Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (Russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин, Aleksandr Nikolajevič Skriabin; sometimes transliterated as Skryabin or Scriabine (6 January 1872 [O.S. 26 December 1871]—27 April 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist. Image File history File links Scriabin. ... Image File history File links Scriabin. ... is the 6th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Old Style or O.S. is a designation indicating that a date conforms to the Julian calendar, formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian calendar, currently in use in most countries. ... April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... A pianist is a person who plays the piano. ...

Biography

Scriabin was born into an aristocratic family in Moscow on Christmas Day 1871 according to the Julian Calendar. When he was only a year old, his mother, a concert pianist, died of tuberculosis. Scriabin's father left for Turkey, leaving the young infant with his doting grandmother and great aunt. He studied the piano from an early age, taking lessons with Nikolay Zverev, a strict disciplinarian, who was teaching Sergei Rachmaninoff and a number of other prodigies at the same time. Position of Moscow in Europe Coordinates: , Country District Subdivision Russia Central Federal District Federal City Government  - Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov Area  - City 1,081 km²  (417. ... The Julian calendar was introduced in 46 BC by Julius Caesar and came into force in 45 BC (709 ab urbe condita). ... Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria, mainly Mycobacterium tuberculosis. ... A short grand piano, with the top up. ... Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (Russian: , Sergej Vasilevič Rakhmaninov, 1 April 1873 (N.S.) or 20 March 1873 (O.S.) – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, one of the last great champions of the Romantic style of European classical music. ...

Scriabin later studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Anton Arensky, Sergei Taneyev, and Vasily Ilyich Safonov. He became a noted pianist despite his small hands with a span of barely over an octave. Feeling challenged by Josef Lhevinne he seriously damaged his right hand while practicing Liszt's Don Juan Fantasy and Balakirev's Islamey.^[1] His doctor said he would never recover, and he wrote his first large-scale masterpiece, the F-minor sonata, as a "cry against God, against fate". Unmoved by the requirement to write several pieces in forms that didn't interest him, Scriabin failed his composition class and didn't graduate. Ironically, the one requirement he did complete, an E-minor fugue, became required learning for decades at the Conservatory. The Moscow Conservatory (Московская Государственная Консерватория им. П.И.Чайковского) is a prominent music school in Russia. ... Anton Stepanovich Arensky (July 12, 1861 – February 25, 1906), was a Russian Romantic composer and music professor born in Novgorod, Russia. ... Sergey I. Taneev. ... Vasily Ilyich Safonov (Васи́лий Ильи́ч Сафо́нов) (February 6, 1852 - February 27, 1918); Russian pianist, teacher, conductor and composer. ... Josef Lhévinne (December 13, 1874 - December 2, 1944) was a Russian pianist and piano teacher. ... Portrait by Henri Lehmann, 1839 Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Liszt Ferenc; pronounced , in English: list) (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian [1] virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic period. ... Réminiscences de Don Juan (S/G418) is an operatic fantasy by Franz Liszt on themes from Don Giovanni by Mozart. ... Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev (Russian Милий Алексеевич Бала́кирев) (January 2, 1837 – May 29, 1910) was a Russian composer. ... Islamey: an Oriental Fantasy is a piece of music written by the Russian composer, Mily Balakirev. ...

Scriabin married a pianist, Vera Ivanova Isakovich, after graduation and had several children, but he eventually left his wife and teaching position for a young pupil, Tatiana Fyodorovna Schloezer (Tatiana de Schloezer), with whom he had a son named Julian. That son was also a prodigy, who composed several sophisticated pieces before drowning in a boating accident at age 11. He also painted and wrote poetry. There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Scriabin, previously interested in Friedrich Nietzsche's übermensch theory, also became interested in theosophy, and both would influence his music and musical thought. In 1909–10 he lived in Brussels, becoming interested in Delville's Theosophist movement and continuing his reading of Hélène Blavatsky (Samson 1977). Theosophist and composer Dane Rudhyar wrote that Scriabin was "the one great pioneer of the new music of a reborn Western civilization, the father of the future musician" (Rudhyar 1926b, 899), and an antidote to "the Latin reactionaries and their apostle, Stravinsky" and the "rule-ordained" music of "Schoenberg's group" (ibid., 900–01). Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a 19th-century German philosopher. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Theosophy, literally god-wisdom (Greek: θεοσοφία theosophia), designates several bodies of ideas. ... Nickname: Map showing the location of Brussels in Belgium Coordinates: , Country Belgium Region Brussels-Capital Region Founded 979 Founded (Region) June 18, 1989 Government  - Mayor (Municipality) Freddy Thielemans Area  - Region 162 km²  (62. ... Orpheus (1893) Jean Delville was a symbolist painter during the late 19th century. ... Helena Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Hahn (also Hélène) (July 31, 1831 (O.S.) (August 12, 1831 (N.S.)) - May 8, 1891 London), better known as Helena Blavatsky (Russian: ) or Madame Blavatsky, born Helena von Hahn, was a founder of the Theosophical Society. ... Dane Rudhyar (born Daniel Chennevière, March 23, 1895, in Paris - died September 13, 1985, in San Francisco) was a modernist composer and humanistic astrologer. ... Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Russian: Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский, Igor Fëdorovič Stravinskij) (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was a Russian composer, considered by many in both the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th-century music. ... Schoenberg redirects here. ... The Second Viennese School was a group of composers made up of Arnold Schoenberg and those who studied under him in early 20th century Vienna. ...

Scriabin was a hypochondriac his entire life. He died in Moscow from septicemia, contracted as a result of a shaving cut or a boil on his lip. For some time before his death he had planned a multi-media work to be performed in the Himalayas, that would bring about the armageddon, "a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world" (AMG [1]). This piece, Misteria, was never realized. Hypochondria (or hypochondriasis, sometimes referred to as health anxiety/health phobia) refers to an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness. ... Sepsis (in Greek Σήψις, putrefaction) is a serious medical condition, resulting from the immune response to a severe infection. ... The evangelist John of Patmos writes the Book of Revelation. ... Mysterium was an unfinished musical work by composer Alexander Scriabin. ...

He was possibly the uncle of Vyacheslav Molotov, the Russian politician and eponym of the Molotov cocktail. Molotov's original surname was Scriabin. Simon Montefiore, in his biography of Stalin, states that despite the shared family name, Molotov was not in any way related to the composer. Scriabin wrote poetry, which was generally tied to his compositions, and it is not taken seriously by itself. For other uses, see Molotov (disambiguation). ... An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, who has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery, or other item. ... Molotov cocktail is the generic name for a variety of crude incendiary weapons. ...

Pianists who have performed Scriabin to critical acclaim include Vladimir Sofronitsky, Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter. Horowitz performed for Scriabin, in his home as a youth, and Scriabin had an enthusiastic reaction, but cautioned that he needed further training. As an elderly man, Horowitz remarked that Scriabin was obviously crazy, because he had tics and couldn't sit still. Despite Horowitz' assessment, Scriabin held the rapt attention of the musical world in Russia while he was alive. Vladimir Sofronitsky (May 8/April 25, 1901–August 26, 1961), Russian pianist and a pupil, follower, and son-in-law to Alexander Scriabin. ... Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz (Russian: ; Ukrainian: ) (1 October 1903 – 5 November 1989) was a Russian-American classical pianist. ... Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter (Russian: , Svjatoslav Teofilovič Rikhter; March 20 [O.S. March 7] 1915 – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet pianist, widely recognized as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. ...

Music

See also: List of compositions by Alexander Scriabin and Category:Compositions by Alexander Scriabin

// Notable pieces Piano Sonatas Scriabin wrote 10 sonatas for piano. ...

Style and influences

Many of Scriabin's works are written for the piano. The earliest pieces resemble Frédéric Chopin and include music in many forms that Chopin himself employed, such as the étude, the prelude and the mazurka. Scriabin's music gradually evolved during the course of his life, although the evolution was very rapid and especially long when compared to most composers. Aside from his earliest pieces, his works are strikingly original, the mid- and late-period pieces employing very unusual harmonies and textures. The development of Scriabin's voice or style can be followed in his ten piano sonatas: the earliest are in a fairly conventional late-Romantic idiom and show the influence of Chopin and Franz Liszt, but the later ones move into new territory, the last five being written with no key signature. Many passages in them can be said to be atonal, though from 1903 through 1908, "tonal unity was almost imperceptibly replaced by harmonic unity" (Samson 1977). See: synthetic chord. The only known photograph of Frédéric Chopin, believed to have been taken by Louis-Auguste Bisson in 1849. ... An etude (from the French word étude meaning study) is a short musical composition designed to provide practice in a particular technical skill in the performance of a solo instrument. ... A prelude is a short piece of music, usually in no particular internal form, which may serve as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that are usually longer and more complex. ... The mazurka (Polish: mazurek, named after Polands Masuria district[1]) is a Polish folk dance in triple metre with a lively tempo, containing a heavy accent on the third or second beat. ... Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. ... In music texture is the overall quality of sound of a piece, most often indicated by the number of voices in the music and to the relationship between these voices (see below). ... A piano sonata is a sonata written for unaccompanied piano. ... The era of Romantic music is defined as the period of European classical music that runs roughly from the early 1800s to the first decade of the 20th century, as well as music written according to the norms and styles of that period. ... Portrait by Henri Lehmann, 1839 Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Liszt Ferenc; pronounced , in English: list) (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian [1] virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic period. ... This key signature – A major or F# minor – consists of three sharps placed after the clef In musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp symbols or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently played one semitone higher or lower than the... Atonality describes music not conforming to the system of tonal hierarchies, which characterizes the sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. ... Composer and theosophist Alexander Scriabins so called mystic chord, actually called the synthetic chord by Scriabin, consists of the pitch classes: C, F#, Bb, E, A, D. An augmented fourth, diminished fourth, augmented fourth, and two perfect fourths. ...

Aaron Copland praised Scriabin's thematic material as "truly individual, truly inspired", but criticized Scriabin for putting "this really new body of feeling into the strait-jacket of the old classical sonata-form, recapitulation and all" calling this "one of the most extraordinary mistakes in all music."^{[citation needed]} According to Samson the sonata-form of Sonata No. 5 has some meaning to the work's tonal structure, but in Sonata No. 6 and Sonata No. 7 formal tensions are created by the absence of harmonic contrast and "between the cumulative momentum of the music, usually achieved by textural rather than harmonic means, and the formal constraints of the tripartite mould." He also argues that the Poem of Ecstasy and Vers la flamme "find a much happier co-operation of 'form' and 'content'" and that later Sonatas such as Sonata No. 9 employ a more flexible sonata-form (Samson 1977). Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. ... The fifth piano sonata, Op. ... Alexander Scriabins Sonata No. ... The seventh piano sonata (Opus 64) written by Scriabin in 1911 is entitled White Mass. The piece is highly chromatic and atonal like Scriabins other late works. ... Vers la flamme, Op. ... The ninth piano sonata (Opus 68) written by Scriabin in 1912-1913 is often known by the nickname Black Mass. Although the nickname was not invented by Scriabin, he personally approved of it. ...

Influence of color

Synesthetic colors, described by the composer

Though these works are often considered to be influenced by Scriabin's synesthesia, a condition wherein one experiences sensation in one sense in response to stimulus in another, it is doubted that Alexander Scriabin actually experienced this.^[2][3] His color system, unlike most synesthetic experience, lines up with the circle of fifths: it was a thought-out system based on Sir Isaac Newton's Optics. Indeed, influenced also by his theosophical beliefs, he developed it towards what would have been a pioneering multimedia performance: his unrealized magnum opus Misteria was to have been a grand week-long performance including music, scent, dance, and light in the foothills of the Himalayas that was to bring about the dissolution of the world in bliss. Image File history File links Scriabin_keyboard. ... Image File history File links Scriabin_keyboard. ... Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae or synaesthesiae)—from the Ancient Greek (syn), meaning with, and (aisthēsis), meaning sensation—is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. ... In music theory, the circle of fifths (or cycle of fifths) is an imaginary geometrical space that depicts relationships among the 12 equal-tempered pitch classes comprising the familiar chromatic scale. ... Sir Isaac Newton (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) [ OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726][1] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. ... Perspective view of the Himalaya and Mount Everest as seen from space looking south-south-east from over the Tibetan Plateau. ...

In his autobiographical Recollections, Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov about Scriabin's association of color and music. Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed with Scriabin on associations of musical keys with colors; himself skeptical, Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colors involved. Both maintained that the key of D major was golden-brown; but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue. However, Rimsky-Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff's opera The Miserly Knight supported their view: the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is written in D major. Scriabin told Rachmaninoff that "your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny." Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (Russian: , Sergej Vasilevič Rakhmaninov, 1 April 1873 (N.S.) or 20 March 1873 (O.S.) – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, one of the last great champions of the Romantic style of European classical music. ... Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian: , Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov), also Nikolay, Nicolai, and Rimsky-Korsakoff, (March 6 (N.S. March 18), 1844 – June 8 (N.S. June 21) 1908) was a Russian composer, one of five Russian composers known as The Five, and was later a...

While Scriabin wrote only a small number of orchestral works, they are among his most famous, and some are frequently performed. They include three symphonies, a piano concerto (1896), The Poem of Ecstasy (1908) and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (1910), which includes a part for a "clavier à lumières", also known as the Luxe, which was a color organ designed specifically for the performance of Scriabin's symphony. It was played like a piano, but projected colored light on a screen in the concert hall rather than sound. Most performances of the piece (including the premiere) have not included this light element, although a performance in New York City in 1915 projected colours onto a screen. It has erroneously been claimed that this performance used the colour-organ invented by English painter A. Wallace Rimington when in fact it was a novel construction personally supervised and built in New York specifically for the performance by Preston S. Miller, the president of the Illuminating Engineering Society. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A piano concerto is a concerto for solo piano and orchestra. ... Alexander Scriabins Symphony No. ... Prometheus: Poem of Fire, Opus 60 (1910), is a piece by russian composer Alexander Scriabin for piano, orchestra, voice, and clavier à lumières, an instrument invented by Scriabin. ... The clavier a lumieres was a musical instrument invented by Scriabin for use in his work Prometheus: Poem of Fire. ... The term color organ refers to a tradition of mechanical (18th century), then electromechanical devices built to represent sound or to accompany music, in a visual medium — by any number of means. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ...

Scriabin's original colour keyboard, with its associated turntable of coloured lamps, is preserved in his apartment near the Arbat in Moscow, which is now a museum dedicated to his life and works. Melnikov House (1929), just a few steps away from the Arbat. ...

Miscellaneous

A comparison of the creative trajectories of Rachmaninov and Scriabin has fueled psychoanalytic speculation on the distinction between talent and genius(Garcia 2004).

The graphic above depicting a colored keyboard is not entirely correct: the colors shown do not relate to the particular tones of the twelve-tone system, but to the tonalities starting with those keys. Also note that Scriabin did not, as far as this theory is concerned, recognize a difference between a major and a minor tonality of the same name (for example: c-minor and C-Major).

Media

In January 1910 Scriabin played in Moscow nine of his own compositions for Welte-Mignon. Examples: M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical musical Instruments of highest quality. ...

Image File history File links Skrjabin_op_11_1. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... Image File history File links Skrjabin_op_11_2. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... Image File history File links Skrjabin_op_40_2. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ...

References

1. ^ Scholes, Percy. Crotchets: A Few Short Musical Notes. Ayer, 141. ISBN 0836908554. 
2. ^ *Harrison, John (2001). Synaesthesia: The Strangest Thing, ISBN 0-19-263245-0: "In fact, there is considerable doubt about the legitimacy of Scriabin's claim, or rather the claims made on his behalf, as we shall discuss in Chapter 5." (p.31-2).
3. ^ B. M. Galeyev and I. L. Vanechkina (August 2001). "Was Scriabin a Synesthete?", Leonardo, Vol. 34, Issue 4, pp. 357 - 362: "authors conclude that the nature of Scriabin’s 'color-tonal' analogies was associative, i.e. psychological; accordingly, the existing belief that Scriabin was a distinctive, unique 'synesthete' who really saw the sounds of music—that is, literally had an ability for 'co-sensations'— is placed in doubt."

Bibliography

• Samson, Jim (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900–1920. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-02193-9. 
• Harry Plummer, "Color Music-A New Art Created with the Aid of Science, The Color Organ Used in Scriabin's Symphony Prometheus". [Scientific American, April 10, 1915]
• E.E. Garcia (2004): Rachmaninoff and Scriabin: Creativity and Suffering in Talent and Genius. Psychoanalytic Review, 91: 423–42.
• Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rachmaninoff's Recollections Told to Oskar von Rieseman, translated by Dorothy Rutherford; New York, MacMillan, 1934.
• Bowers, F. (1996): "Scriabin, a Biography: Second, Revised Edition". Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-28897-8
• Andras M. Nagy (2007): "Numerology 101: Pythagoras Explained". Piano Works of Scriabin Lulu Press (2006). A CD-ROM was made to explain Pythagorean Numerology and help with your meditation with the piano works of Scriabin

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External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Alexander Scriabin

• Scriabin Society of America
• The mythical time in Scriabin by Lia Tomás
• Was Scriabin a Synaesthete? by B. Galeyev & I. Vanechkina
• Scriabin in Aspen No.2 on UBUWEB (A short biography by Faubion Bowers; four preludes and the tenth sonata available for download)
• ChopinMusic - Scriabin (Scriabin - Biography, Links, Discussion, Recordings, etc.)
• Scriabin's Sheet Music by Mutopia Project
• Free scores by Alexander Scriabin in the Werner Icking Music Archive
• Alexander Scriabin at MusicBrainz
• Free scores by Scriabin in the International Music Score Library Project (Public domain)
• Kunst der Fuge: Aleksandr Scriabin - MIDI files
• Alexander Scriabin Free Piano Scores

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ... The Mutopia project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of public domain sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenbergs library of public domain books. ... The Werner Icking Music Archive, often abbreviated WIMA, is a web archive of public domain sheet music. ... MusicBrainz (MusicBrainz. ... The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) is a project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores, based on the wiki principle. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...