuses.

However, the question of assessing the late period has another side. We have already cited the position of Yavorsky, who heard in the later works of Scriabin "the swan song of the soul", "the last breath of a vanishing wave." He considers the creative path of the composer as something complete and exhausted. With this approach, the very concept of the “late period” acquires not a chronological, but some essential meaning.

B. V. Asafiev and V. G. Karatygin saw this path differently - not a closed arc, but a rapidly ascending straight line. Sudden death interrupted Scriabin's work on the threshold of the most daring discoveries - this view was also held by many other Scriabin researchers. Which position is correct? Even today it is difficult to give an unambiguous answer to this question. In any case, what, according to Yavorsky, was emotional and psychological exhaustion, was not so in terms of language and aesthetics. The innovations of the late Scriabin rushed into the future, they were continued and developed in subsequent times. In this sense, the concept of the "ascending straight line" is already more valid.

And from the point of view of the very path of Scriabin, the late period turned out to be a kind of culminating point, the focus of those goals and tasks towards which the composer went all his life. B. F. Schlozer, speaking about the importance for Scriabin of the concept of the Mystery, emphasized that the study of his work should begin with the Mystery, and not end with it. For all of it was "mysterious", everything reflected the light of his project, like the light of a bright, inaccessibly distant star. Something similar can be said about the entire late period, which concentrated the philosophy of Scriabin's music, its meaning and purpose.

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I sing when the larynx is cheese, the soul is dry,
And the gaze is moderately moist, and consciousness is not cunning.
O. Mandelstam

Let's take a closer look philosophical and aesthetic principles Scriabin's creativity, which are visible in the "reverse perspective" of his evolutionary path, from the height of the latest ideas. In the following presentation, we will touch on the composer's entire heritage - but not in a progressive chronological aspect, but with a certain general set of ideas in mind. These ideas, becoming clearer towards the end of Scriabin's life, had a profound influence on his musical creativity.

The question of the interaction between Scriabin's philosophy and music has already been touched upon above. It is noteworthy that, having made his art an instrument of the philosophical system, the composer did not compromise his own musical laws, having managed to avoid the rigorism and superficial literaryness that is possible in such cases. This probably happened for the reason that the philosophical theories themselves, gleaned by Scriabin from the spiritual arsenal of symbolist culture, disposed to musical embodiment. Thus, the idea of ​​creative boldness, emerging from the chaos of world harmony, was comprehended by Scriabin as an internal law of music (let us recall the Fifth Sonata with its movement from a semi-illusory, constrained state to an ecstatic triumph). In musical art, as nowhere else, the effect of transformation, transfiguration, which underlies the symbolist artistic method, is achievable; Scriabin embodied it in the specific multi-phase sonata dramaturgy, the multi-stage removal of semantic veils from the prototype. And the very ambiguity of music as an art was used by the composer in the aspect of symbolization, because, like no other musician, he had the gift of “secret writing” (recall the sphinx themes of his compositions or the intriguing headings of later miniatures).

But Scriabin's involvement in contemporary culture also manifested itself on a wider scale, starting with the fundamental tasks of creativity and view of art. The starting point for the composer was the romantic concept of artistic creativity, according to which the latter is understood as something immanent in life and capable of radically influencing this life. Scriabin's contemporaries, the Young Symbolist poets and philosophers (above all, Bely and Vyach. Ivanov) elevated this effective force of art into the concept theurgy. It was theurgy (magic, transfiguration) that they conceived as the main goal of the “Mystery Theatre”, which they dreamed about and to which they devoted a considerable number of theoretical works.

“Fire of the universe”, a general spiritual upheaval – no matter how the ultimate goal of such actions was defined, the very idea of ​​them could have arisen only in Russia in the 1900s, in the atmosphere of apocalyptic prophecies and the expectation of some kind of historical catharsis. Scriabin also sought to bring closer the "cleansing and regenerating catastrophe of the world" (Vyach. Ivanov). Moreover, like no one else, he was concerned with the practical implementation of this task: “his theoretical positions on catholicity and choral action,” wrote Vyach. Ivanov, - differed from my aspirations in essence only in that they were for him also direct practical tasks».

It is characteristic that in their social utopias, pursuing goals outside of art, the Russian Symbolists nevertheless staked precisely on art. Theurgical tasks were intricately intertwined with aesthetic ones. There were, in fact, two approaches to art - depending on the accents that certain artists put in their work. They were reflected in the controversy on the pages of the Apollon magazine, when in 1910, in response to Blok’s publication “On the Current State of Russian Symbolism,” Bryusov’s article “On the Slave’s Speech in Defense of Poetry” appeared. Bryusov defended in this dispute the right of poets to be only poets, and arts to be only art. To understand this position, we must remember that the struggle for the purity of poetry, for its artistic self-determination, initially characterized the symbolist movement. When the slogan of pure beauty was replaced among the Young Symbolists by the slogan "beauty will save the world", with a very serious stake on the saving mission of art, aesthetic tasks threatened to be again pressed. This fact is historically very characteristic: at the turn of the century, Russian art liberated itself, threw off the burden of eternal social concerns - but only in order to re-aware its national rock, rush into life again and merge with it - now in some kind of apocalyptic-transforming act . It is not surprising that Bryusov's article appeared in such a context, with its kind of protective pathos.

At the same time, this confrontation between "younger" and "older" Symbolists should hardly be exaggerated. Theurgical and aesthetic principles were too closely merged in their work to become the banner of fundamentally hostile camps.

They were also inseparable with Scriabin. The composer did not participate in the literary struggles of his time, but he was undoubtedly a spontaneous adherent of the theurgic direction, and he also gave a unique example of the practical orientation of his “theurgism”. This does not mean that aesthetic problems proper were alien to him. Scriabin's aestheticism manifested itself in bewitchingly refined sounds; immersion in the world of unusual harmonies and extravagant rhythms in itself carried the temptation of self-fulfillment. But the composer thought of his inventions not as a goal, but as a means. Since the beginning of the 1900s, all his writings betray the presence of a certain super-task. Their language and plot appeal not so much to aesthetic contemplation as to empathy. The magical meaning is acquired by ostinato, harmonic and rhythmic “incantation”, heightened and intense emotionalism, which “attracts in breadth and height, turning passion into ecstasy and thereby raising the personal to the universal.” This also includes Scriabin's esotericism, in particular the theosophical symbols of Prometheus: they are addressed to those participants and initiates whom the composer spoke about in connection with his mystery plans.

As already mentioned, the transformative, theurgic act, the essence of which is in the rapidly growing creative self-consciousness of the spirit, was also a constant theme of Scriabin's works starting from the Third Sonata. In the future, it acquired an increasingly global scale. This allows us to see here an analogy with the ideas of Russian cosmist philosophers, especially with the doctrine of the noosphere. According to V. I. Vernadsky, the noosphere is that specific shell of the Earth, which is a concentrate of spirituality and which, without being merged with the biosphere, is capable of exerting a transforming effect on it. "Noos" in translation means will and mind - the themes of "will" and "mind" are also born in the first bars of the "Poem of Fire", accompanying the theme of Prometheus the Creator. For Vernadsky, the influence of the noosphere carries a huge optimistic charge - Scriabin's compositions also end with a dazzling triumph of finals.

Thus, the theurgical beginning entered Scriabin's music, despite the fact that in the version of the Mystery, that is, as the final and all-encompassing act, theurgy was not implemented by him.

Something similar can be said about Scriabin's idea catholicity. Sobornost as an expression of the unifying ability of art, the complicity of many people in it, was the subject of close attention of the Symbolist cultural elite. Vyach developed this idea especially carefully. Ivanov. In his works devoted to the mystery theater (“Wagner and the Dionysian Action”, “Premonitions and Premonitions”), he puts forward such principles of the new mystery as the elimination of the ramp, the merging of the stage with the community, as well as the special role of the choir: small, associated with the action, as in the tragedies of Aeschylus, and a large one, symbolizing the community, a singing and moving crowd. For such choral dramas, the author intended a special architectural setting and "the prospect of completely different spaces" than ordinary theater and concert halls.

Scriabin also thought in the same direction, dreaming of distant India and a domed temple where the conciliar action should take place. His plans also included overcoming the ramp in order to achieve unity of experiences: the ramp is the personification of theatricality, and he considered theatricality incompatible with mystery and criticized Wagner's musical dramas for its costs. Hence his unwillingness to see the audience in the conciliar action - only "participants and initiates."

Scriabin wanted to participate in the "Mystery" of all mankind, not stopping at any spatial and temporal boundaries. The temple, in which the action should unfold, was conceived by him as a giant altar in relation to the true temple - the whole Earth. The act itself should be the beginning of some universal spiritual renewal. “I do not want the realization of anything, but the endless upsurge of creative activity that will be caused by my art,” the composer wrote.

At the same time, such a globally conceived enterprise had little in common with literally understood nationwide. The hyperdemocratic idea was initially in conflict with the extremely complex form of its implementation, as evidenced by the sketches of the "Preliminary Action", as well as the entire stylistic context of the late period of creativity. However, this contradiction was symptomatic of the Scriabin era. The utopia of catholicity arose then as a result of the awareness of the "diseases of individualism" and the desire to overcome them at all costs. At the same time, this overcoming could not be complete and organic, since the ideologists of the new mystery were themselves the flesh of the flesh of an individualistic culture.

However, the conciliar principle was realized in its own way in Scriabin's work, endowing it with a glimpse of "grandness" (to use the words of the composer himself). His stamp lies on the symphonic scores, where, beginning with the Poem of Ecstasy, additional brass, organ and bells are introduced. Not only in the "Preliminary Act", but already in the First Symphony and in the "Poem of Fire" a chorus was introduced; in "Prometheus", according to the author's intention, he should be dressed in white clothes - to enhance the liturgical effect. In the cathedral function, the function of uniting the multitude, Scriabin's bells also appear. In this case, we mean not just the inclusion of bells in orchestral scores, but the symbolism of bell ringing, which is so widely represented, for example, in the Seventh Sonata.

But let's turn to one more component of the "Mystery" and, accordingly, to one more facet of Scriabin's aesthetics - we will talk about the idea synthesis of the arts. This idea also dominated the minds of contemporaries. The idea of ​​expanding the boundaries of the arts and dissolving them into a kind of unity was inherited by Russian symbolists from the romantics. Wagner's musical dramas were both a reference point for them and an object of positive criticism. In the new "total work of art" they sought to achieve a new completeness and a new quality of synthesis.

Scriabin planned to combine in his "Mystery" not only sound, word, movement, but also the realities of nature. In addition, according to Schlözer, “the expansion of the limits of art by the material of lower feelings should have occurred in it: in All-Art, all elements that cannot live on their own should be animated.” Indeed, Scriabin had in mind rather a synthesis sensations than independent art series. His "Mystery" gravitated more to the liturgy than to the theatrical performance. It is in temple worship that one can find analogies to his fantasies about "symphonies" of aromas, touches and tastes - if we recall church incense, rites of communion, etc. And the goal of such "All Art" was pursued not so much aesthetic as theurgical, as already mentioned higher.

However, Scriabin nurtured the ideas of synthesis long before The Mystery. His plans met with an interested response from symbolist poets. This is evidenced by the article by K. D. Balmont "Light sound in nature and Scriabin's light symphony", dedicated to "Prometheus". Vyach supported them even more actively. Ivanov. In his article “Čiurlionis and the problem of art synthesis”, he writes about the relevance of such ideas and gives them his explanation. The inner experience of a modern artist, Ivanov believes, is wider than the limited possibilities of art alone. “Life resolves this contradiction by shifting this art towards the neighboring one, from where new ways of representation come into syncretic creation, suitable for enhancing the expressibility of inner experience.” Using the example of Čiurlionis, this musician in painting, Ivanov speaks of artists “with a shifted axis”, who occupy a kind of neutral position between the areas of individual arts. They seem to be alone in modern culture, although their type is very symptomatic for it, and the prototype here is F. Nietzsche - "a philosopher is not a philosopher, a poet is not a poet, a renegade philologist, a musician without music and the founder of religion without religion."

Returning to Scriabin, it should be noted that the obvious power of musical genius saved him from the danger of "as it were, a neutral position between the areas of individual arts." She intuitively attracted him to the path of "absolute", pure music, no matter how much he talked about his synthetic plans.

Thus, the position of the literary component in his work is at least contradictory. On the one hand, the composer was obsessed with the word, as evidenced by the titles of his works, program comments, prose and poetry, detailed author's remarks, the lexical structure of which, it seems, goes beyond the applied purpose; finally, independent poetic experiments. Let us add to all this the libretto of the opera planned in the early 1900s, the texts of the Poem of Ecstasy and the Preliminary Act. On the other hand, it is characteristic that neither the opera nor the "Preliminary Action" were carried out (except for individual sketch fragments). Everything created by Scriabin, with the exception of two romances and the youthfully imperfect finale of the First Symphony, only implies the word, but does not materialize it musically. Obviously gravitating toward the word, but at the same time fearing, apparently, its coarsening concreteness, the composer ultimately preferred the unvoiced, programmatic version of literary texts.

The situation with the idea of ​​a light symphony was somewhat different, since in this case Scriabin used the nonverbal language of color and light effects. This idea became a genuine discovery, to this day being a source of far-reaching hypotheses, scientific conjectures, artistic reflections and, of course, attempts at technical implementation, which seem to be closer to the author's intention.

And yet, no matter how inspiring the example of Prometheus may be, Scriabin left very few samples of the actual synthesis of the arts. A bold theorist, he turned out to be an extremely cautious practitioner in this area. In his work, he limited himself to the sphere of purely instrumental genres, unconsciously reflecting the symbolist "fear of eloquence" and embodying the idea of ​​music as the highest of the arts, capable of intuitively, and therefore adequately comprehending the world.

This, however, does not remove the problem of "complex feeling" in his music. The fact is that the combination of sound with a word, color or gesture takes place not so much in real, but in an imaginary space, where the “astral image” of the composition is formed (as the composer himself liked to say). Regarding his verbal comments, Scriabin said that it is “almost like a synthetic work... These ideas are my intention, and they enter the composition just like sounds. I'm writing it with them." Of course, from the standpoint of the “self-sufficiency” of a musical statement, one can be skeptical about these invisible layers of creativity, about what is beyond the edge of a sheet of music and behind the silhouettes of musical signs, and demand from musicians-performers complete identity of the fixed text (as did, for example, Stravinsky in relation to his compositions). But it is unlikely that such an approach will be in the spirit of Scriabin, whose music B. L. Pasternak called “supermusic” not by chance - because of her desire to surpass herself.

We examined those features of Scriabin's work that are associated with his view of art and which, following Schlözer, can be called "mysterious". Let us now turn to some of the most important principles of his composer's thinking. The internal structure of Scriabin's music, its constructive laws, its time and space, for all the significance of musical traditions, were also largely due to philosophical ideas era. Of central importance to Scriabin was the idea Infinite combined with utopia unity.

“The abyss of stars has opened up full, // There are no number of stars, the abyss of the bottom” - these lines of M. V. Lomonosov, often quoted by symbolists, were very consistent with the mode of feeling of those years. The principle of actual, that is, directly experienced infinity, determined both the type of attitude and the artistic method of symbolism: the essence of this method was an endless immersion into the depths of the image, an endless game with its hidden meanings (not without reason F.K. Sologub argued that “for real art, the image of objective world is just a window to infinity.

The infinity of the world could sow confusion and fear if it were not for the idea of ​​the unity of existence, which had a global, all-penetrating meaning for the Russian symbolists of the "second wave". For them, it was not so much a philosophical doctrine as a delight, an intuition, a romantic dream. The immediate predecessor of the Young Symbolists in this respect was Vl. S. Solovyov. Initiation to the Absolute, rebirth in man perfect image God's are closely connected with his philosophy of Love. Love embraces a person's attitude to more than himself, it is able to overcome chaos, decay, the destructive work of time. In the poetic lyrics of Solovyov and his followers, cosmic images often act as carriers of such a unifying, harmonizing principle. The sun, stars, moon, sky blue are interpreted in the spirit of the Platonic myth of erotic ascent (Eros, according to Plato, is the link between man and God, earthly world and the peace of heaven). They are no longer just traditional attributes of romantic poetics, but symbols of divine light illuminating earthly vanity. Here is an excerpt from Solovyov's poem:

Death and time reign on earth,
You do not call them masters;
Everything, spinning, disappears into the mist,
Only the sun of love is motionless.

We find a direct analogy to Solovyov's "sun of love" in Scriabin's Fourth Sonata. The agonizing delight before the “wonderful radiance” that flares up in the finale into a “sparkling fire” is conveyed with the help of leitmotif transformations of the main theme of the sonata - “the theme of the star”. In later writings, for example in the "Poem of Fire", the image of the cosmos itself appears; the idea of ​​unity is embodied here not so much at the level of thematic dramaturgy, but at the level of harmony; hence the feeling of a certain spherical space, as boundless as it is permeated with gigantic volitional tension.

In terms of the parallel under consideration, the erotic coloring of Scriabin's musical revelations is also characteristic. The motifs of "languor" and "enjoyment", the polarity of "female" and "male", endless variants of "petting" gestures, an unstoppable movement towards the final ecstasy - all these moments of his works correspond to Solovyov's apology for sexual love (no matter how dubious they may seem from the standpoint of orthodox Christian beliefs). For example, D. L. Andreev attributes Scriabin's "mystical voluptuousness" to his gift of a dark herald. It is unlikely that such a characterization is fair - the luminous principle is too clearly expressed in his music.

The principle of "everything in everything" has already been mentioned here. Scriabin of the period of the “Poem of Fire” was close to his theosophical interpretation. It is no coincidence that the most consistent embodiment of this principle - the quasi-serial organization of a large form through a totally acting harmonic complex - was first undertaken in Prometheus, this most esoteric creation of the composer. But Scriabin adhered to the same system in other writings of the later period, which speaks of its broader foundations, which are not reducible to theosophical doctrines. In any case, having created the musical equivalent of the idea of ​​the Absolute and embodying Balmont’s motto: “All faces are hypostases of the One, scattered mercury”, the composer summarized a fairly wide and diverse spiritual experience (including modern God-seeking and new interpretations of Schelling’s doctrine of the “world soul”).

Scriabin's principle of "everything in everything" had both spatial and temporal parameters. If the former can be observed on the example of the harmony of "Prometheus", then in the second case the idea of ​​an inextricable relationship between the instantaneous and the eternal, the momentary and the extended played an important role. This idea fed many motifs of the new poetry (a typical example is Vyach. Ivanov's poem "Eternity and a Moment"). It also underlay the mystery utopias of the Symbolist poets. So, Andrei Bely, speaking in one of his early works about the transformation of the world “through music”, thought of this process as a one-time process: “The whole life of the world will instantly flash before the spiritual eye,” he wrote in one of his letters to A. A. Blok, developing your ideas.

The instantaneous experience of the entire historical experience of mankind (through the reconstruction of the history of races) was also conceived by Scriabin in his "Mystery". Hence the idea of ​​"involution of styles" in it. It is not entirely clear what this “involution of styles” would have been: composers of subsequent generations, primarily Stravinsky, took up the reproduction of historical time through the operation of various style models. Most likely, in the conditions of Scriabin's stylistic monism, it would have resulted in a generalized "archaism" of quasi-Promethean consonances, which personified for the composer "the dark depths of the past."

But one way or another, the possibility of covering immeasurable temporal depths with music has long worried Scriabin. Evidence of this is his philosophical notes of the 1900s, where the idea of ​​a simultaneous experience of the past and the future sounds like a leitmotif. “The forms of time are such,” writes the composer, “that I am for everyone this moment I create an infinite past and an infinite future. “Deep eternity and infinite space,” we read elsewhere, “there are constructions around divine ecstasy, there is its radiation ... a moment that radiates eternity.” These thoughts make themselves felt even more strongly towards the end of the creative path, as evidenced by the opening lines of the "Preliminary Action": "Once again the Infinite wills to recognize itself in the finite."

It is interesting that in Scriabin's philosophy of time there is practically no category of the present. There is no place for the real in Scriabin's cosmos, his prerogative is Eternity spilled in a moment. Here is another difference from Stravinsky, who, on the contrary, was characterized by an apology for the present, erected through a parallel to “ontological time”. Of course, such a difference in attitudes is reflected in the music of both authors and especially in their understanding of the musical form as a process. Running a little ahead, we note that the specificity of Scriabin's sound world with its polarization of eternity and the moment was reflected in the preference that the composer gave to the "ultimate form" over the "middle form" (to use the terms of V. G. Karatygin).

In general, the composer's philosophical deductions were quite consistently embodied in his musical work. This also applies to the considered relationship between the eternal and the instantaneous. On the one hand, his mature and late compositions are perceived as parts of some continuously ongoing process: the total instability of harmony makes their constructive isolation very problematic. On the other hand, Scriabin consistently moved towards the compression of musical events in time. If the path from the six-movement First Symphony to the one-movement "Poem of Ecstasy" can still be regarded as an ascent to maturity, liberation from youthful verbosity, then the musical process in the compositions of the middle and late periods reveals a temporary concentration that significantly exceeds traditional norms.

Some piano miniatures are perceived as a kind of experiment with time. For example, in the "Fancy Poem" op. 45 application for large-scale thematics in the nature of "flight" and "self-affirmation of the spirit" is combined with extremely small size and fast pace. As a result, the time of perception of the piece exceeds the time of its sounding. In such cases, at the end of the work or its sections, the composer liked to set bar pauses. They give the opportunity to think about the image, more precisely, to feel its transcendental essence, going beyond the boundaries of real physical time. In the aforementioned play, op. 45 the poem is connected with a miniature; this, in fact, is its main "quirk", recorded in the title. But the properties of such “quirkiness” are also found in other works by Scriabin, where the poetic eventfulness is compressed to an instant, turns into a hint.

"Sounding silence" generally played a significant role in the composer's psyche. Sabaneev cites Scriabin’s characteristic confession: “I want to introduce into the Mystery such imaginary sounds that will not really sound, but which must be imagined ... I want to write them in a special font ... ". "And when he played, - writes the memoirist, “it was felt that, indeed, his silence sounded, and during the pauses some imaginary sounds vaguely hover, filling the sound void with a fantastic pattern ... And no one interrupted these pauses of silence with applause, knowing that “they sound likewise. Further, Sabaneev says that Scriabin could not stand pianists who, having played a piece, are carried away from the stage “with a thunder of applause”

Scriabin's desire to identify the extended and the instantaneous is evidenced by his "harmony-melody". As already mentioned, the composer used this concept, implying the structural identity of the horizontal and vertical. Horizontal-vertical reversibility in itself is natural in the conditions of a complete monopoly of the chosen sound complex; this phenomenon is typical, in particular, for the serial technique of the Novovenets composers. In Scriabin, however, such interdependence takes the form of a specific translation of time into space - a technique that underlies both relatively small and large constructions. Many of Scriabin's themes are organized by folding the melodic horizontal into a complex crystal-like vertical - a kind of micro-image of the achieved unity. Such, for example, is the piano piece Desire, op. 57 - a miniature version of ecstatic states achieved by the described method of "crystallization". Such are the polyphonic arpeggiated tonics at the end of Garlands, op. 73, Sixth Sonata and other Scriabin compositions. They would have looked like traditional final ramplissages if not for this unifying effect; it is no coincidence that they gather together, “crystallize” the entire sound complex of the work.

We have already spoken about the symbolization in Scriabin's music of an endless process. A large role in this belongs to the tense statics of the harmonic language. However, rhythm also performs an essential function - a direct conductor of temporal processes in music. In connection with rhythm, Scriabin argued that music, apparently, was able to "bewitch" time and even completely stop it. In the work of Scriabin himself, an example of such a stopped, or disappeared, time is the prelude op. 74 No. 2 with its all ostinato movement. According to Sabaneev, the composer allowed for the possibility of performing this piece in two ways: traditionally expressive, with detail and nuance, and absolutely measured, without any shades. Apparently, the composer had in mind the second version of the performance when he said that this prelude seemed to last “for centuries”, that it sounds forever, “millions of years”. As the same Sabaneev recalls, Scriabin liked to play this prelude many times in a row without a break, obviously wanting to experience such an association more deeply.

An example with a prelude from op. 74 is all the more indicative that the ostinato principle was not previously characteristic of Scriabin's music. The composer's rhythm was originally distinguished by romantic freedom, the widespread use of tempo rubato. The appearance of measured rhythmic formulas against this background in the late period brings with it a new quality. In the dual unity of the human - the divine, Scriabin is attracted by the second, hence the majestic and impassive coloring of the individual pages of his work.

However, the techniques of rhythmic ostinato demonstrate in Scriabin a fairly wide range of expressive possibilities. If the prelude op. 74 No. 2, as it were, takes us to the other side of being, forcing us to listen to the “clock of eternity”, then in some other works the introduction of this technique is of a sharply conflicting nature. In combination with the impulsive freedom of texture and polyharmony, the "enchanting" power of ostinato acquires a demonic tinge. For example, in the culmination codas of the Ninth Sonata or The Dark Flame, attempts to “stop time” are more than dramatic, they are fraught with a breakdown into chaos. Here we have before us - the image of the "gloomy abyss", in contact with the expressionist trends in the art of the XX century.

But let us return to the prelude from op. 74. When the composer played it many times in a row without a break, he was probably guided not only by its ostinato rhythm. The play ends with the same phrase with which it began, hence the possibility of its repeated reproduction. This gives reason to talk about the extremely important for Scriabin's music symbolism of the circle.

Since the worldview of Scriabin and his contemporaries was determined by actual, that is, directly experienced infinity (or eternity, seen in an instant), it is not surprising that its symbol was a circle, the figure of circulatio (recall that in mathematics, actual infinity is expressed by an infinite number of points on a circle, while potential - by points on a straight line).

The symbolism of the circle was quite common in the new poetry. Let us cite as an example "Circles in the Sand" 3. N. Gippius, her own "Countries of Despondency" with the final phrase "but there is no daring, the ring closes"; one can also recall Blok's poem "Drawing a smooth circle around the circle." It is not for nothing that Bely, in his article "Line, Circle, Spiral - Symbolism," considered it possible to theoretically generalize such symbolism. The named poems are brought together by the feeling of the oppressive predestination of being. In Scriabin, we also sometimes observe a concentrated, constrained state, depicting fate and death. However, the composer's circle formula also has a broader expressive meaning, concentrating in itself the magical-suggestive principle so characteristic of his statements. Such, for example, is the prelude op. 67 No. 1, equipped with a significant remark Misterioso: continuous melodic whirling on an ostinato harmonic background means sacrament, divination.

Characteristically, Scriabin often resorted to "circular" metaphors when talking about the formal-constructive laws of music. He owns the well-known thesis: "The form should be in the end like a ball." And in philosophical notes, the composer uses a similar metaphor when describing his concept of the universe. “She (the history of the universe. – T. L.) there is a movement towards the focus of the all-encompassing consciousness illuminating it, there is a clarification. And elsewhere: "Reality appears to me as a multitude in the infinity of space and time, and my experience is the center of this ball of infinitely large radius." (…)

Among Scriabin's notes already cited here, there is a drawing made by him: a spiral inscribed in a circle. Almost not commented on in the main text, this drawing, however, surprisingly accurately reflects the composition of the Fifth Sonata, as well as Scriabin's general idea of musical process. Speaking of the Fifth Sonata, it should be emphasized that its example demonstrates an important discovery of the composer, associated with a tendency to an open form. Similar phenomena in musical creativity, based on the effect of continuous dynamic growth, were already observed in the 1910s - these are, in particular, the final episodes of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring or Prokofiev's Scythian Suite. By the way, in Scriabin's discussions about the mystery act, the image of "the last dance before the very act" repeatedly surfaced - Stravinsky's "Great Sacred Dance" plays a similar role. At the same time, Scriabin's ecstasy is different from Stravinsky's, and his experience of the infinite, captured in mature and late compositions, is also specific.

As you can see, in the field of large form, Scriabin thought very boldly and non-normatively - with an outward adherence to classical schemes. The dream of the "Mystery" was supposed to take him even further away from these schemes, the projected grandiose action did not fit into any known canons. But the composer worked just as subtly with microunits of musical matter. This is evidenced by the refined technique of details, the unpredictable variety of time divisions and, of course, the extremely complex harmonic language, in which the intrinsic value of each sounding moment increased more and more.

This complexity of micro- and macroforms, this “plus or minus infinity” was meant by Karatygin when he wrote that Scriabin “looked with one eye into some kind of wonderful microscope, with the other into a gigantic telescope, not recognizing vision with the naked eye.” In the article where these lines are quoted from, the author connects the micro and macro levels of Scriabin's music with the concept of "ultimate form", and by "middle form" he understands the level of sentences and periods accessible to the "naked eye". This "middle form" was distinguished by Scriabin's conservatism and academicism. Sabaneev spoke about the "accounting prudence" of the composer, who used to tactfully mark themes and sections of his compositions on music paper. Probably, the “middle form” for Scriabin was not so much a cost of academicism, but rather an “internal metronome” (V. G. Karatygin), a kind of self-preservation instinct. The centripetal, rational beginning generally paradoxically characterized the Symbolist artists, who, with all their craving for the intuitive, the mystical, were “bad children of the age of reason, order and system.” Be that as it may, the immeasurable and infinite in Scriabin tends to “recognize itself in the finite” (recall the lines of “Preliminary Action”), it has a definite starting point, being in a hidden conflict with the finite-dimensional.

This conflict extends to the very existence of Scriabin's works: observing the condition of opus, they have a beginning and an end, although it seems that they are internally intended for constant duration. In a sense, they model the whole creative life composer, which, like the Fifth Sonata, "did not end, but stopped." Having been preparing himself for The Mystery for a long time, Scriabin did not carry out his project. It should be noted that the addition of individual works into a kind of super-design was typical of the artists of the Symbolist era. They saw the mystery theater as the crowning achievement of messianic tasks, the far-reaching goals of which did not receive any clear outlines in their minds. Already at the end of the 1900s, Bely wrote about his theurgical plans: "From realization - only to striving - this is the turn that I painfully experienced." Scriabin did not experience such disappointment, remaining a knight of his idea until the very last days. Therefore, who died almost suddenly and much earlier than his "fellow divination" (V. Ya. Bryusov), he, perhaps, like no one else, embodied the drama of the finiteness of human existence before the infinity of dreams.

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I sing when the larynx is cheese, the soul is dry,
And the gaze is moderately moist, and consciousness is not cunning.
O. Mandelstam

It has already been touched upon here many times. cultural and artistic context Scriabin's work, in particular its connection with symbolism. Correlating the composer with the spiritual atmosphere of the beginning of the century helps to better understand the nature of many of his ideas. On the other hand, against such a broad background, the style orientation Scriabin and the nature of his historical mission, since he happened to live and work at the crossroads of two eras.

It is curious that Scriabin felt his involvement in modern culture mainly through non-musical contacts. According to a certain psychological attitude, he remained quite indifferent or critical (at least in words) to the music of his contemporaries, preferring the society of musicians to the society of writers, artists and philosophers. His work strove to absorb the spiritual aura of the epoch, as if bypassing musical mediating links, although it was, in the end, the experience of absolute music.

We have already talked about the synthetic nature of the artistic worldview, which distinguished the culture of the turn of the century. The tendency of the arts to overcome their own boundaries and interpenetrate manifested itself everywhere. Characteristic in this regard is the multifaceted education of the ministers of the muses, which also affected the nature of their musical activities. So, V. I. Rebikov was fond of poetry, A. V. Stanchinsky composed short stories, serious musical experiments were carried out by the painter M. Chiurlionis, the poets M. A. Kuzmin and B. L. Pasternak. It is not surprising that musical “pictures”, poetic “symphonies” (Andrei Bely), picturesque “fugues” and “sonatas” (M. Čiurlionis) appeared against this background. The very creative psychology of the "Silver Age", the desire to comprehend the world in its maximum completeness and harmony stimulated the ability to be inspired by other arts, which is primordially romantic in nature.

In music, this trend manifested itself in a new program movement, in a penchant for headings, explanations, verbal comments. This feature is all the more remarkable because the representatives of the next generation, such as Stravinsky, did not like such verbal revelations; they defended the right of music to autonomy, a kind of "non-intervention" principle. In connection with such phenomena, Yu. N. Tynyanov talks about a certain rhythm in the development of the arts, when periods of their mutual attraction are replaced by periods of repulsion. However, such changes, already observed since the late 1910s, did not at all mean the removal from the agenda of the very idea of ​​synthesis of the arts, which, while continuing to dominate the minds, only acquired new forms.

Scriabin remained faithful to this idea to the end. Carried away by the flight of fantasy, seeing in the "Mystery" the ideal of All-Art, he thought of himself as its undivided creator. It is known, for example, that when composing the poetic text of "Preliminary Action", the idea of ​​co-authorship was eventually excluded. The composer himself composed this text, at the risk of being in this area not up to par. So, in fact, it happened, and only the “mystical” non-realization of Scriabin’s word (which either did not have time to be embodied, or, in most cases, remained “silent”, programmatic, unpronounceable) partly removes the problem of the inequivalence of his synthetic projects.

A different fate befell the light symphony, the idea of ​​which still excites minds and serves as an impetus for ever new technical experiments. Returning to the era of Scriabin, let us recall once again the parallels with V. V. Kandinsky. His composition "Yellow Sound", chronologically synchronous with "The Poem of Fire", did not arise from scratch; the ground for it was a deeply developed sense of synesthesia. Kandinsky "heard" colors, just as Scriabin "saw" sounds and tonalities. The bet on the musicality of pictorial art generally distinguished this artist, naturally leading him to the emotional and symbolic perception of color. Such an aesthetic program was most fully formulated in the treatise On the Spiritual in Art, which appeared a year later than Scriabin's Prometheus. Noteworthy is the timbre interpretation of colors characteristic of Kandinsky. The orange color sounds to him "like a medium-sized church bell calling to the Angelus prayer, or like a strong voice of an alto" - while the sound of the opposite violet color "is similar to the sounds of an English horn, a flute and in its depth - a low tone woodwind instruments".

However, Scriabin came into contact with contemporary art not only through the idea of ​​synesthesia. There are broader parallels here as well. The epoch of Scriabin was the epoch of modernity, more and more realized today in the categories of "grand style". Features of this style are also found in Scriabin. This does not at all contradict his inner involvement in the Symbolist trend. After all, symbolism and modernity were not only chronologically parallel phenomena. They were combined with each other as method and style, content and form. Simplifying the picture somewhat, we can say that symbolism determined the inner ideological and semantic layer of works, and modernity was a way of their “materialization”. It is no coincidence that these phenomena were concentrated around different types of art: Art Nouveau embraced the subject environment of plastic art, architecture and design, while Symbolism was home to the purely “spiritual” area of ​​poetry and philosophy. In a similar ratio of external and internal, they nourished the work of Scriabin.

The previous section dealt mainly with the temporal parameters of Scriabin's music. Here it is appropriate to say about her spatial specificity, due to some aesthetic attitudes.

But first, let us note that it was Art Nouveau, with its focus on the visual principle, that at the turn of the century provoked the convergence of music with the spatial arts. The picturesque concept of the musical form was very characteristic of the composer's work of that time. Let us mention at least Diaghilev one-act ballet, in whose music the procedural principle seemed to be neutralized in favor of the brightness of color. At the same time, a certain visualization of the musical series was manifested in the features of musical architectonics - in particular, in the “rim” effect, which is close to the “double frame” technique common in modernist style. Such, for example, is the “Pavilion of Armida” by N. N. Tcherepnin, which arose from the idea of ​​a “lively tapestry”. Following the scenery of A. N. Benois, this music was intended as much for the eye as for the ear. It was designed to stop a beautiful moment.

Scriabin practically did not write for the theater and was generally far from any kind of theatrical and picturesque entertainment. But in his work, the cultivation of spatial sensations characteristic of the era was manifested. It is already evident in his philosophical discussions about the Cosmos, about the spherical infinity of the Universe. In a certain sense, the composer subordinated the temporal factor to the spatial one. His musical chronos seems to be closed in this spherical infinity, the property of vector orientation is lost in it. Hence the inherent value of the movement as such, it is not without reason that Scriabin's favorite forms are dance and play. Let us add to this the aforementioned craving for the simultaneity of the utterance, which seems to make music forget about its temporary nature; further - the cult of the sounding aura created by various methods of piano and orchestral texture; geometric-plastic associations in the spirit of "shape - ball", etc.

If we talk about the Art Nouveau style itself, with its exquisite plasticity and decorativeness, then the musical “genes” of the composer were already in contact with it. Recall that his genealogy is connected with Chopin's cult of aristocratically refined beauty and, in general, with romanticism, this spiritual soil of modernity. If Chopin's style as a whole was distinguished by rich ornamentation, then Scriabin's melody sometimes resembles the technique of linear ornamentation with the underlying motif of the wave (the wave mythologeme, the "calling card" of the Art Nouveau style, is also actively represented in the text of "Preliminary Action"). The increased thematization of the musical fabric, which accompanied the "Prometheus six-tone", results in the interpenetration of the background and relief, which also characterized the masters of the new art. In Scriabin, it is especially evident in cases of texturally decomposed harmony. The “Promethean chord” itself, demonstrating the structure of a certain hexahedron due to the fourth arrangement, gives rise to a feeling of the “geometry of crystals”. Here, an analogy is already possible with a very specific representative of the new Russian painting, who “always and in everything saw the crystalline structure of matter; its fabrics, its trees, its faces, its figures - everything is crystalline, everything is subject to some kind of hidden geometric laws that form and build the material. As you might guess, in the above quote by M. A. Voloshin we are talking about M. A. Vrubel. We have already noted Scriabin's analogies with this artist in terms of demonic images and blue-lilac colors. The "crystallinity" of artistic matter also brings these masters closer, making it possible to see them under the arches of a common style.

This is all the more remarkable that Scriabin did not have direct contact with Vrubel - unlike, for example, Rimsky-Korsakov, whose operas Vrubel designed at the Mamontov Theater (one can only talk about the composer's undoubted interest in the painter, and also recall that Vrubel's the music room in the Kusevitsky mansion, where Scriabin settled in 1909 upon his return from abroad and where he spent many hours at the piano, was hung with paintings). Biographical sources often mention the names of other artists. So, in addition to the Belgian painter J. Delville, who designed the cover of Prometheus, the Moscow artist N. Shperling, who impressed the composer with the mystical coloring of his subjects and passion for the East, was part of Scriabin's circle. It is also known that Scriabin visited the Moscow exhibition of M. Čiurlionis; Approvingly evaluating this master, he nevertheless found that Čiurlionis was “too illusory”, that “he has no real strength, he does not want his dream to become a reality.”

But it is not the biographical facts that serve as the decisive argument in this case, but the degree of mutual aesthetic assonance of the artists. And here the closest analogue to Scriabin, along with Vrubel, was the aforementioned V. V. Kandinsky. Their similarity in the plane of the synthesis of arts and color-musical correspondences has already been mentioned. But in the same "Poem of Fire" one can find other moments that are consonant with Kandinsky's aesthetic program. If Kandinsky went in his "Compositions" and "Improvisations" to the symbolic perception of color and to its emancipation from the depicted object, then something similar happened with the late Scriabin. His Prometheus is an example of harmonic paint emancipated from tonal connection. The departure from traditional tonal thinking to the world of new sounds meant the rejection of any, even indirect, life realities in favor of games, enigmatic sound arabesques. If we allow an analogy between figurative painting and tonal music (which, I think, is historically justified), then we can see a certain parallelism in the pictorial and musical innovations of the 1910s, which left behind these seemingly unshakable principles. With regard to the New Viennese school, the phenomenon of emancipated sound color is determined by Schoenberg's concept of Klangfaibenmelodie. Scriabin observed a largely similar process, and with Kandinsky he was brought together by the commonality of Russian cultural origins, and the romantic underpinning of creativity, and a kind of synthetic methods: just as Kandinsky combined non-objectivity with figurativeness, so Scriabin’s sophisticated play of sound ornaments coexisted with quasi-tonal melodic lexemes.

Concluding the parallels with the new Russian painting, we note that in the later period his style developed according to the evolution from Art Nouveau to Abstractionism. On the one hand, the role of hidden symbolic elements increased in his music. As already mentioned, the “Prometheus chord” itself was for Scriabin a “Pleroma chord”, and not just a successfully found sound color. On the other hand, the composer sometimes consciously abandoned the former colorism and sensual fullness of sounds. The desire to penetrate the shell of phenomena, characteristic of the symbolist method, led at some stage to a change in the balance between the external and the internal, the explicit and the hidden. Scriabin was no longer attracted by the theurgical action - transformation, but by the reality of another world. The path from "Prometheus" to the later preludes, from op. 60 to op. 74 is the path from colorfulness to monotony, to simplicity and straightness of the drawing. The following statement of the composer is significant in this sense: “When the painful boiling of passions reaches its climax in art, everything will come to a simple formula: a black line on a white background, and everything will become simple, quite simple.”

This black and white tone dominates Scriabin's last preludes. Prelude op. 74 No. 2 the composer called the "astral desert", using, in addition, such expressions as "higher reconciliation" and "white sound". We have already spoken of this play in connection with the idea of ​​the infinite. Modern scholars also write about the new quality of Scriabin's pianism that appeared here, consonant with the 20th century: "The Scriabin of the future is the will to intellectual concentration and the ability to contemplate the abstract, artistically disinterested beauty of ideas and forms." The process of the emergence of this quality is also described: from timbre-colored rhythmic ornaments to the musical ideas of rhythmlessness and the disappearance of time. This style already evokes new analogies - not so much with Kandinsky's "improvisations", but with the Suprematist compositions of K. S. Malevich, which the artist himself thought of as an allegory of pure spirituality (the analogy of Scriabin's "astral desert").

Everything in this piece is filled with this “highest reconciliation”: the total ostinato of descending voices with their initially “dark” semantics, the frame of empty fifths in the bass, continuous stay in a closed space. Apparently, the music of the “Preliminary Act” also gravitated towards a similar lack of color, intangibility, fragments of which the composer played to Sabaneev. “He told me,” the memoirist recalls, “about the choirs that would sing here and there, about the exclamations of the hierophants who would pronounce the sacred words of his text, about solo, as it were, arias - but I did not feel these sonorities in the music: this the amazing fabric did not sing with human voices, did not sound with orchestral colors ... It was a piano, full of ghostly sonorities, the world. It is difficult to say how "piano-like" these fragments really were and how they could have been orchestrated by the author. It is clear that he needed incorporeal sounds, dematerialization, the sacred "silence of thought."

Once upon a time, back in the youthful First Sonata, Scriabin supplied the chorale episode of the funeral march with the remark "Quasi niente" - "as if nothing." Within the framework of the quasi-romantic program, this episode was unequivocally perceived as a metaphor for death. In later years, a similar image sounds like the providence of other being, an exit into the infinite space of the cosmos. Quasi niente op. 74 reminds of Malevich's "Black Square" - this limit of all possibilities, a symbol of Nothing and Everything. One can only note that, in contrast to the Suprematist experiments in avant-garde painting, this transcendent image turned out to be the last, final one for Scriabin, symbolically coinciding with the end of his earthly existence.

As you can see, Scriabin's genetic connections with romanticism did not prevent those aspects of his work that were in direct contact with the art of the 20th century and with the works of avant-garde artists from manifesting themselves. In this, in fact, the boundary, binding nature of his historical mission was manifested. Scriabin belonged to the generation about which Bely wrote: "We are the children of this and that century, we are the generation of the turn." Indeed, an entire era ended with Scriabin's work. The very fact of his death in 1915, at the beginning of the First World War, of this “official funeral” of the romantic 19th century, was already symbolic. But the composer's discoveries were directed to the future, defining many characteristic trends in modern musical art. Let's see how it correlated with his music of the 20th century.

Some significant parallels have already been mentioned above. The idea of ​​light and music synthesis brought Scriabin closer not only to Kandinsky, but also to Schoenberg. In Schoenberg's monodrama "The Happy Hand" three years later than "Prometheus", a system of light timbres was used (while Scriabin rather had "light harmonies"). By the way, all three protagonists of "visible music" were presented in 1912 on the pages of the Munich almanac "The Blue Rider": Kandinsky and Schoenberg - their own theoretical works, and Scriabin - an article about Sabaneev's "Poem of Fire". However, other aspects were also united with the expressionism of the Novy Viennese school of the late Scriabin - from techniques in the spirit of Klangfarbenmelodie to specific intonational-harmonic formulas, whose origins go back to late romanticism. On a European scale, a kind of resonance to Scriabin, already in later times, was also the work of O. Messiaen. Such properties of the French master's music are referred to Scriabin, such as the ecstatic elation of the emotional structure, the tendency to "over-major", the attitude to creativity as a liturgical act. However, Scriabin's experience was most clearly refracted in the music of Russian composers - moreover, not in terms of parallels, but in the form of a direct and unambiguous impact.

Thus, the search for the Russian musical avant-garde of the 1910-1920s goes back to Scriabin. Interestingly, the finalist of the romantic era anticipated the avant-garde concept musical creativity even more so than his younger contemporaries, the anti-romantics Prokofiev and Stravinsky. In connection with the "Poem of Fire" we have already spoken about Scriabin's exploration of the artistic "edge", "limit" - whether it be a tendency towards ultrachromaticism, on the one hand, or the super-artistic project of the "Mysteries", on the other. A similar utopianism of ideas characterized both the representatives of the symbolist culture and the avant-garde artists who came to replace them. In the later work of Scriabin, attention is also drawn to the very expansion of innovative search, which was accompanied by a special "distillation" of sound matter, its purification from any direct influences and traditions. Composers of the avant-garde set themselves similar tasks, concentrating their interests around the problem of language and striving to create a certain model of the music of the future.

Among Scriabin's successors were those who left Russia after the revolution and developed his experience beyond its borders. These are, in particular, A. S. Lurie, N. B. Obukhov, I. A. Vyshnegradsky. In their work, a purely spiritual connection with the creator of the "Mystery" is also revealed. For example, Obukhov for many years nurtured the idea of ​​"The Book of Life" - a work of a religious and mystical nature, in many respects akin to Scriabin's project. But the continuity in the field of linguistic innovations was still dominant. The same Obukhov was the creator of "harmony with 12 tones without doubling." This system, which affirmed the intrinsic value and equality of all sounds of the chromatic scale, echoed both Schoenberg's dodecaphonic method and the late Scriabin's harmony.

The trend towards ultrachromatics was developed, in turn, by Lurie and Vyshnegradsky. If the first was limited to manifesting this method(back in 1915 he published a prelude for a quarter-tone piano, preceded by a brief theoretical preface, in the futuristic magazine Sagittarius), then for the second it was of a fundamental nature. Vyshnegradsky was one of the adherents of the micro-interval technique in the music of the 20th century. With the help of this technique, he sought to overcome the discontinuity of equal temperament, creating on its basis the doctrine of the "sound continuum". It is noteworthy that the composer considered Scriabin to be his immediate predecessor on this path. By his own admission, he heard Scriabin's later compositions in an ultrachromatic key and even tried to adapt the Ninth and Tenth Sonatas, as well as the Nocturne Poem op. to the quarter-tone recording. 61. It should be emphasized that Vyshnegradsky perceived Scriabin's prophecies in a holistic way, striving to realize them in various areas of his work. So, he projected the technique of splitting the tone into the area of ​​rhythm, thought about combinations of light and sound, designed a special domed room to fulfill his plans; finally, he created the composition "Day of Being", in his own way responding to the idea of ​​"Mystery".

Vyshnegradsky is one of those figures whose efforts brought Scriabin's experience directly into the European space. Having left Russia in 1920, he was in contact with W. Möllendorff and A. Haba in Berlin, and participated in the Congress of Quarter-tone Composers. He connected most of his life with France, where at the end of the 30s he received the interested attention of Messiaen, and in the post-war years he came into contact with P. Boulez and his school. Thus, thanks to the emigrant Scriabinists, not only did the European musical avant-garde assimilate Scriabin's discoveries, but also a connection was made between its two waves.

What was the fate of Scriabin's heritage in Russia? Even during the composer's lifetime, many musicians, especially from the immediate Moscow environment, experienced the power of his influence. One of them was A. V. Stanchinsky, in whose work Taneyev's "constructivism" - a penchant for strict polyphonic forms - was combined with Scriabin's emotional impulsiveness and exaltation (in a sense, this "strange" symbiosis remained unsolved: Stanchinsky's life path was cut short too early). In the following years, including the “revolutionary” 1920s, almost all young composers went through the passion for Scriabin. The impetus for this passion was the untimely departure of the master, and the very spirit of his innovation, especially close to composers - members of the Association of Contemporary Music. Under the sign of Scriabin, the work of S. E. Feinberg unfolded, the influence of his style was reflected in a number of works by N. Ya. Myaskovsky, An. N. Aleksandrova, A. A. Kreina, D. M. Melkikh, S. V. Protopopov (we have already mentioned Protopopov’s attempt to reconstruct “Preliminary Action”).

The musicians were driven by the desire to comprehend Scriabin's insights, to embody his underrealized, future-oriented ideas. At the same time, there was a theoretical understanding of Scriabin's experience (which began as early as 1916 with a controversy about ultrachromatism), and its introduction into composer practice. In this sense, the figure of N. A. Roslavets is noteworthy, who used in his work his own theory of “synthetaccord”, in many respects similar to the technique of the sound center of the late Scriabin.

It is characteristic that Roslavets, in his own words, saw his kinship with Scriabin exclusively "in a musical-formal, but by no means in an ideological sense." Such technologism in relation to the Scriabin tradition was the result of a kind of “ideological fear”, the reasons for which are not difficult to guess. In the 1920s, many made serious claims to the theosophical-mystical revelations of Scriabin, which seemed at least yesterday and a tribute to the dilapidated decadence. On the other hand, he repelled the categorical nihilism of the RAPM leaders, who saw in Scriabin only a preacher of the reactionary idealistic philosophy. In any case, the composer's music threatened to be sacrificed to ideological dogma, whatever the nature of the latter.

However, domestic culture ultimately did not limit itself to a "musical-formal" attitude towards Scriabin. The general atmosphere of the 1920s was consonant with the heroic activism and rebellious pathos of his writings. The composer's transformative utopia also fit into the picture of the world of those years. She unexpectedly responded with new "plein air forms of a synthetic type," as Asafiev called the mass events of that time, such as "The Mystery of Liberated Labor" (played out in Petrograd in May 1920). True, this new mystery was already completely Soviet: catholicity was replaced in it by “mass character”, theurgicity by propaganda, and sacred bells by factory horns, sirens and cannonade. No wonder Bely wrote Vyach. Ivanov: “Your orchestras are the same Soviets,” ironically alluding to his mysterial aspirations of previous years.

In general, in the 1920s, the Soviet myth about Scriabin was born, which was destined for a rather long life. He was born not without the efforts of A.V. Lunacharsky, who called Scriabin the petrel of the revolution. This myth expressed itself in different forms: the "Poem of Ecstasy" as a counterpoint to the newsreel of the October events, or the finale of the "Divine Poem" as the apotheosis of the military parade on Red Square - just a few of them. Not to mention such a one-sided interpretation of Scriabin, with such an approach to him, a significant part of his legacy remained outside the boundaries of attention.

This applies primarily to the works of the late period, which did not fit either with Soviet mythology or with the corresponding evaluative attitudes in art. Such, in particular, is the Ninth Sonata, which embodies the image of world evil. In the reprise performance of the side part, a kinship with the “invasion marches” in the symphonies of D. D. Shostakovich, a composer who had his own accounts with the bureaucratic optimism of Soviet times, is captured. The commonality is also manifested in the fact that both composers' grotesque marching episodes act as an act of "desecration of the sacred", the result of a deep transformation of initially positive images. This development of the Lisztian romantic tradition testifies to the power of Scriabin's insights, which connected the 19th century with the 20th century.

Scriabin's influence on new music for the most part never stopped. At the same time, the attitude towards him was different, the tides of interest alternated with the ebbs. If we have in mind the tides, then along with the 1920s, we should also talk about later times. The second wave of Scriabinianism began in the 1970s. According to a certain change in cultural paradigms, a new mode of feeling was then formed, in contrast to the long-dominated aesthetics of the Neue Sachlichkeit, romantic vibes regained strength. And the return to Scriabin in this context has become very symptomatic.

True, unlike in the 1920s, this return does not have the character of an outright pilgrimage. Scriabin's experience is perceived with new accents corresponding to the new psychological mood. Not everything in it turns out to be close to modern authors. They seem to be trying to insure themselves against Scriabin's egocentrism and from an excessive, in their opinion, and therefore artificial, feeling of happiness. This is stated, in particular, by A. G. Schnittke in one of his interviews. Indeed, in modern world which has gone through all the cataclysms of the 20th century, such an excess is hardly possible. The new turn of the century gives rise to a new apocalyptic consciousness, but no longer with a touch of heroic messianism, but rather in the form of a repentant confession. Accordingly, spiritual asceticism is preferred to “mystical voluptuousness” (as D. L. Andreev defined the emotional tone of the “Poem of Ecstasy”).

However, repulsion from Scriabin is often reverse side attraction to him. Scriabin and the romanticism of the beginning of the century are associated with new ideas about creativity. Characteristic in this regard is the rejection of the inherent value of art - if not in the spirit of world-transforming utopias, then in the spirit of meditation. The fetishization of the present moment, so indicative of mid-century culture, is giving way to the criteria of the Eternal. The vector sensation of space again closes into the infinity of the sphere.

In this sense, Scriabin's understanding of form as a sphere is close, for example, to the principle of icon composition in the work of V. V. Silvestrov, where all elements are also given in advance. With Silvestrov, the forgotten effect of a sounding aura is revived - swaying shadows, vibrations, textured timbre echoes - “breaths”. All these are signs of "cosmic pastorals" (as the author himself calls his works), in which echoes of Scriabin's works are heard.

At the same time, Scriabin's "higher sophistication" seems to say more to modern composers than "higher grandiosity". They are also not close to the pathos of heroic self-affirmation and the spirit of activism, which had many destructive consequences in the 20th century. It is easy to see that this perception of Scriabin is fundamentally alternative to the Soviet myth about him. However, here the reflection of the late phase of culture, which has colored the work of recent years, also makes itself felt. It is reflected in the works of the same Silvestrov, created in the genre of postlude.

One of the impulses for turning to Scriabin in recent decades was the development of the spiritual riches of the Silver Age, including the legacy of Russian philosophers. Composers are re-aware of both the religious quests of that time and those ideas about art that were, for example, formulated by N. A. Berdyaev in his work “The Meaning of Creativity”, a book that appeared a year after Scriabin’s death and found many points of contact with his system. thoughts. Back in the 1920s, B.F. Schlözer reasonably stated that “the writer and the musician are in tune on one point: namely, in the way of“ justifying ”a person - through creativity, in the exclusive affirmation of him as a creator, in the affirmation of his divine sonship not by grace. , but in essence.

Of the musicians of the current generation, this way of thinking is very close to V. P. Artyomov, the composer who most openly postulates his successive connection with Scriabin. This connection is both in the desire to hear the “music of the spheres”, and in the philosophical and religious programs of major works that form a kind of super-cycle (tetralogy “Symphony of the Way”).

However, the works of S. A. Gubaidulina, who in her own way embodies the idea of ​​art-religion, are also perceived as parts of an endlessly lasting liturgy. Scriabin expressed this idea through "absolute music", which at the same time tested its universality in the forms of synesthesia. In Gubaidulina, with the hegemony in her work of instrumental genres, the transmusical expressiveness of plays such as “Light and Dark” (for organ) attracts attention, and in addition, the idea of ​​color symbolism, which originated in her Mosfilm film and music experiments. The general is also seen in the esoteric warehouse of creativity, in an appeal to hidden signs and meanings. Gubaidulina's numerical symbolism is perceived as an echo of the complex harmonic and metrotectonic combinations of the "Poem of Fire", in particular the use of the Fibonacci series in her works - this universal structuring principle, which is thought by the author as "a hieroglyph of our connection with the cosmic rhythm".

Of course, these and other features of the music of contemporary authors cannot be reduced to Scriabin's origins. Behind them is a long experience of world culture, as well as the experiments of the later avant-garde, which has already sublimated the discoveries of the Russian musician. Masters of the current generation are more willing to address in their interviews to O. Messiaen or K. Stockhausen. This can be explained not only by historical closeness to the latter, but, probably, by the fact that Scriabin's innovations in Western music had the prospect of a "pure", non-ideologized development. Whereas precisely the repulsion from the “Scriabin myth” characterizes the current revival of Scriabin in Russian art.

And yet the absence of programs and manifestos so characteristic of the 1920s does not make the new Scriabinianism any less obvious. Moreover, today it is not only a demonstration of a “musical-formal” (according to N. A. Roslavets) connection. After all, behind it is a common picture of the world, an appeal to spiritual experience that arose at a similar point in the cultural spiral and "in the same part of the Universe."

Composer, pianist, teacher.

Born into a noble family. Father - Nikolai Alexandrovich Skryabin - served as a diplomat in Turkey. Mother - Lyubov Petrovna (nee Shchetinina) - was an outstanding pianist, she graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory under T. Leshetitsky (her talent was highly appreciated by A.G. Rubinshtein, A.P. Borodin, P.I. Tchaikovsky).

At the age of 5, Scriabin easily reproduced the music he heard on the piano, improvised, at the age of 8 he tried to compose the opera "Lisa", imitating classical samples. Noticing the outstanding musical talent of the young musician, S. I. Taneyev began to study with him (in essence, he laid the foundations of Scriabin's composing technique). Later he sent Scriabin to G. E. Konyus for extra classes in harmony, who remarked: “Everything necessary for a musician ... lived in Scriabin as a natural life, it was prepared by nature itself. It remained for me, for the most part, to attach theoretical labels (names, terms, etc.) to what innately turned out to be already learned by them ”(Engel Yu. A. N. Skryabin. Biographical essay. P. 21-22). At the age of 11, according to family tradition, he entered the Second Moscow Cadet Corps, where in the first year of study he performed in concert as a pianist. After studying at home under the guidance of his father's sister Lyubov Alexandrovna, in 1885 he began piano lessons with N. S. Zverev. In 1888, a year before graduating from the cadet corps, he entered the Moscow Conservatory in 2 specialties: piano and free composition. In 1892 he graduated from the conservatory with a small gold medal in the class of V. I. Safonov, having received a grade of “five plus” at the final exam (Scriabin's name is listed on the marble plaque of outstanding graduates of the Moscow Conservatory). He also studied with Taneyev (counterpoint of a strict style) and A. S. Arensky (fugue, free composition). Relations with Arensky, however, did not work out (put the student for the re-examination of the disciplines "canon and fugue" mark "three"). He also did not fit into the conservatory training program for composers, which irritated Arensky even more: “Unable to take into account the individuality of the student, he did not discern the maturing great artist in Scriabin” (Ossovsky A.V. Memoirs. Research. P. 327). As a result, Scriabin did not receive permission to take the exam for a composer's diploma, although by the time he entered the Moscow Conservatory he had written over 70 compositions, including mazurkas op. 3, prelude op. eleven.

After graduating from the Moscow Conservatory, due to an exacerbation of the disease of his right hand, which was replayed during his studies, he went through a difficult period in his life, from which he was helped by the famous St. , sending Scriabin on a tour of Europe. In the 2nd tour, which was also organized by Safonov, Scriabin performed a series of concerts, winning recognition as an excellent composer and pianist. He played practically only his own compositions, captivating the audience with the romantic sophistication and spirituality of the pianistic style.

In 1898, Safonov, bypassing a number of formalities and the dissatisfaction of some teachers, invited Scriabin to teach special piano at the Moscow Conservatory. According to reviews, he was an outstanding teacher: “Scriabin invited me to his class to listen to his students,” wrote Professor of the Vienna Conservatory P. Kon, “and I spent 4 hours with great pleasure, making sure that he is a solid teacher and conducts his business with great knowledge and love. I am almost sure that he is the best professor at the Moscow Conservatory” (Quoted from: Skryabin A.N. Letters. M., 1965. P. 217). Scriabin was one of the first who broke the tradition of teaching young pianists mainly on instructive and pedagogical material. Depending on the technical capabilities, he selected a highly artistic repertoire for students. According to the memoirs of M. S. Nemenova-Lunts, at the same time, he set before them “such tough, inexorable technical requirements that sometimes they seemed positively unrealizable. The focus of his attention was the “sound”, which he himself owned as a magician and magician ”(Nemenova-Lunts M.S. Skryabin - teacher // Soviet music. 1948. No. 5. S. 59). He invented special technical exercises, but he also took care of the creative development of the student. There were frequent discussions in the class, primarily about the “title of the Artist”, which Scriabin considered very high and responsible (Ibid.). For a short time of work (until 1904) he trained such excellent pianists as Nemenova-Lunts, E. Beckman-Shcherbina and others.

Scriabin combined his pedagogical activity with intense composer creativity. He was fond of the works of symbolist poets. He attended philosophical circles (the philosophy of V. S. Solovyov had a special influence on Scriabin, he was also a friend of the philosopher S. N. Trubetskoy) and literary disputes, which led to the birth of his own philosophical and artistic concept of the “creative spirit” (Third Symphony “Divine Poem” , 1903-04; "The Poem of Ecstasy", 1905-07; "Prometheus", 1911), piano works. Later, having become acquainted with the book The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, he became interested in Eastern religious teachings and came up with the idea of ​​synthesis of music and other forms of art, reviving the ancient mystery genre.

In 1904-09 he lived abroad. He gave concerts in America with an orchestra conducted by A. Nikish, met S. A. Koussevitzky. In 1909 he performed in Moscow with triumphant success. In 1910 he finally returned to his homeland. The last years of his life he devoted mainly to piano compositions. At the same time, he formed a new system of musical thinking, which was developed in the art of the 20th century (the complication of the harmonic vertical, which eliminates the need to resolve dissonance, the appearance of dissonant tonics, the expansion of tonality, covering all 12 steps, the formation of new modal structures, the emergence of "harmony-melody" - the so-called Prometheus chord , in which the harmonic complex becomes a scale folded into a vertical). In 1910, the young S. S. Prokofiev dedicated the symphonic poem "Dreams" to Scriabin.

Scriabin's death occurred due to a sudden onset of blood poisoning and caused a great upheaval in Russian society.

His first wife is V. I. Skryabina (née Isakovich). His second wife is Tatyana Fedorovna Scriabina (nee Schlozer), P. Yu. Schlozer's niece; their son, Julian Scriabin (1908-1919), studied at the Kyiv Conservatory in the composition class of R. M. Glier, despite his young age, was a promising composer; died tragically (drowned).

The work of A.N. Scriabin, standing apart in musical culture, had neither direct predecessors (in the presence of influences), nor successors. The individualization of the composer's personality traits led to innovation not only in the field of musical expressive means, but in the very essence of understanding music.

In a single person, Scriabin represents a direction based on a whole complex of musical influences and philosophical teachings that are complexly refracted in the mind:

• the romantic idea of ​​the synthesis of arts (also accepted by the aesthetics of symbolism);
• Nietzsche's ideas about the superman, projected onto themselves, express beliefs about the possibility of creating the World ("... there is my desire ...," I create the world by the play of my mood ... ");
• closeness to ideas (knowledge of the spiritual with the help of symbols that reflect feelings, expressed in mystical plots, sometimes realized in 2-3 notes, as, for example, in the poem “To the Flame”), going even further back to Kant’s dualism;
• ideas of the uniqueness of a human creator, a genius, reflecting the influence of the philosophy of solipsism (“I am not a formidable Deity, but only loving…”);
• pantheistic ideas;
• the influence of the philosophy of scientific socialism (the grandiose sweep of music expressing pre-revolutionary moods).

This list is far from complete, covering the circle from Schopenhauer, Schelling, up to Platonic Eros, Eastern Buddhist teachings and even the theosophical theories of E. Blavatsky.

Scriabin's piano works

Alexander Nikolaevich Skryabin

The composer's piano works form practically the basis of his creative heritage. The main features of his piano style are contained in figurative and emotional spheres, each of which has its own set of expressive means:

• lyrics, interpreted as "the highest refinement";
• the image of the movement;
• image of the will.

In the works of the early period one can trace the influences of Chopin, Liszt, Wagner; typical attraction to the miniature genre (preludes, nocturnes, impromptu); begins the path of formation of the sonata genre. In mature and late works, Scriabin's music demonstrates a new, individual author's style (the means of figurative expression are honed, forms are crystallized).

Preludes by Scriabin

Great attention is paid to this genre (89 preludes); the individuality of the author's handwriting makes the musician an innovator in the interpretation of the prelude genre. In general, the clarity of melody and tonal connections, the refinement of the use of the sound resources of the piano are characteristic. The early preludes are distinguished by emotional openness and clarity, with a predominance of diatonic and lyrical imagery. The lyrics in various manifestations (up to darkly severe, dramatic images) also mark mature compositions; a wide register range is used, often a combination of extreme registers; the texture of many preludes smooths out the sharpness of the harmony.

Poems by A.N. Scriabin

Between miniature and major works, the genre of the poem plays a milestone role in the composer's work. The musician, acting as an innovator, for the first time introduces this genre into piano music; gravitation towards poetry is also characteristic of symphonic creativity. Along with poems without titles, many are programmatic (for example, Tragic, Bizarre, Satanic, Inspired, Mask). The composer's poems have a number of characteristic features:

• P oema is dedicated to the formation of one image, perceived “in one breath” and grows, as a rule, from one short theme;
• each work is the process of the formation of feelings and thoughts, the process of creativity; the image is actively developing throughout the work, realizing the Lisztian method of transforming thematic;
• the maestro groups his works according to the principle of contrasting images.

Sonatas by Scriabin

The genre of the composer's sonata is undergoing evolution from a 4-part cycle to a one-part cycle (in this process, the poem "To the Flame" plays a milestone role); the tendency towards monothematism also brings the sonata closer to the genre of the poem. Of the 10 sonatas, No. 1, No. 3 are four-part, No. 2 and No. 4 are two-part, the rest are one-part.

His sonatas are characterized by the presence of programming (the programmatic idea of ​​sonata No. 4, which appeared after the work itself, expresses the desire for a distant star, the path to reaching which flows through images of languor, flight, ecstasy). Sonata No. 7 - "Bright Mass", No. 9 - "Black Mass", etc.

Some features of the one-movement sonatas by A.N. Scriabin:

• there is little figurative difference between the main and secondary parties (the sphere of the secondary is represented mainly by lyrics; the main one is represented by images of determination, will);
• the main climax, as a rule, falls on the zone of transition from development to reprise (Sonata No. 6 is an exception).

Symphonic works of A.N. Scriabin

defining in his symphonic creativity There are 3 themes that are invariably present one way or another in any work:

• theme of overcoming (the composer said that The world is generated by the resistance he wanted; life is overcoming resistance);
• the theme of will, self-affirmation;
• ecstatic theme and images of flight.

In the symphonic works of A.N. Scriabin, a connection with Wagner is traced in the leitmotif meaning of themes, type and character; with Liszt - in the pursuit of one-partness. From and - the epic beginning (however, unlike the epic, based on myths and historical events of the past, the composer looks at the present from the position of the future, and already the present is pre-stormy).

The composer's symphonic works are characterized by:

• striving for one-partness (although symphony No. 1 has 6 parts, No. 2 - 5 hours, No. 3 - 3 hours); "The Poem of Ecstasy" and "Prometheus" are already one-part: there is a rapprochement with the poem;
• despite the number of parts, the apotheosis always occurs in the final, concentrating all the main themes;
• the obligatory presence of thematic arches from the introduction to the finale.

Orchestra

Scriabin's orchestration is characterized by a complex combination of monumentality, grandiosity, and graceful sophistication; the originality of the composer's orchestral writing successively ascends:

• to the style in relation to the methods of polyphonic-vocal work;
• power and brilliance - to Wagner;
• the subtlety and descriptiveness of orchestral writing - to Rimsky-Korsakov;
• features of impressionistic orchestration.

Together with the "Poem of Ecstasy", an organ, bells are introduced into the orchestra, and the composition of pipes increases.

Musical language of A.N.Scriabin

The brightest innovator, Scriabin - the creator of his own system of musical thinking . Complex and extraordinary harmonic complexes, sophisticated rhythmic structures are manifestations of the aesthetic side of creativity. At the same time, the fundamental principles of functional harmony, formative laws, are important for him.

As a performer, Alexander Nikolayevich is one of the great pianists ( founded his own piano school). It is often compared to:

• if Rachmaninov is a concert performer, then Scriabin is more of a chamber performer;
• if composers can compete in terms of talent and artistry, then in terms of composer innovation, the music of the first master, unlike the second, did not oppose tradition.

The composer's innovative discoveries include discoveries in the field of music, light and color: he discovered the joint use of music and light, being the father of light music; modern achievements in this area date back to it. For each sound, he selected a certain color, which was embodied in the party of light in "Prometheus" and was conceived in "Mystery"; the composition "Preliminary Action" was a preparation for the "Mystery" of all mankind.

The figurative world of Scriabin's creativity

Ideas about the universal power of transformation through art and faith in the colossal possibilities of Man, who is able to create the World through its destruction, are among the central ones in the composer's work. The mysticism of his music is filled with duality. A number of researchers note moments that can be expressed in the words of G. Florovsky about the intention

"... some kind of magical act", exposing "... the dark abyss of artistic genius",

where you feel

"Lucefiric will to rule, magically and incantably seize",

lead the world to an apocalyptic outcome.

So, the idea of ​​the last grandiose work of A.N. Scriabin - "Mystery", which remained unrealized, involves the dematerialization of the world through

“... a universal festivity permeated with exalted eroticism - ... a Dionysian celebration of the transformation of the physical world into a purely spiritual one”, where “divine synthesis ... restoration of world harmony, ecstasy” will take place (notes B. Katz).

Scriabin's music is not sharply conflicted in figurative terms, but rather dramatic, embodying the contradictory world of spiritual aspirations.

The works of the composer, in general, follow the path:

1.From darkness to light(late sonatas, piano poem "To the Flame", symphonic poem"Prometheus", she is also - "The Poem of Fire");

2. Dreams, flight, ecstasy("Poem of Ecstasy", Sonata No. 4). There are two sets of images here: "supreme sophistication"(lyrical images, exquisite, graceful) and "supreme magnificence"(monumental images of triumph and greatness).

Unlike other composers, in whose works the ideas of struggle are important, Scriabin's drama is expressed by moving forward and achieving the result through feelings (for example, Symphony No. 3 "The Divine Poem" has the names of the parts: Struggle, Pleasure, Divine Game).

At the same time, his work is permeated with the ideas of the transformation of art.

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Russian composer and pianist Alexander Nikolaevich Skryabin was born on January 6, 1872 (December 25, 1871 according to the old style) in Moscow. His family came from an old noble family. My father served as a diplomat in Turkey. Mother - Lyubov Shchetinina was an outstanding pianist, she graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory with the Polish pianist Teodor Leshetitsky, composers Anton Rubinstein, Alexander Borodin, Pyotr Tchaikovsky highly appreciated her talent. She died of tuberculosis when her son was not even one and a half years old. Alexander was brought up by his aunt, Lyubov Scriabina, who fascinated him by playing the piano. At the age of five, he confidently reproduced on the instrument not only melodies, but also once heard simple pieces, at eight he began to compose music, also wrote poetry and multi-act tragedies.

Since 1882, according to family tradition, Alexander Scriabin studied at the Second Moscow Cadet Corps. He took piano lessons from Georgy Konyus and Nikolai Zverev, studied music theory under the direction of Sergey Taneyev, and performed in concerts.

In 1888, a year before graduating from the cadet corps, he entered the Moscow Conservatory in two specialties: piano and free composition. In 1892 he graduated from the conservatory with a small gold medal in the class of Vasily Safonov (piano), having received a grade of "five plus" at the final exam. In composition, Scriabin did not receive permission to take the examination for a diploma, although by the time he entered the conservatory he had written over 70 compositions.

After graduating from the Moscow Conservatory due to an exacerbation of the disease of his right hand, which he had replayed during his studies, Alexander Scriabin went through a difficult period, from which he was helped out by the famous St. 1896 on a tour of Europe.

In 1898-1904 Scriabin taught special piano at the Moscow Conservatory.

He combined his pedagogical activity with intense composing work. He was fond of the works of symbolist poets. The philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov had a special influence on Scriabin, he was also a friend of the philosopher Sergei Trubetskoy. He attended philosophical circles and literary disputes, which led to the birth of his own philosophical and artistic concept of the "creative spirit", reflected in the Third Symphony "The Divine Poem" (1903-1904), "The Poem of Ecstasy" (1905-1907), "Prometheus" (1911). ), piano works. Later, having become acquainted with the teachings of Helena Blavatsky, Scriabin became interested in Eastern religious teachings and came up with the idea of ​​a synthesis of music and other forms of art, reviving the ancient mystery genre.

In 1904-1909, Scriabin lived abroad, gave concerts in America with an orchestra conducted by the famous Hungarian conductor Artur Nikish. In 1909 he performed in Moscow with triumphant success. In 1910, Scriabin finally returned to his homeland.

The last years of his life he devoted mainly to piano compositions. Scriabin's later works - sonatas No. 7-10, piano poems "Mask", "Strangeness", "To the Flame" are somehow connected with the ideas of "mystery". At the same time, he formed a new system of musical thinking, which was developed in the art of the twentieth century.

Scriabin is the first composer who used color and light music when creating his works, created a table of correspondence of colors to certain keys. In 1910, for an expanded symphony orchestra, piano, organ, choir, light, Scriabin wrote "The Poem of Fire" ("Prometheus"), which is considered one of his most significant creations. It was first performed in 1911 in St. Petersburg, the piano part was performed by the author himself.

In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, Scriabin gave concerts in favor of the victims of the war.

Among the composer's works are three symphonies (1900, 1901, 1903-1904); symphonic poem "Dreams" (1898); for piano - 10 sonatas, 9 poems, 26 etudes, 90 preludes, 21 mazurkas, 11 impromptu, waltzes.

On April 27 (April 14, old style), 1915, Alexander Scriabin died suddenly in Moscow from blood poisoning.
In 1916, by order of the City Duma, a memorial plaque was installed on the house of Scriabin. In 1922, the Scriabin Museum was opened in the apartment where the composer lived from 1912 until his death.