ABSTRACT

Alexander Scriabin 's Theurgy in Blue:

Esotericism and the Analysis o/Trometheus: Poem of Fire op. 60

Anna Gawboy
2010

In both performance practice and scholarship, Alexander Scriabin's Prometheus, op. 60

(1908-1910) is frequently presented as merely an orchestral tone poem. However, the music
was only one component of the composer's more extensive conception of the piece. Like
the Mysterium, the grandiose musical ritual Scriabin was planning at the time of his death,
Prometheus was to be a work of theurgy, an experiment in the composer's lifelong quest to
trigger universal apocalypse and human spiritual transcendence through his art. In Prometheus,
the agent of this transfiguration was to be the mystical combination of sound and light.
Scriabin scored the work for orchestra and tastieraper luce, a mysterious instrument intended
to create a "symphony of light" to counterpoint the symphony of sound. However, Scriabin
withdrew the luce from the 1911 premiere of Prometheus due to technical difficulties, inspiring
many subsequent scholars to dismiss the light part as inessential to the work.
This dissertation argues that the luce is, in fact, critical to understanding the musical
events of Prometheus, fulfilling important analytic and dramatic functions. The faster-moving
line of color delineates the fundamental bass motion of the harmonies, while the slower-
moving color changes segment the music into seven large-scale sections, providing insight
into the work's problematic form. But the full import of the luce cannot be ascertained from
the published score, which contains only a rudimentary notation for colored lights. In 1978,
the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris archived a first edition score of Prometheus containing
Scriabin's handwritten annotations describing his vision for the luce. Scriabin called for not
only blazes of color, but also spectacular effects such as lightning, fireworks, and tongues of
flame. His final apocalyptic indication "inferno, the whole world engulfed—cataclysm, all in
fire" made the theurgic purpose of the work explicit.
Just as the luce provides a key to understanding the musical events of Prometheus, the
work's secret esoteric program and its larger intellectual context provide further insight into
the relationship between music and lights. This dissertation relates Prometheus to three source
texts known to have inspired the composer. Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy and
Viacheslav Ivanov's symbolist essays collected in By the Stars provide insight into the work's
theurgic function, and Helena Blavatsky's Theosophical magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine,
supplies the work's esoteric narrative. The seven slow color stages in the luce correspond to
Blavatsky's seven-stage conception of human evolution.
This dissertation not only reconstructs and reintegrates the rich spiritual, intellectual,
and multimedia dimensions of Prometheus, but it also addresses the special analytical
challenges presented by such a highly conceptual work. In an effort to more deeply involve
Scriabin's philosophy with the process of analysis, this dissertation uses concepts drawn
from Scriabin's metaphysical source texts to establish analytical values. In this way, the act of
analysis becomes a mode of exegetical reception, and reference to Scriabin's metaphysics
sheds light on long standing questions of a purely analytical nature.

l
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN'S THEURGY IN BLUE: ESOTERICISM AND
THE ANALYSIS OF PROMETHEUS: POEM OF FIRE OP. 60

A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of
Yale University
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

by
Anna Gawboy

Dissertation Director: Daniel Harrison

May 2010

11
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in
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract i

Acknowledgements vi

PREFACE 1

CHAPTER ONE: Analysis and Esotericism 11

CHAPTER Two: Initiation 35

Prometheus, op. 60 and the Mysterium 35
The birth of Prometheus: Nietzsche, Ivanov, Blavatsky 45
Prometheus, India, and the search for myth 48
Music and myth in theurgic art 54
The Wagnerian model 64
What is The Secret Doctrine? 70
The secret doctrine of The Secret Doctrine 78
Esoteric epistemology and Scriabin's web of sources 91

CHAPTER THREE: The Law of Polarity and Scriabin's Late Harmonic Practice 99
Hypertonality and the tritone 99
Polarity as metaphysical worldview 103
Polarity as musical worldview 116
Polarity and the dominantization of the tonic, I: Prelude, op. 56 no. 1 (1908) 119
Polarity and the dominantization of the tonic, II: Desir, op. 57 no. 1 (1910) 123
Polarity and tritonal harmonic progressions: Etudes, op. 65, nos. 2-3 (1911-1912) 126
Polarity and pitch class centricity: the Preludes, op. 74, nos. 1, 3, and 5 (1914) 133
Polarity as a theoretical value in the Russian tradition 146

CHAPTER FOUR: The esoteric program of Prometheus and Scriabin's system of tone- 160
color correspondence
Prometheus, op. 60 according to Sabaneev, Delville, and Newmarch 160
Scriabin and synaesthesia 173
Scriabin's "Chord of the Pleroma" and occult theories of sound-light 175
correspondence

CHAPTER FIVE: The Musical Functions of the Tastieraper luce 201

Drama and Color 201
The fast luce and Scriabin's harmony 205
The slow luce and dramatic form 211
Cyclic aspects of the slow luce 219
Interaction between the two luce voices 227

IV
CHAPTER SIX: Poem ofFire 241
Creation ex nihilio 241
The emergence of the Will 246
The emergence of polarities 251
Joy and languour 257
The piano's dance 260
Desire and mystery: Color Stage II 262
Will and rapture 265
Theme large majestueux 269
Onduleux and Contemplatif 276
Half-step undulations and tritone poles 279
The transition to Color Stage IV 280
The materialization of spirit: Color Stage IV 283
Rapture and Will 287
Triumph and failure 290
The turning point 291
Past and present: Color Stage V 294
Victory? 296
The return of Will 298
The piano's dance: transition to Color Stage VI 303
The Dionysian dithyramb 305
The mute chorus 311
"Eaohoaho": Color Stage VII 314
The dance of flame 318
Vertige 320
The final transcendence 322
Tonal centricity or polarity? 323

CHAPTER SEVEN: Esotericism and Analysis Reconsidered 327

Bibliography 347

v
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the many people who supplied me with critical assistance and
support throughout the course of this project. Daniel Harrison's early enthusiasm for this
topic encouraged me to take a risk. His unwavering support, encouragement, and counsel
helped make this document what it is today. I would also like to thank Brian Kane for his
reliable good cheer, profound thought, and his willingness to serve as a reader for this
dissertation. Thanks also to reader Patrick McCreless, whose understanding of Russian
music and Wagnerian aesthetics stimulated my ideas. I extend deep gratitude to Ellen
Rosand for supporting my work at its earliest, most vulnerable stage, and to Ian Quinn, who
encouraged me during the final months of writing. Thanks to Helen Bartlett of the Gilmore
Music Library at Yale who procured a copy of the 'Tarisian score" of Prometheus from the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and to Kerry Philben, who assisted me with my translation
of it from Russian. Andre Redwood and Stephen Gosden both helped with the final draft
copy edits.
In 2009-2010,1 had the opportunity to collaborate on a fully-lighted performance of
Prometheus, based on the research presented here. My warmest thanks to conductor Toshiyuki
Shimada, who delivered an exhilarating performance with members of the Yale Symphony
Orchestra, comprised of my students past and present. Thanks also to the talented pianist
Daniel Schlossberg, a kindred Scriabinist who admirably performed the role of sacrificial
soloist. I am grateful to the members of the New Haven Oratorio choir, led by Mark Bailey,
for both their powerful performance and their willingness to don the requisite white robes.
Thanks to symphony manager Brian Robinson, whose mastery of logistics helped things run
smoothly, and to producer Joe Reese and the crew of Tech Theatrical Services LLC for their
professionalism, innovative trouble-shooting, and commitment to this project. My profound
admiration and gratitude go to Chris White and Jamie O'Leary, who exhibited exemplary
musicianship in running the light board and made Woolsey Hall resound with color. I am
especially greateful to Andre Redwood, who became overnight one of the foremost luce
players in the world. His consummate musicianship and grace under pressure allowed him to
master an imaginary instrument two days before the show and ultimately deliver an
electrifying performance. Thanks to Dean Susan Cahan, Dean Mary Miller, and Martin Jean,
whose generous provisions made the performance possible. Thanks again to Daniel
Harrison, who encouraged me to pursue my ideas through a realization of the light part,
helped me secure funding, and delivered a magnificent FJt major triad from the organ at the
end. Finally, I could not have asked for a better collaborator in lighting designer Justin
Townsend, assisted by Chris Kuhl, who truly brought Scriabrn's vision to life. Realizing the
luce part for live performance profoundly changed my perception of Prometheus, and the
benefits of our collaboration permeate this entire document.
I am also deeply grateful for the wonderful colleagues, mentors, friends, and family
members whose convivial companionship and inspiration helped me navigate this long
journey through graduate school: Lynn Laitala, Carl Gawboy, Cindy Donner, Oren
Tikkanen, Joyce Koskenmaki, Scott Rutherford, Seth Monahan, Julie Johnson, Lynda Paul,
Andre Redwood, Stephen Gosden, Jeremy Hays, Cody Cosmic, Eric Bianchi, Leanne
Dodge, Claire Happel, Ashley Boughton, Clare Eng, Erica Keithley, Rachel Lind, James
O'Leary, Kerry Philben, Danielle Ward-Griffin, Nick Betson, Leah Koskimaki, Karen Jones,
Daryn David, Bill Rando, Jennifer Frederick, Maureen Canavan, Lisa Knoche, Steve Kite,
and Tim Best. I would not have finished without you.

VI
 The nature of any creation worthy to be called a work of art is
mysterious.
—Viacheslav Ivanov 1

PREFACE

The instrument list in the first edition of Alexander Scriabin's Prometheus, Poem ofFire,

op. 60, reproduced in Example 0.1, calls for an orchestra of grandiose proportions: a small

army of woodwind players, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, a sizeable battery of

percussion, two harps, organ, piano, full choir, and, of course, strings, the more numerous

the better. At the top of diis inventory, an unfamiliar and curious instrument is listed: a

tastieraper luce, or keyboard for lights. Flipping through the score, one would find die luce part

notated on the uppermost staff (Example 0.2), consisting of a continuous flow of slow-

moving pitches in simple two-voice polyphony. The original edition gives no further

information regarding this instrument. There are no clues as to what type of lighting effects

the instrument might produce, or the relationship between luce and the actual sounding

music. The score does not provide even so much as a table of correspondences between die

luce's notated pitches and possible colors for the lights.

1
Viacheslav Ivanov, "Scriabin's View of Art," in Selected Essays, translated by Robert Bird (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 2001), 215.

1
EXAMPLE 0.1: Instrumentation in the first edition of Alexander Scriabin's
Prometheus, Poem ofFire, op. 60 (1911).

* T a s t i e r a per Luce
Flauto piccolo
3 Flauti
3 Oboi
Corno inglese
3 Glarinetti in B
Clarinetto basso in B
8 Fagotti
Coutrafagotto
8 Oorni in F
5 Trombe in B
8 Tromboni
Tuba
Timpani
Cassa
Piatti
Tamtam
Triangolo
** Campanelli
*** Campane
*•** Celesta
2 Harpe
Organo
Piano
Soprani
Alti
Coro Tenori
Bassi
Violini I
Violini H
Viole
Celli
Bassi

lienor itcilie npo.-JcTen ii03Mo;mro u'03i,„clavier a lumieres" a Tiiicse 11 goal, xopa.

Sic Anffuhrmig dcx Ptomcthcax, tst nhnc flatter a litmicrctf'und auch ohne Chor migliek.
Proraethee peut etre execute sans H clavier a lumieres" et sans choeurs.
' A 3 " nCaiajjanelli" iiyjeHU 311a itoiio.itntre.iu.
Ftir „ Cavtpanetti" miinncn jewei diififiinrendo sent.
Pour les „Cnmi>nne)I>;' deux executants sent uidiapensables,
' ll:i(irii( „CamjiaiieHt"ii:iniicaHM 11a OKtauy unast! its'/. AtucTUHTcaMtoii :my'mot;Tit.
Die Parlivn der „Ca>Bpani'lli"'sitidcine Octave tiefer uofiert, ivie sic klingeii,
Los parties das „C.impaiiolH" sont ecrites une octave pins bas quo lour mmorite rcelle. 'l

Campane: g g g g g p p j ^

liapTiH „Celest'w" HainicaKa Ha oKTaaj miase CB jrtiicTBi«Te.iMioii 38yiH0CTii.

Die Partie dcr „Cclc$te"isl eine Octave liefer noticrt wie sic kti'ngt.
iin partie tie „Colesto" est ecrite una octave plus bas quo sa sonorite rcelle.

2
 EXAMPLE 0.2: Sample page from the first edition score of Prometheus, op. 60.

plus ammo

Cor.IiigJ

3
 In 1911, the year the score of Prometheus was published, the work had never been

publically performed with a functioning luce?' Despite the rumors buzzing in Moscow's

musical circles that Scriabin was planning a "symphony of sound" counterpointed by a

"symphony of lights," Prometheus premiered on March 2, 19113 as an ordinary unlit tone

poem. Scriabin had been working with the electrician Alexander Mozer to fabricate a luce,

but due to "technical problems" Scriabin withdrew the instrument from the first

performance. When the score was printed later that same year, Scriabin's vision of a

symphony of sound and light was still a figment of his imagination. This circumstance offers

an explanation for the luce's underdetermined notation, as well the note on the

instrumentation page that Prometheus could be performed without the luce or choir (see

Example 0.1).

In my view, this note represents a fundamental tension at the heart of the work. The

score at once provides performance instructions for one Prometheus, represented by the dense

musical notation and intimidating mass of orchestral performers, which could and did exist

in the world. Then, there is another imaginary Prometheus, implied by the mysterious traces of

notation for the luce and the unintelligible text written for the chorus. The imaginary

Prometheus, existing as an idea beyond the score, is a work of theurgy, turning public

performance into a religious rite, breaking down the divisions between performers and

2
Mozer's tastieraper luce was tested privately prior to the 1911 premiere. According to Leonid Sabaneev,
"Scriabin: A memoir,"'Russian'Review25/3 (July 1966): 257, the first public performance with lights occurred in
Moscow in 1912, conducted by Scriabin's former teacher, Vasily I. Safonov. In 1915, Prometheus premiered in
New York with a light projection machine designed by Edison Testing Laboratories. For an account of this
performance, see James Baker, "Prometheus and die Quest for Color-Music: The World Premiere of Scriabin's
Poem ofFirevnih Lights, New York, March 20,1915," m. Music and Modern Art, edited by James Leggio (New
York: Roudedge, 2002), 61-95.

3
Corresponding to March 15, 1911 according to the Gregorian calendar.

4
Leonid Sabaneev, 'TIpoMeTeH [Prometheus]," Mu^yka 1 (November 27 1910), translated by Don Luis Wetzel
as "Prometheus—A Preview," journal ofthe Scriabin Society of America 5/1 (Winter 2000-2001): 99.

4
audience, and generating a collective soul through communal ecstatic experience. As those

who knew Scriabin inform us,"Prometheuswas a compositional milestone in Scriabin's life

quest to create a work of art that could bring about human spiritual transfiguration and

ultimately, universal apocalypse.5

It has often been remarked that Prometheus, composed during the years 1908-1910,

represents the beginning of a new stage in the composer's development, a turn away from

the high-Romantic tonality of the earlier works toward alternative methods of harmonic

organization.6 As James Baker has pointed out, Prometheus is Scriabin's last work to end with

a triadic sonority, and this final chord is the only instance of its kind in the entire

composition.7 Yet, in its overall conception, Prometheus points forward in another way as well.

In the final decade of his life, Scriabin's music was increasingly motivated by his theurgic

ambitions. Scriabin's contemporary biographers frame his late works as progressive

experiments toward the Mysterium, the apocalyptic Gesamtkunstwerk that would transfigure

reality through the ritual use of drama, mythic symbols, multi-sensory stimulation, and

Leonid Sabaneev, Alexander Skriabin—Werk undGedankenwelt, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst
Kuhn, 2006), 177-190; originally published as CtcpJi6uH [Scriabin], (Moscow-Petrograd 1916); Erinnerungen an
Alexander Sktjabin, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2005), 94-98; originally published as
BocnoMtmaHux o CKpn6une [Memories of Scriabin] (Moscow: 1925), reprint (Moscow: Classika-XXI, 2000); and with
S.W. Pring, "Scriabin and the Idea of a Religious Art," The Musical Times 72/1063 (September 1931): 789-792;
Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic, translated by Nicolas Slonimsky (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1987), 307-334.

6
Scriabin's music is usually divided up into three or four periods. For example, Jonathan Powell divides
Scriabin's work into three periods: 1) an early period (ca. 1889-1903), up till the Fourth Sonata, op. 30; 2) an
increasingly experimental middle style (ca. 1903-1910), up till the Feuillet d'album, op. 58, and 3) the late style
(ca. 1908-1915), beginning with his work on Prometheus, op. 60 and encompassing his movement away from
traditional major/minor tonality. See Jonathan Powell, "Skryabin, Aleksandr Nikolayevich," in Grove Music
Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/25946
(accessed March 1, 2010). The Russian musicologist Anna Ivanova Nikolayeva considers Scriabin's output in
four periods: early romanticism (1889-1899); a transitional style of "struggle" (1899-1903), a middle style
dominated by orchestral works (1904-1908) and the late, atonal style (1908-1915). See Oco6eHttocmu
cpopmenmnnozo cmturmAJi. Gcpn6uHa Osobennostifortepiyannogo stilyaA. N. Sktyabina [Characteristicfeatures of A. N.
Scriabin's piano style asfound in his compositions in smallforms] (Moscow: Sovetskii kompozitor, 1983), 11-16.

7
James Baker, The Music of Alexander Scriabin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 266.

5
complex harmonies, an impossible project left unfinished at the time of Scriabin's 1915

death.8

Prometheus has many conceptual features in common with the Mysterium. Its

experimental harmonies were motivated by die composer's belief that new sound

combinations could act upon the body in novel ways, producing hitherto unrealized spiritual

effects.9 Prometheus' reference to myth, its meticulous co-ordination of sound, color, and light,

and famous non-triadic harmonic structures encourage us to view it as a proto-Mysterial

experiment, a preliminary compositional etude for the ultimate work that would bring about

the demateriaHzation of the world and universal spiritual reunification.

Prometheus is considered Scriabin's final completed large-scale project. Yet, only the

music was completed in 1910. Like Scriabin's evolving conception of the Mysterium, the idea

of Prometheus continued to develop after the work was published. This is apparent from the

copious markings Scriabin made in a first-edition autograph score of the work dating from

1913, now archived at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.10 Scriabin's annotations in the

"Parisian score" describe his vision for the tastieraper luce, providing details not just on

colors, but also dynamic levels of intensity and spectacular lighting effects such as lightning

bolts, cascades of sparks, and tongues of flame. These effects existed only in Scriabin's

imagination, and never could have been realized with early twentieth-century technology. In

8
Sabaneev, Alexander Scrjabin (2006), 2; Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 159-160. The most comprehensive
work of modern scholarship on the Mysterium is that of Simon Morrison, "Skryabin and the Impossible," Journal
ofthe American Musicological Society 51 (Summer 1998): 281-330.

9
Schloezer describes Scriabin's ideas regarding the power of music to act upon the human body in Artist and
Mystic (1987), 240-50.

10
Autograph score of A. Scriabin, Promethe'e, le Poeme du Feu, pour grand orchestre et piano avec orgue, choeurs, et clavier a
lumiers, op. 60 (Berlin and Moscow: Edition Russe de Musique, 1911), archived under the Bibliotheque
Nationale catalogue number Res. Vma 228. It has been available for study only since 1978. A copy is now held
by Yale University library. I am grateful to Viviane Renaud of the Bibliouieque Nationale and Helen Bardett of
the Yale Music Library for making it available to me.

6
the score's final pages, Scriabin's annotations become increasingly apocalyptic: "terrifying

flames break away; becoming glaring, white; inferno, the whole world engulfed—cataclysm,

all in fire."

The 1913 Parisian score annotations show how close the concept of Prometheus had

come to that of the Mysterium in Scriabin's mind. Scriabin's notes provide a glimpse of the

unfathomable distance between what we commonly think of as Scriabin's music—the traces

now extant as scores, recordings, and performances-—and its original existence as part of a

more comprehensive plan. Without reference to this larger conceptual framework, Prometheus

as a work of art is incomplete and incomprehensible. This is the case for all Scriabin's music.

Scriabin's friend and contemporary biographer Leonid Sabaneev wrote,

Scriabin's art was synthetic, in the sense that too much in his musical forms was
evoked by ideas external to music—so much that, later on, when deprived of these
ideas, it was unable to reveal clearly enough the inner world of the thinker-artist. His
works, even his sonatas and small poems, are programme-music in so far as they
require some addition to, some commentary on, the ideas which gave birdi to them.
Lacking this, they are programme music without a programme, and lose part of their
effect.

From the beginning, Prometheus was pardy conceptual, as much an idea as sounding

music. A. E. Hull, writing shortly after Scriabin's death, described Prometheus as "the most

densely theosophical piece of music ever written,"1 referring to Scriabin's well-established

interest in the new spiritual movement founded by Helena Blavatsky. Although the work's

ideological basis is well-established, analysts have often shied away from extensive,

systematic readings of Prometheus through a Theosophical lens. We know that Prometheus is

11
Sabaneev, "Scriabin and the Idea of Religious Art," (1931), 791.

12
A. E. Hull, A Great'RussianTone Poet, Scriabin (London: Keegan, Paul, Trench & co., 1917), 192. Faubion
Bowers echoes Hull's precise formulation without citation in The New Scriabin: Enigma and Answers (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1973), 192. Scriabin's engagement with Theosophy will be discussed in Chapter Two.

7
densely Theosophical; yet how it manifests its Theosophical inspiration has not been

adequately demonstrated. Many authors hoping to construct Theosophic readings of

Scriabin's work fall back on the same vague statements about "the breaths of the Brahma,"

"ecstasy," and "unification with the divine."13

Even analysts who are familiar with the specifics of Blavatsky's work still face the

problem of precisely linking musical event with dramatic action.14 Through recourse to

Scriabin's various literary sources, an ideologic context for Prometheus and the rough outlines

of a narrative can be constructed. But if we had only the music to guide us, the next step—

establishing the correlation between narrative and sound—could only be a matter of pure

speculation.

But this is not quite the case. Interpreters of the work do have a rough guide to

music-narrative coordination, which narrows the speculative gap. In Prometheus, sound and

idea are linked through the orchestra's silent (and, in performance practice, usually absent)

partner, the tastiera per luce. As we shall see, the temporal design and underlying harmonic

structure of Prometheus is only imperfectly conveyed by the sound of the work itself. The luce

part, and the theurgic narrative to which it refers, provide interesting insights into the work's

problematic large-scale structure—suggesting that certain persistent analytical difficulties in

13
Faubion Bowers, Scriabin's most recent English-language biographer, is often the source for vague
descriptions of Prometheus' programmatic content theses and dissertations. See Bowers's Scriabin: A Biography,
2 nd , revised edition (Mineola: Dover, 1996), 200-211; The New Scriabin: Enigma and Answers (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1973), 190-194.

14
Authors who are aware of the Theosophical plot, but who do not propose full-scale hermeneutic readings of
Prometheus include Christopher Dillon, "Scriabin's Synaesthesia and its Significance in Prometheus, Poem ofFire,
Op. 60, and in Other Selected Late Works (DMA document, Peabody Conservatory of Music, 2002), 26-29, 68-69;
James Baker, "Scriabin's Music: Structure as a Prism for Mystical Philosophy," in Music Theory in Concept and
Practice, edited by Baker, David W. Beach, and Jonathan W. Bernard (Rochester: University of Rochester Press,
1997): 89-90; Kenneth Peacock, "Alexander Scriabin's Prometheus: Philosophy and Structure," (Ph.D
dissertation, University of Michigan, 1976).

8
Scriabin's composition may be alleviated by viewing them in light (so to speak) of these

"extra-musical" elements.

This dissertation brings together the three interrelated components of the whole: the

music, the imaginary part for colored lights as it appears in the Parisian score, and the work's

secret esoteric program. There are two programmatic accounts written by Scriabin's

contemporaries and associated with performances during his lifetime; however, these

programs are nearly meaningless unless one already understands the metaphysics which

supports them. 6 A dialogue among the three dimensions of Prometheus can only be fostered

when it is situated within a broader context of Scriabin's intellectual and aesthetic influences.

An imaginary work of art poses special epistemological challenges for the analyst,

yet offers an opportunity to reflect on the analytical process itself. Chapter One,

"Esotericism and Analysis," begins with a survey of the general scholarly climate

surrounding Scriabin's late music in the past thirty years. While analysts have become

increasingly more interested in involving Scriabin's metaphysics in their hermeneutic

readings of his music, the analytical process itself has remained fairly conventional. I argue

15
Previous studies of Prometheus have often focused on one or two of these aspects and minimized others. For
a study of the music itself, see Baker, The Musk of Alexander Scriabin (1987), 235-267. For studies of the
relationship between lights and music with minimal reference to the program, see Dillon, "Scriabin's
Synaesthesia," (2002); Baker, "Prometheus and the Quest for Color-Music," in Music and Modern Art (2002), 61-
95; Peter Sabbagh, "Die Entwicklung der Harmonik bei Skrjabin," (Ph.D dissertation, Hochschule fur Musik
und Teater, Hamburg, 2001); Anthony Pople, Skryabin and Stravinsky 1908-1914: Studies in Theory and Analysis
(New York and London: Garland, 1989), 215-251; Peacock, "Alexander Scriabin's Prometheus" (1976);
Christoph-Clemens Johannes von Gleich, Sinfonischen Werke von Alexander Sktjabin, (Biltoven: A. B. Creyghton,
1963), 68-79. For studies on the program and the music, see Baker, "Structure as a Prism," in Music Theory in
Concept and Practice, 53-96 (1997); Manfred Kelkel, Alexandre Scriabine: sa vie, I'esotericisme et le langage musicale dans
son oeuvre (Paris: Editions Honore Champion, 1978), volume II: 49-59 and volume III: 17-32. For studies on die
lights and program without much reference to musical structures, see Marina Lobanova, Mystiker, Magier,
Theosoph, Theurg: Alexander Scriabin und seine Zeit, (Hamburg: Bockel Verlag, 2004), 255-313; Danuta Mirka,
"Colors of a Mystic Fire: Light and Sound in Scriabin's Prometheus," The American Journal ofSemiotics 13/1-4 (Fall
1996): 227-248; Sebastian Widmaier, Skrjabin und Prometheus (Weingarten: Hanke Verlag, 1986), 109-124; Josef
Horst-Lederer, "Die Funktion der Luce-Stimme in Skrjabins op. 60," in Alexander Skrjabin, edited by Otto
Kolleritsch, 128-141 (Graz: Universal Edition, 1980).

16
For example, James Baker, referring to die program written by Leonid Sabaneev for the March 2,1911
Moscow premiere of Prometheus wrote, "this program is hardly an accurate description of die course of events
in the music itself." See Baker, "The Quest for Color Music," in Music and Modern Art (2002), 66.

9
that the rich ideological context of Scriabin's music has the potential to change the way

musical relationships are construed. The perception of musical structures depends to some

extent upon a pre-established conceptual framework through which such structures can be

interpreted, which is in turn shaped by aesthetic values. An initiation into the network of

philosophical texts and occult literature that is known to have inspired Scriabin can bring

analytical aesthetics closer to the aesthetic values that shaped the music. This process begins

in Chapter Two.

Chapter Three, "The Law of Polarity and Scriabin's Late Harmonic Practice,"

focuses on one prominent concept from Scriabin's esoteric source readings. I show how the

Law of Polarity provides a means to conceptualize aspects of his late harmonic practice

which are difficult to describe through traditional analytical mentalities. The notion of

polarity becomes central to the analysis of Prometheus, and extends to multiple musical

domains.

Chapters Four, Five, and Six treat Prometheus, op. 60 as a iptoto-Adysterium. First, I use

Helena Blavatsky's text The Secret Doctrine to flesh out two programs associated with

performances of the work during Scriabin's lifetime and establish the occult basis of

Scriabin's system of tone-color correspondence. Next, I examine the manner in which the

part for colored lights interacts with musical structures, and how it becomes a vehicle for the

work's Theosophic program. Finally, I show how the esoteric program and the cues for

tastieraper luce shape Prometheus' dramatic narrative, revealing new musical relationships and

providing answers to some long-standing analytical questions. Chapter Seven, "Esotericism

and Analysis Reconsidered," reflects on the hermeneutic process, evaluating the distance

between Scriabin's aesthetic values and those embedded in traditional analytical frameworks.

10
 Against the positivism which halts at phenomena—"There are
only facts'—I would say: no, facts are just what there aren't,
there are only interpretations.

—Friedrich Nietzsche 1

CHAPTER O N E
ESOTERICISM AND ANALYSIS

In 1988, Richard Taruskin wrote a review of James Baker's The Music of Alexander

Scriabin, paired with a new English translation of Scriabin: Artist andMystic, a first-hand

account of the composer's aesthetics written by Boris de Schloezer, the brother of Scriabin's

common-law wife Tatiana.2 Taruskin used these two texts to draw attention to the polarized

nature of Anglo-American Scriabin scholarship, comprised of one faction exclusively

devoted to a technical explication of Scriabin's scores, and the other devoted to placing

Scriabin's work in its appropriate ideological, cultural, and aesthetic context. Taruskin argued

that such a division of labor among theorists and musicologists resulted in a distortion of

what was for Scriabin a single, unified creative process. Taruskin's battlefield was Scriabin

research, but it was one skirmish in his ongoing war against the limitations of music theory

1
Notebook 7, end of 1886-spring 1887, translated by Kate Sturge in Writingsfrom the Late Notebooks, edited by
Riidiger Bittner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 139.

Richard Taruskin, "Reviews of The Music of Alexander Scriabin by J ames M. Baker and Scriabin: Artist and Mystic
by Boris de Schloesser," Music Theory Spectrum 10 (Spring 1988): 143-169. See James Baker, The Music of
Alexander Scriabin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), a reworking of "Alexander Scriabin: The
Transition from Tonality to Atonality" (Ph.D dissertation, Yale University, 1977); Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin:
Artist and Mystic, translated by Nicolas Slonimsky (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

11
as it was then being practiced by a few prominent leaders in the field.3 In Taruskin's view,

detailed structural analysis and contextual study were mutually dependent critical activities,

and only through an application of both could the wholeness of the object under study be

grasped.

Scriabin's music could have hardly been better suited to serve Taruskin's argument.

We know from many contemporary accounts of Scriabin's aesthetics that the composer not

only saw music as capable of expressing ideas, but also possessing the power to change

reality.4 These first-hand sources suggest that Scriabin's abandonment of functional tonality

around 1910 and his experiments with new methods of harmonic organization were directly

tied to his idea that the right combination of sounds could have physical effects in the real

world.5 Scriabin viewed himself as composer-theurgist, on a holy mission to hasten the

approaching apocalypse and the dawning of a new spiritual epoch. In the Mysterium,

Scriabin's impossibly grandiose project left unfinished at the time of his 1915 death, music

combined with other modes of sensory stimulation would act as a catalyst for this universal

transfiguration. Scriabin hoped his music would accomplish something that it had never

3
Taruskin's critique of Baker may be read as part of a larger ongoing dispute between Taruskin and Baker's
thesis adviser, Allen Forte. For die particulars of the Forte/Taruskin debate, see Taruskin's review of Forte's
The Harmonic Organisation ofThc Rite of Spring (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978) in Current Musicology
28 (1979 ): 114-29; Forte's "Pitch-Class Set Analysis Today," Musk Analysis 4/1-2 (1985): 36-37; "Letter to the
Editor from Richard Taruskin," Music Analysis 5/2-3 (1986): 313-320; "Letter to the Editor in Reply to Richard
Taruskin from Allen Forte," Music Analysis 5/2-3 (1986): 321-337. Taruskin's final word in the matter was
presumably his monumental, two-volume Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through
Mavra (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

4
Leonid Leonidovich Sabaneev and S.W. Pring, "Scriabin and the Idea of a Religious Art," The Musical Times
72/1063 (September 1, 1931): 789-792; Sabaneev, Erinnerungen an Alexander Skrjabin, translated by Ernst Kuhn
(Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2005. Originally published as Vospominaniia o Skriahine, Moscow, 1925.) Alexander
Skrjabin—Werk und Gedankenwelt, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2006. Originally
published as Scriabin, Moscow-Petrograd 1923). See also Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic.

5
Schloezer describes Scriabin's ideas regarding die power of music to act upon the human body in Scriabin:
Artist and Mystic, translated by Nicolas Slonimsky (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1987), 240-250; see also my gloss in Chapter Two.

12
before actually achieved. Therefore, this music must sound different from the music of the

past. In this way, Scriabin's stylistic change may be viewed as direcdy motivated by his well-

documented spiritual ambitions. Taruskin argued that scholars who focus solely on the

music miss its raison d'etre, and those who focus solely on the aesthetics ignore its mode of

expression.

But the music of Scriabin's late style also offered Taruskin an opportunity to take

aim at yet another vulnerability he perceived in the music theoretical industrial complex. In

Tauskin's view, the claims made by Scriabin's analysts regarding "the music itself were, on

the whole, unsatisfactory. "Every musical scholar who has looked into Scriabin's scores has

drawn different conclusions about his technical idioms," Taruskin wrote. "Though

remarkable consistency is one of its most salient traits, that idiom has proved to be uncannily

refractory, resistant to explication."6

Scriabin's music composed between 1910 and 1914 has indeed inspired a long list of

analytical publications employing a great variety of methodologies. During decades when the

music of Schoenberg, Webern, Berg epitomized the post-tonal canon, Scriabin's late music

was viewed as a proto-serialist.7 In The Structure of Atonal Music, published in 1973, Allen

Forte placed Scriabin alongside the three giants of the Second Viennese School, identifying

him as one of the composers whose atonal practice his methodology could profitably

elucidate.8 In the following decades, analysts approached Scriabin's late music via Forte's

6
Taruskin, Review of Baker, 144-145.

7
Zofia Lissa, "Geschichtliche Vorform der Zwolftontechnik," ActaMusicologica 7 (1935): 15-18. See also
Manfred Kelkel, "Les esquisses musicales de lActe prealabk de Scriabine," Revue de Musicologie 17 (1971): 40-48;
and George Perle, Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music ofSchoenberg, Berg, and Webern. 6di
ed., rev. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 41—43.

8
Allen Forte, The Structure of Atonal Music (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973), ix.

13
methodology with varying degrees of strictness. In the past twenty years, however, some

analysts have gravitated away from viewing Scriabin's music in terms of IC externa and Z-

relations. They began to focus on a relatively small number of closely-related sets which

form the core of Scriabin's harmonic practice and contribute to the late music's distinctive

color: a "constellation of nine," corresponding either to Forte's set class 9-10: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6,

7, 9, t] or 9-12: [0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, t]; 10 the octatonic set 8-28: [0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, t]; the

acoustic heptachord 7:34: [0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, t]; the whole-tone hexachord 6-31: [0, 2, 4, 6, 8, tj;

the mystic hexachord 6-34: [0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9]; the octatonic hexad 6-Z49: [0, 1, 3, 4, 7, 9]; the

mystic pentachord 5-24: [0, 1, 3, 5, 7]; the French-sixth tetrachord 4-25: [0, 2, 6, 8]; the

diminished tetrachord 4-28: [0, 3, 6, 9]; the dominant trichord 3-8: [0, 2, 6]; and tritone dyad

2-6: [0, 6]. In the 1990s, transformational dieory encouraged analysts to view these

collections as a dynamically interrelated constellation of sets, related to each other through

9
For a strict Fortean set theoretical approach, see Baker, "Alexander Scriabin," (1977) and The Music of
Alexander Scriabin (1986). Anthony Pople's set approach in Sktyabin and Stravinsky 1908-1914: Studies in Theory
and Analysis (New York and London: Garland, 1989) is more nuanced, as he devotes considerable consideration
to events in pitch-space and considers inversionally-related instantiations of sets as separate entities. See also
Herbert Wise, "The Relationship of Pitch Sets to Formal Structure in die Last Six Piano Sonatas of Scriabin,"
(Ph.D dissertation, University of Rochester, 1987). A more recent application of set-theoretical principles to
Scriabin's music in contained in Philip Adrian Ewell, "Analytical approaches to large-scale structure in die
music of Alexander Scriabin" (Ph.D dissertation, Yale University, 2001), 133-161.

10
Perle, in "Scriabin's Self-Analyses," Musk Analysis 3/2 (July 1984): 177-188, drew this title from
contemporary Moscow music journals. They reported that just as Scriabin's Prometheus, op. 60 had been
constructed from six tones "like die Pleiades," his Mysterium would be constructed from a "constellation of
nine." Perle identified diis constellation with 9-10, the union of the octatonic and mystic chords. However,
Cheong Wai-Ling, in "The Late Scriabin: Pitch Organization and Form in the Works of 1910-14," (Ph.D
dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1990), 125-126, identified the "constellation of nine" as 9-12, a scale
comprised of iterations of the step pattern whole-half-half, also known as Messiaen's limited mode of
transposition number three.

11
Jay Reise, "Late Skriabin: Some Principles Behind the Style," Nineteenth Century Music 6/3 (Spring 1983): 220-
231; Cheong Wai-Ling, "Scriabin's 'White MASS'" Journal of the Scriabin Society ofAmerica 5/1 (Winter 2000-2001):
69-96; "Scriabin's Octatonic Sonata," journalofthe Royal MusicalAssociation 121/2 (1996): 206-228; "The Late
Scriabin," (1990); Fred Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch Space (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 321-33; Vasilis
Kallis, "Principles of Pitch Organization in Scriabin's Early Post-tonal Period: The Piano Miniatures," Musk-
Theory Online 14/3 (September 2008): http://mto.societymusicdieory.Org/issues/mto.08.14.3/mto.08.14.3.
kallis.html.

14
transpositional combination, inclusion, and semitone displacement. Analytical studies have

focused on Scriabin's use of transpositional invariance and the manner in which interval

cycles structure his music at both large and small-scale levels, governing both transposed

repetitions of motives, phrases, and sections as well as serving as intervallic generators of

pitch collections.13 Other studies have investigated topics pertinent to Scriabin's late style

that were once were once solely the province of tonal music: voice-leading, collectional

"dissonance" and "consonance," Scriabin's pitch-class hierarchies established through

contextual means, as well as other pitch-space concerns such as pitch orthography and

chordal spacing.15

This wealth of literature suggests that Taruskin's critique needs to be reformulated.

The late music is not "resistant" to analysis, but rather too amenable to it. Scriabin's late

music is constructed in such a way that relationships proliferate. Almost any chosen

methodology yields "results" of some kind. Contemporary analytical techniques, when used

in isolation, have the potential to generate too much information about Scriabin's late idiom

because they lack a value system to establish the significance of any piece of data. Consider

Example 1.1. Is the collectional basis of the first twelve measures of Scriabin's Prelude, op.

12
Richard Cohn, "Properties and Generability of Transpositionally Invariant Sets," Journal ofMusic Theory 3 5 / 1 -
2 (Spring-Autumn 1991): 1-32; "Bartok's Octatonic Strategies: A Motivic Approach," journal of the American
Musicologkal Society 44/2 (Summer 1991): 262-300; Clifton Callendar, "Voice-Leading Parsimony in the music of
Alexander Scriabin" Journal ofMusic Theory Mil (Fall 1998): 219-233.

13
Jay Reise, "Late Skryabin," (1983). For a more recent approach, see Francois de Medicis, "Scriabin's Mature
Style and the Coordination of Form, Grouping, and Pitch Structures," STM-Online 12 (2009): http://www.
niusikforskning.se/strnonline/vol_l 2/medicis/index.php?menu=3.

14
Issues of centricity, hierarchy, and prolongation in collectional contexts are amply treated in Kip Wile,
"Collection in Neocentric Music: A Study in Theory and Analysis of the Music of Debussy, Stravinsky,
Scriabin, Bartok, and Ravel," (Ph.D dissertation, University of Chicago, 1995).

15
In general, scholars pursuing octatonic and whole-tone collectional analysis are more sensitive to Scriabin's
pitch-space configurations than set analysts. See the work of Taruskin, as well as that of Wai-Ling, Reise, and
Claude Herndon, "Skryabin's New Harmonic Vocabulary in his Sixth Sonata," journal of Musicologkal'Research 4
(1983): 353-368. The set-based work of Pople is an exception to this generality. Pople uses the music of
Scriabin and Stravinsky to inspire thoughtful reflections on the interface between pitch and pitch-space.

15
67 no. 1 Forte's set class 6-31, 6-34, 7-34, 8-28, 9-10, 9-12, or does music arise through some

interaction among selected sets of the six? George Perle argued for 8-28, then for 9-10;16

Anthony Pople viewed op. 67 no. 1 as a dialogue between 8-28 and 9-10;17 Cheong Wai-Ling

swept both 8-28 and 9-10 aside to claim 9-12 as the basis of op. 67, no. I;18 Fred Lehrdahl

concluded that the Prelude was "essentially octatonic with whole-tone and mystic

offshoots,"19 and Vasilis Kallis has recently come down in favor of 9-10.20

These interpretations, of course, depend on the art of segmentation, and claims in

favor of one pitch basis or another seem arbitrary without some sort of system governing

the ordination of certain pitches as "collectional" and the relegation of all others as outcasts.

Although seemingly trivial, the analytical debate over the pitch basis of op. 67 no. 1 reveals

two deep issues at the heart of Scriabin analysis. Either conventional analytic practice does

not provide adequate criteria on which claims may be based, or Scriabin's scores do not

provide enough information for the analyst to make assertions regarding his late style with

any degree of certainty. Interestingly, analysts such as Pople and Lerdahl who unabashedly

grapple with such issues in their analyses of op. 67 no. 1 tend to generate more musically-

sensitive, analytically comprehensive, and, in my opinion, more persuasive readings. Yet

even so, it is sometimes not clear whether the ambivalence resides in the music "itself or is

a byproduct of the methodological application used to explicate it.

16
George Perle presents an 8-28 reading in "Skryabin's self analysis," (1984), 109-110, then poses a 9-10
interpretation within the same article on pages 117-118.

17
Pople, Sktyabin and Stravinsky (1989), 133-136; "Skryabin's Prelude Opus 67, No. 1: Sets and Structure," Music
Analysis!/! (1983): 151-73.

18
Wai-Ling, "Pitch Organization and Form," (1990), 125-139.

19
Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch Space (2004), 321-333.

20
Kallis, "Principles of Pitch Organization," (2008).

21
Pople, "Skryabin's Prelude," (1983); Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch Space (2004), 321-333.

16
 EXAMPLE 1.1: Prelude, op. 67 no. 1, bars 1-15. The following lists pitch collections
corresponding to the various set classes proposed as the basis of the work:
6-31: C, D, E, Fit, Ab, Bb 6-34: Eb, E, Fjt, Ab, Bb, C
7-34: C, Db, E, F&, Ab, Bb 8-28: C, Db, Eb, E, F#, G, A, Bb
9-10: C, Db, Eb, E, F#, G, Ab, A, Bb 9-12: C, Db, D, E, F, Ftf, Ab, A, Bb

Andante

iPpipiiP
?j: f Si^^f^. ^

But of course music analysis needn't be practiced in a vacuum. Often, recourse to

historical materials, such as sketches, letters, and writings, can arbitrate between otherwise

equally viable interpretations, or used to bolster a particular perspective taken. Speaking of

17
Stravinsky, Taruskin called for a broadening of the analytical process to engage the

composer's "historically situated habits, routines, beliefs, and aesthetic assumptions."

Taruskin strongly implied that the aesthetic values embedded in the composer's cultural

environment could be used by the theorist to construct a value system for analysis. In

Scriabin scholarship, this would mean that addressing Taruskin's first problem—i.e., that

cultural and analytical fields of inquiry were practiced separately for a repertoire that was

deeply unified—would result in a resolution of the second, namely, that analytical claims

regarding the late music seem arbitrary.

It is important to note that Taruskin's powerful 1988 description of a polarized field

of Scriabin research really only applied^—and, though now less so, still applies—to the

music-theoretical elite. While musicologists were busy piecing together Scriabin's intellectual

influences and cultural milieu, theorists seemed embarrassed by Scriabin's philosophical

interests, either ignoring them altogether,23 denying them or dismissing as irrelevant to the

task at hand, or using their unknowability as a rationale for avoiding them. Performers, on

22
Taruskin, "Letter to the Editor," (1986): 318.

23
Examples are legion. To cite a few: de Medicis, "Scriabin's Mature Style," (2009); Kallis, "Principles of Pitch
Organization," (2009); Peter Sabbagh, "Die Entwicklung der Harmonik bei Skrjabin," (Ph.D dissertation,
Hochschule fur Musik und Teater, Hamburg, 2001); Ewell, "Analytical approaches," (2001); Cheong Wai-Iing,
"Scriabin's 'White Mass,'" (2000-2001); "Scriabin's Octatonic Sonata," (1996); "Orthography in Scriabin's Late
Works," Music Analysis 12/1 (March 1993): 47-69, and "The Late Scriabin," (1990); Callender, "Voice-Leading
Parsimony," (1998); Michael Jones McVay, "Scriabin: A New Theory of Harmony and Structure" (Ph.D
dissertation, University of North Texas, 1991); Pople, Skryabin and Stravinsky (1989) and "Skryabin's Prelude,"
(1983); Wise, "The Relationship of Pitch Sets to Formal Structure," (1987); Perle, "Scriabin's Self-Analyses,"
(1984); Reise, "Late Skriabin," (1983); Baker, "Scriabin's Implicit Tonality," Music Theory Spectrum 2 (Spring
1980): 1-18; Gottfried Eberle, Zwicben Tonalitat und Atonalitat: Studien %ur Harmonik Alexander Skrjabins (Salzburg:
Katzbichler, 1978); Hanns Steger, Materialstrukturen in den fiinjspdten Klaviersonaten Alexander Sktjabins
(Regensburg: Bosse, 1977).

24
The acclaimed soviet Scriabin analyst Varvara Dernova wrote that the mystic aspect was "propogated on
behalf of Scriabin...under his name. These 'theosophic fantasies,' which were foisted upon audiences... surely
rendered Scriabin a great disservice.. .the pompous utterances of Sabaneev and Schloezer on 'the Eternal
Essence,' 'the Playful Spirit,' 'the Initial Emanations,' 'the Dark Waves of Chaos,' etc., did more than anything
else to help create a special aura around Scriabin, one which was unhealthy and far removed from the bright
spirit of his work." See TapMOHHa CKpuBiraa [Scriabin's Harmotiy] (Leningrad: Muzyka, 1968), translated by Roy

18
the other hand, tended to write about Scriabin's mysticism with refreshing candor. For

them, the idea that Scriabin's belief system informed his creative output was an

unproblematic and unthreatening proposition. As Elizabeth Barany-Schlauch explained in

her 1985 D.M.A. document,

During the past decades, Scriabin's contributions to the musical world, such as his
new harmonic system, his concept and treatment of sonata form, his thematic
manipulation and development, his coloristic and expressive use of the orchestra and
his new pianistic idiom have been explored in great depth. However, the
philosophical ideas, which generated these innovations, have been approached with
skepticism, disbelief and sarcasm. The composer has been accused of using his extra-
musical ideas merely to attract attention as a result of his megalomania, egotism,
eccentricity and even insanity. It has been suggested that his music can stand on its
own and that his astral visions and fantastic imagination are meaningless and
outdated, bearing no importance on a thorough understanding of his music. These
statements can be justified only from the theorist's point of view. From a
performer's point of view, the knowledge and understanding of the philosophical
ideas that generate Scriabin's music, regardless of how far-fetched they might appear,
can only enhance and gready contribute to an inspiring and insightful
interpretation.27

James Guenther as "Vavara Dernova's Garmoniia Skriabina: A Translation and Critical Commentary," (Ph.D.
dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1979), 66-67.

23
Baker's early work on Scriabin may be taken as an example of this tendency; see The Music of Alexander
Scriabin (1986), 270. However, in Baker's later work, notably "Scriabin's Music: Structure as a Prism for
Mystical Philosophy," in Music Theory in Concept and Practice, edited by James M. Baker, David Beach, and
Jonathan W. Bernard, 53-96 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1997), Baker incorporated Scriabin's
ideology into his analytical readings, arguing that the music itself provided evidence for Scriabin's mystical
beliefs.

26
Aldo Ragone, "Alexander Nikolaevich Skrjabin: From Romanticism to the Mystic Chord, die ten piano
sonatas and 24 Preludes, Opus 11" (D.M.A. document, University of Maryland, College Park, 2007); Chin-An
Shen, "Alexander Scriabin's Tenth Sonata Opus 70: The music and the symbolic meaning" (D.M.A. document,
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006); Franciso Molina Moreno, "Scriabin and Plato's Musical
Mysticism," Journal of the Scriabin Society of America 10/1 (Winter 2005-2006): 21-40; Luigi Verdi, "Numerical
Symbolism in some of Scriabin's Late Piano W'orks," Journal' ojrThe Scriabin Society ofAmerica 10/1 (Winter 2005-
2006): 41-56; Susanna Garcia, "Scriabin's Symbolist Plot Archetype in the Late Piano Sonatas," Nineteenth
Century Music 23/3 (Spring 2000): 273-300; Ariane Eugenie Alexander, "Alexander Scriabin's Spiritual Vision
Transmitted Through the Ten Piano Sonatas: A New Interpretation of his Mystical Philosophy and its Musical
Manifestation," (D.M.A. document, University of Houston, 1999); Elise Hae-Ryung Yun, "Alexander Scriabin's
Late Piano Poems: Language, Thought, and Performance," (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1998);
Elizabeth Anna Barany-Schlauch, "Alexander Scriabin's Ten Piano Sonatas: Their Philosophical Meaning and
Its Musical Expression," (D.M.A. document, The Ohio State University, 1985); Karen Shaw, "A Study and
Comparison of Three Piano Sonatas by Alexander Scriabin" (D.M.A. document, Indiana University, 1974);
William Herbert Satterfield, "Mystic Elements Reflected in the Piano Sonatas of Scriabin," (M.M. thesis,
Southern Methodist University, 1961).

27
Barany-Schlauch, "Alexander Scriabin's Ten Piano Sonatas," (1985), 3.

19
 It is no wonder why so many performers would be inspired to explore Scriabin's

ideology. Scriabin's piano music is filled with mysterious performance indications, suggesting

secret occult programs. A sample from the Sixth Sonata, op. 62, may serve as an example: le

reve prendforme (clarte, douceur, purete) [the dream takes shape (clarity, gendeness, purity)];

charmes [spells]; appel mysterieux [a mysterious call]; epanouissement deforces mysterieuses;

[expansion of mysterious forces]; I'epouvante surgit, elle se mele a la danse delirante [terror arises, it

infuses the delirious dance]. For a performer, such markings suggest a dramatic narrative,

which could only be fleshed out through further research into Scriabin's aesthetic system.28

Yet Barany-Schlauch's final point could be applied to every division of musical inquiry.

Viewed broadly, any interpretation—whether in performance, musicology, or analysis—can

only benefit from adequate information regarding the music's context.

Indeed, Taruskin's 1988 consciousness-raising inspired a number of analytical

publications engaging Scriabin's philosophy.29 Taruskin responded to his own call-to-action

in 1997 with "Scriabin and the Superhuman," a brief prolegomena to future contextually-

oriented Scriabin analysis, which was later reworked for his Oxford History of Western Music.30

Although James Baker's early work on Scriabin was unabashedly positivist in tone, he too

28
Susanna Garcia presents a plausible narrative trajectory for the Sixth Sonata in "Scriabin's Symbolic Plot
Archetype," (2000), 290-92.

Kenneth Smith, "Desire and the drives: a New Analytical Approach to the Harmonic Language of Alexander
Skryabin" (Ph.D dissertation, University of Durham, 2008) and "Erotic Discourse in Scriabin's Fourth Sonata,"
British Postgraduate Musicology 7 (June 2005): http: / /www.bpmonline.org.uk/bpm7 / smith.html; Deniz L. Peters,
"Aesthetic Ideas in Scriabin's Late Music" (Ph.D dissertation, Graz Institut fur Wertungsforschung der
Universitat fur Musik und darstellende Kunst, 2005); Jason Stell, "Music as Metaphysics: Structure and
Meaning in Skryabin's Fifth Piano Sonata," Journal of Musicological'Research Tb/X (January 2004): 1-37; Mitchell
Bryan Morris, "Musical Eroticism and the Transcendent Strain: The Works of Alexander Skryabin, 1898-1908"
(Ph.D dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1998); Baker, "Structure as a Prism," (1997).

30
Taruskin, "Scriabin and the Superhuman: A Millennial Essay," in Defining Russia Musically: Historical and
Hermeneutic Essays 308-359 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). Taruskin reworks much of this
material in his section on Scriabin in The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005), 197-227.

20
dove deeply into interdisciplinary territory in an article published in 1997. 3 But as much as

the late music poses challenges for analysts, it also poses considerable challenges for

hermeneutists. Scriabin's wide-ranging philosophical, intellectual and religious interests

present a plethora of ideas for the interpreter to choose from. Scriabin read widely (though

perhaps n o t always deeply), sampling texts from Eastern metaphysics and philosophy,

German Idealism, Plato, Nietzsche, and Theosophy. 3 2 The influence of Scriabin's association

with leaders of the Russian Mystic Symbolist movement on his aesthetics is well-known. 33

All these worked together to shape Scriabin's personal belief system, and exerted varying

degrees of influence at different times. H o w can the analyst choose ideas from this

melange? A n d how, precisely, does the music manifest them?

Compare the following passages from three articles which use Scriabin's source

readings to create hermeneutic interpretations of his music. T h e first was written by Susanna

Garcia, a musicologically-inclined pianist, the second by Taruskin, an analytically-inclined

musicologist, and the third by Baker, by then a historically-inclined theorist. All three show a

firm commitment to understanding Scriabin's philosophy through their presentation of

thorough contextual research. 35 T h e three describe different ways Scriabin's music expresses

31
Baker, "Structure as a Prism," (1997), 53-96.

32
The best recent study regarding Scriabin's metaphysics as a whole is that of Marina Lobanova, Mystiker,
Magier, Theosoph, Theurg: Alexander Scriabin und seine Zeit (Hamburg: Bockel Verlag, 2004).

33
Simon Morrison, Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement (Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of
California Press, 2002); and "Skryabin and the Impossible," Journal of the American Musicohgical Society 51/2
(Summer, 1998): 283-330; Luigi Verdi, Aleksandr Skrjabin, tra musica efilosofia (Firenze: Passigli, 1991); Martin
Cooper, "Alexandr Scriabin and the Russian Renaissance," in Slavonic and Romantic Music: Essaysfor Gerald
Abraham, edited by M. H. Brown and R. J. Wiley, 219-240 (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985); Malcolm
Brown, "Skriabin and Russian 'Mystic' Symbolism," Nineteenth- Century Music 3/'1 (July 1979): 42-51; Ralph E.
Madaw, "Scriabin and Russian Symbolism," Comparative Uterature 21/1 (Winter 1979): 1-23.

34
Scriabin's intellectual influences will be discussed in depth in Chapter Two.

35
One unfortunate consequence of the "mystic" label is that it implies that Scriabin's belief system was
spontaneous, rather than growing out of a researchable cultural context and set of influences. This has

21
a single idea as variations on a common theme found among all Scriabin's source readings:

spiritual transcendence.

After establishing the influence of Russian Symbolism on Scriabin's thought,

Susanna Garcia describes how symbolist theories relate to the 'vertiginous dance' topos she

identifies as a recurring conclusion in Scriabin's late piano sonatas:

The achievement of ecstasy through intoxicating spinning dances was

believed by the symbolists to be part of the Dionysian cult ritual. The result was the
dancer's collapse in exhaustion and an enhanced susceptibility to divine influence.
The loss of control was also aided by the intoxicating effects of wine, also part of the
ritual. Scriabin's programmatic incorporation of the ritual is clear. In the Fifth
Sonata, verbal descriptions of intoxication and dancing precede references to divine
illumination and result in experiences of ecstasy or abundant joy: con una ebbresga
fantastica, vertiginoso confaria, con luminosita, and estatico. In the Seventh Sonata,
Scriabin's indications imperioso, en un vertige,fugurant, avec unjoie de'bordante, and en delire
describe the same program.
Vertiginous dance passages, identified by such words as pertige, delire, and
tourbillonant, are clearly articulated, as opposed to the fluid and often ambiguous
rhythmic patterns generally preferred by Scriabin. These passages, in square meters
of 2/8 or 2/4, involve straightforward blocked chords in short phrase units of two
and four measures [Example 1.2].. .The dancer's collapse in exhaustion can be seen
as well as heard at the massive rolled chord, a programmatic device used to end the
Sixth and Seventh Sonatas. In every case, progressively faster tempi characterized
these sections.

occasionally led to scholarship nominally on the relationship between Scriabin's music and philosophy, but
which lacks reference to the ideas that direcdy shaped Scriabin's aesthetics. For example, John Ritter, in
"Between Harmony and Geometry: Structure and Form in the Music of Scriabin" (Ph.D dissertation,
University of California at Santa Barbara, 2001), approaches the question of Scriabin's metaphysics in a general
way, invoking Hanslick, of all people, on the subject of musical aesdietics and Bertrand Russell on mysticism
(see Chapter 3: "Mysticism as Musical Content," 60-79). Fabio B. Dasilva ponders Scriabin's music in
relationship to Heidegger's concept of Dasein in "Alexander Scriabin and the Question of Being," in Allmusic:
Essays on the Hermeneutics ofMusic, edited by Fabio B. Dasilva and David L. Brunsma, 101-116 (Aldershot:
Avebury, 1996). Manfred Angerer explores Scriabin's music in relationship to the theories of Freud and Marx
va. MusikalischerAstheti^mus: Analytische Studien ^u S'krjabins Spdtiverk (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1984, submitted
as a doctoral thesis to the University of Vienna in 1979).

36
Garcia, "Scriabin's Symbolist Plot Archetype," (2000), 285-286.

22
 EXAMPLE 1.2: Vertiginous dances, after Garcia.

A. Sixth Sonata, op. 62, measures 92-100.

atle, tourbillonnant

B. Sixth Sonata, op. 62, measures 372-386.

motto accel.

23
 EXAMPLE 1.2, continued.

B. Seventh Sonata, op. 64, measures 325-321. The meter is 2/4.

Taruskin presented a hermeneutic reading of Scriabin's Vers laflamme, op. 72 in his

Oxford History of Western Music. After establishing the authority of Scriabin's symbolist poet

friend Viacheslav Ivanov as a worthy commentator on Scriabin's music, Taruskin wrote,

Like the much longer Poeme de I'extase, [Vers laflamme, op. 72] can be
interpreted as a single consummatory gesture—what Ivanov, describing the spiritual
qualities Scriabin's music conveyed, called zporiv, a. word that literally means "gust"
(as of wind, etc.) but can also mean "transport," in the sense of a sudden access of
rapture crowning a spiritual ascent. Its general effect can be instandy grasped by
comparing the beginning, [Example 1.3A], marked pianissimo and sombre (dark), with
the fortissimo conclusion with the right hand approaching the very top of the
keyboard [Example 1.3B]. These are two aspects of the piece's starkly concentrated
dynamic unfolding: from soft to loud and low to high...
The first change, as shown in [Example 1.3A], tells all. The opening chord,
almost predictably a French sixth, moves after four measures to another French sixth
a minor third away. After another six measures the process is repeated, placing the
same chord now at a tritone's remove from the opening, at which distance, we know,
the French sixth chord is invariant. The only differences in pitch content between m.
1 and m. 11 are to be found in the surface embellishment (here, in the appoggiaturas
applied to the main chord: Aft and Qt in m.l, A natural and Cft in measure 11)...

24
 Having observed the beginnings of a harmonic plan involving rotations
around an [0, 3, 6, 9] axis of minor thirds beginning on E, we may make the
prediction that the harmonic basis of the piece will consist of a matrix of chords,
probably of "altered dominant" quality, with roots on E, G, Bb, and DbC|: call that
the primary cycle.. .The whole first section of the piece, up to m. 40, is built around a
rotation ascending through three of the four members of the primary cycle. The final
progression, to C|Db, is withheld, however; in its place we get a sort of deceptive
cadence to B minor (practically the only "pure triad" in the piece) that appears first
in measure 19 and reappears four times thereafter, its highest voice doubled at the
third to produce a seventh chord...
Like the first section, the final one withholds the last member of the [0, 3, 6,
9] cycle. There is a distinct sense of stalling at 6 (i.e., Bb, the tritone antipode [of the
pc center, E]) in m.m. 117-124. Lasting eight measures, it is the composition's
longest-sustained single harmony. After the stall, the return to E can seem a fallback,
one reiterated in m.m. 127-129 when Bb again fails to pierce the implicit barrier.
All the greater, then, is the sense of breakthrough at the very top of the final
arpeggio, already shown in [Example 1.3B], when at last C(t, the very note withheld
as a harmonic root, provides the melodic capstone. What gives the sense of finality
here is not a gesture of return, as in a traditionally-tonal composition, but a gesture
of pattern-completion.37

EXAMPLE 1.3: Vers laflamme, op. 72, after Taruskin.

A. Opening, measures 1-11

37
Taruskin, Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 4 (2005), 219-224.

25
 EXAMPLE 1.3 continued.

C. Conclusion of op. 72, measures 120-137.

The final example comes from James Baker's article "Scriabin's Music: Structure as a

Prism for Mystical Philosophy," a brief yet thorough survey of Scriabin's intellectual

26
influences followed by an analytical application of the ideas to the music. After establishing

the influence of Theosophy on Scriabin, Baker wrote,

Scriabin was able to work out extra-tonal relations of the most abstruse sort in his
tonal music. [Example 1.4] shows a phrase from "Ironies," op. 56, no. 2 (1907)
which in tonal terms basically effects a cadence in C# minor. The first measure of the
phrase contains an eight-note superset of the whole-tone scale, identified as Forte's
8-24. (The numbers in parentheses indicate the pitches not present here.) The phrase
concludes with a verticality comprised of precisely these pitches, {5, 7, 9, 1}, a form
of set class 4-24. (The numbers in curly brackets represent the pitches present here.)
Thus the nontonal relation of complementation governs the beginning and ending of
the phrase, lending a special kind of unity to the gesture. According to Theosophy,
the Unifying Principle is understood to have been differentiated into various planes
of matter and spirit. One can well imagine that to a mystical composer, the
complementation relation would signify this differentiation, embodying within the
microcosm of the universe of twelve pitch classes the aspiration toward unification.3

EXAMPLE 1.4: Baker's analysis of Ironies, op. 56 no. 2, measures 17-20.

These three excerpts locate the ideas at three different levels of musical structure:

Garcia's vertiginous dance topos is created through rhythmic, textual, and gestural features

on the musical surface. Her interpretation is supported by her research into the significance

of Dionysian dance in Russian symbolism, Scriabin's written performance indications

describing what is happening in the passages she selects, and the recurrence of similar

38
Baker, "Structure as a Prism," (1997), 77-78.

27
passages in several pieces.3 In Taruskin's analysis of Vers laflamme, he uses Ivanov's concept

of pori'p to frame his concept of the work as a whole. The directional implication of the

work's title, "toward the flame," contributes metaphorically to his understanding of the

dramatic trajectory of the work as a spiritual ascent. His analysis combines an attention to

surface features such as dynamics, texture, and register with more "structural" features (that

is, pitch configurations). The musical rhetoric of "ascent" and "uplift" in the final section

coincides with arrival of the sustained Cf in the top register, the pitch withheld from the E-

G-Bb minor-third bass progression.

Baker's reading focuses exclusively on pitch class-relationships, and is therefore the

most removed from the compositional surface. His interpretation depends on the mapping

of the Theosophical value of "unity" onto the compositional "unity" afforded by the

complementation relation in post-tonal analytical theory. Yet, why would these four

measures taken from the middle of a small piano work symbolize the spiritual unity of the

universe? Certainly, the tide, Ironies, would not imply such an interpretation.

Interestingly, in these three examples, the hermeneutic interpretations become less

convincing as the amount of music referred to decreases and the complexity of the

theoretical machinery through which the music is filtered increases. Furthermore, selecting

appropriate philosophical ideas to map onto musical processes is somewhat problematic in

both Taruskin and Baker. While Taruskin's analysis of Vers laflamme seems to hit the right

balance of attention surface details and revelation of underlying pitch configurations, it still

leaves puzzling questions requiring a more in-depth hermeneutic project. For example, what

39
Pnmetheus, op. 60, as well as the Sonatas opp. 66, 68, and 70 exhibit similar dancelike passages in fast duple-
meter near the conclusion of each work.

28
is the relationship between the "flame" of the work's title and Taruskin's reading of the

trajectory of the work as a spiritual ascent?

T h e epistemological differences among Garcia, Taruskin, and Baker's approaches

give rise to a critical question: is music analysis really equipped to do the type of hermeneutic

work that Scriabin's music requires? It seems that the methodology of analysis tends to

approach a piece of music with a different set of questions than may be appropriate given

Scriabin's numinous purpose. Despite Taruskin's beautiful prose, there is some degree of

deflation when the final m o m e n t of ultimate spiritual transcendence is revealed to be a result

of [0, 3, 6, 9] pattern completion. Is the ecstatic religiosity of the music simply too far

removed from established modes of scholarly inquiry to convincingly intersect in analytical

hermeneutics? ^

Those w h o knew Scriabin personally implied that this was the case. T h e composer's

daughter, Marina Scriabine, claimed that,

Scriabin's grandiose visions of the Mysterium, which was to transfigure humanity, and
his theoretical speculations that gave these visions a philosophical foundation were
n o t connected with his music in subject matter or development, thematic content or
comment, theory or realization. They were parallel actions that enabled Scriabin to
communicate the incommunicable.

A n d Boris de Schloezer wrote,

Everything [Scriabin] believed in, everything he aspired to, everything that he

created, was determined by his intuitive experience. Scriabin was a mystic, and the
mystic in him governed his philosophy and his artistic conventions. T h e uniqueness
of his philosophical and artistic individuality is reduced in the last analysis to the
uniqueness of his mystical experience. Therefore, in order to understand Scriabin,
one m u s t descend into these depths and try to dispel the darkness that reigned there.

40
Fred Maus explored the disconnection between music theoretical statements about a work's structure widi
statements regarding its expression or meaning in "Music as Drama," Music Theory Spectrum 10 (Spring 1988):
56-73. See more recent work by Lawrence Kramer, "Analysis Worldly and Unworldly," The MusicalQuarterly
87/1 (Spring 2004): 119-139; Karen Fournier, "Toward an epistemological model for music theory," Journal of
Musicological Research 20/4 (2001): 391-412.

41
Marina Scriabine, introduction to Scriabin: Artist and Mystic hy Schloezer (1987), 10.

29
 This can be accomplished only by another artist intuitively capable of embracing
Scriabin's individuality in its vital oneness. An analytic method of approach would
fail here completely, for it is impossible to express in rational terms and entity that is
irrational by nature.42

Baker, sensitive to the ultimate limitations of his hermeneutic project, ended his

article with an admission:

Especially for the bigger, more overtly mystical works, in particular Prometheus, a true
mystical belief on the part of the listener may be required in order to receive the
music as Scriabin intended. For those of us today who find ourselves unable to meet
this expectation, the music still stands as a marvel of musical construction and
sonorous beauty, fully capable of appreciation in purely musical terms.43

While every Scriabin scholar would naturally have some sympathy with the views

expressed by Scriabine, Schloezer, and Baker regarding the ultimate enigma Scriabin's music,

it strikes me that the issue they articulate is merely a maximalization of the "problem" of

musical meaning in any repertoire—maximalized because of the spiritual agency Scriabin

expected his music would have in the real world.44 But in the past twenty years, increasing

scholarly interest in the question of musical meaning has provided music theorists with a

variety of conceptual frameworks through which a work's ideological "content" or

expressive power could be addressed.4 These provide a viable epistemological model for

hermeneutic Scriabin scholarship that stops short of full conversion. Musical meaning is only

42
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1985), 108-109.

43
Baker, "Structure as a Prism," (1997), 96.

44
Taruskin writes of Scriabin's music being a maximalization of nineteenth-century compositional and
ideological tendencies in "Scriabin and the Superhuman," in Defining Russia Musically (1997); and The Oxford
History of Western Music, vol. 4 (2005), 197-227.

45
The list of scholarship exploring questions of musical meaning and its relationship to analysis is long. Three
(relatively) recent considerations that have shaped my own views on the issue are Marion A. Guck, "Analysis as
Interpretation: Interaction, Intentionality, Invention" Music Theory Spectrum 28/2 (Autumn 2006): 191-209;
Martina Viljoen, "Questions of Musical Meaning: An Ideology-Critical Approach," International Review of the
Aesthetics and Sociology ofMusic 35/1 (June 2004): 3-28; Nicholas Cook, "Theorizing Musical Meaning," Music
Theory Spectrum 23/2 (Autumn 2001): 170-195.

30
a "problem" if one believes, as Baker did, that meaning inheres within the work itself, or is

solely a matter of the composer's "intentions."46 Embedding meaning within the score

renders it permanently inaccessible due to the semantic blankness of musical structures

themselves. Productive discussions of meaning can only occur when musical meaning is

viewed as being generated through a creative interaction between a musical work and its

interpreter.4' Meaning then becomes an "emergent" property of the work, in Nicholas

Cook's formulation.48 Cook writes, "It is wrong to speak of music having particular meanings;

rather it has the potential for specific meanings to emerge under specific circumstances." 49

Yet, to conceptualize the creation of musical meaning as an act of the receiver

should not permit an unchecked proliferation of ungrounded interpretations.50 It is

important to create appropriate circumstances within which plausible interpretations can

arise. And so once again, we are brought back to the need for contextual awareness to

ground and enliven any form of musical interpretation. But if the creation of meaning is an

act on the part of the receiver, the quality and appropriateness of the meaning created is

highly dependent upon the receiver's level of preparation. Garcia did not need to actually be

a Russian symbolist to receive Scriabin's music, but she did need to be an initiate into their

46
Baker, "Structure as a Prism," (1997), 96.
47
This conceptual framework, fairly common now in musical scholarship, has its roots in Wolfgang Iser's
reader-response theory. See Iser, The Act of Reading: A. Theory ofAesthetic Response (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1978). For two different applications of Iser's theory to die analytical process, see Marion
Guck, "Analysis as Interpretation," (2006) and James Hepokoski, "Fiery-pulsed libertine or Domestic Hero?
Strauss's Don Juan Reinvestigated," in Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, edited by
Bryan Gilliam, 135-176 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992).

48
Cook, "Theorizing Musical Meaning," (2001), 179-180.

49
Ibid.

50
See Cook, ibid. For other perspectives on the limits of interpretation, see John Shepard and Peter Wicke,
Music and Cultural Theory (London: Polity Press, 1997); Robert Hatten, "Grounding Interpretation: A Semiotic
Framework for Musical Hermeneutics," The American Journal of Semiotics 13/1-4, (Fall 1996): 25-43; Peter Martin,
Sounds and Society: Themes in the Sociology ofMusic (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995); James
Johnson, Usteningin Paris: A Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

31
aesthetic system in order to adequately perform her role. Interestingly, a creative, interactive

relationship between the work of art and its receivers was a fundamental tenet of Russian

Symbolism itself. As Scriabin's friend Ivanov wrote, "Symbolism is not only creative activity

but also creative cooperation, not only the artistic objectification of the creative subject but

also the creative subjectification of the artistic object.'"1

In the case of Scriabin analysis, however, adequate contextual knowledge is only the

starting point. Baker's information regarding Scriabin's philosophical interests was extensive,

but his hermeneutic reading of measures 17-20 of Ironies was not convincing. Garcia's

interpretation was the most compelling because her background knowledge changed her

perception of Scriabin's sonata conclusions. Her familiarity with Russian Symbolism and its

focus on the theurgic power of dance in Dionysian ritual infused Scriabin's up-tempo, duple-

time accelerando sonata conclusions with new meaning and rich intertextual resonance. Her

research transformed what she otherwise would have perceived as ordinary virtuoso codas

into intoxicated dances evoking ancient mystery plays, holy sacrifice, and performance-as-

theurgy. Garcia supported her interpretation with two types of evidence: the first was purely

musical, consisting of rhythmic and textural configurations, and the second was Scriabin's

own performance indications, such as en vertige and en delire. Without the symbolist context,

such phrases are merely vague descriptors. Yet, with symbolist background in place, they

acquire an enhanced degree of richness and specificity.52 The music referred to by the

performance indications underwent a similar process of enrichment.

51
Viacheslav Ivanov, "Thoughts on Symbolism," in Selected Essays, translated by Robert Bird (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 2001), 55.

52
Although Garcia does not explicitly make the connection, these attributes create an intertexual link between
the recurring vertiginous dance topos in Scriabin's sonatas and the concluding Dance of the Chosen One in
Stravinsky's 1913 Rite ofSpring.

32
 I've dwelt on the transformative aspects of Garcia's hermeneutic model because this

is what I perceive as lacking in both Taruskin and Baker, as well as other attempts to engage

Scriabin's aesthetics within an analytical context. 53 Taruskin's understanding oipori'v and

Baker's knowledge of Theosophy did not fundamentally alter their perception of musical

structures. Taruskin's rninor-third cycle and Baker's complementation relation were

convenient ready-made music-theoretical constructs on which they hung their hermeneutic

interpretations. If Scriabin's philosophical ideas were truly integrated in the analytic process,

the ideas—as a system of values—would ultimately have an impact on the manner in which

the musical relationships were conceptualized and articulated. And, this is precisely how die

engagement of Scriabin's aesthetics could begin to shed light on the analytical conundrums

presented by his scores.

This dissertation extends of Garcia's basic hermeneutic model to a slighdy broader

analytical project. Rather than beginning with a musical object defined by a pre-existing

analytic system and speculating on its spiritual significance, I work in the opposite direction

by using concepts and aesthetic values drawn from Scriabin's esoteric source readings and

the writings of his close contemporaries to inform my analytical perception. These concepts

and values are translated into aesthetic priorities that are then used to define musical objects

53
Baker made this point explicit: "It is crucial to recognize that the mystical aspects we have observed do not
negate or even alter analyses based on purely musical criteria." See "Structure as a Prism," (1997), 96. The most
comprehensive study of Scriabin's life, occultism, and music, Manfred KelkeFs Alexandre Scriabine: sa vie,
I'esotericisme et le langage muskale dans son oeuvre (Paris: Editions Honore Champion, 1978) also suffers from a lack
of integration, as do two otherwise excellent theses on Scriabin's Prometheus, op. 60: Christopher Dillon,
"Scriabin's Synaesthesia and its Significance in Prometheus, Poem ofFire, Op. 60, and in Other Selected Late
Works" (DMA document, Peabody Conservatory of Music, 2002); Kenneth Peacock, "Alexander Scriabin's
Prometheus: Philosophy and Structure" (Ph.D dissertation, University of Michigan, 1976). In the past few
decades, studies focusing on Scriabin's eroticism in relationship to his middle-period music have been slightly
more successful due to the analogy they posit between tension-release patterns in music and human sexual
experience. See Smith, "Desire and the Drives," (2008); Morris, "Musical Eroticism and the Transcendent
Strain," (1998); and Michael Schmidt, Ekstase als musikalisches Symbol in den Klavierpoemes Alexander S'krjabins
(Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1987).

33
and processes. In this way, analysis becomes a mode of exegetical reception, and reference to

Scriabin's metaphysics sheds light on long-standing questions of a purely analytical nature.

34
 Symbolists do not exist—if there are no Symbolists listening.

—Viacheslav Ivanov 1

CHAPTER TWO
INITIATION

Prometheus, op. 60 and the Mysteriutn

Boris de Schloe2er, a frequent member of the Scriabin household, emphasized the

extent to which Scriabin's idea of the Mysteriutn governed his total creative output:

From a psychological standpoint, the Mysteriutn is central to Scriabin's creative

biography. His thought centered on realizing the Mysteriutn; all other works were
incidental to it, successive stages of a gradual crystallization, signposts of the artist's
progress toward his goal.2

Schloezer provided a valuable first-hand account of Scriabin's evolving conception

of this massive project.3 It began to take shape around 1901 when Scriabin, intoxicated by

1
Ivanov, "Thoughts on Symbolism," translated by Robert Bird in Selected Assays (Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, 2001), 55.

Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic, translated by Nicolas Slonimsky (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987), 159; originally published as A. CxpuSuH: MOHOtpacpun o Amtwcmu u meopnecmee \A. Scriabin:
Personality and Creative Work] (Berlin: Grani, 1923). Schloezer (1881-1969), a sociologist, aesthetician, musician
and music critic, was the brother of Scriabin's common-law wife, Tatiana Schloezer. His friendship with
Scriabin dates from 1901 on.

3
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 157-306. Simon Morrison provides an especially cogent account of the
Mysterium in "Skryabin and die Impossible," Journal of the American MusicologicalSociety 51/2 (Summer 1998): 283-
330; dais article became a chapter in Morrison's Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2002), 184-241. Two other important eye-witnesses to Scriabin's creative process during his
planning of the Mysterium were Leonid Sabaneev and Viacheslav Ivanov. Sabaneev (1881-1968) was a musician,
music critic, and mathematician, a close friend of Scriabin and a passionate promoter of his music from around

35
Wagnerian fantasies, decided to write a symbolic opera called Act of the Last Fulfillment. The

central protagonist of the opera was a musician, philosopher, and poet-hero. Schloezer

describes the hero as Nietzschean XJbermensch, "an individual who is spiritually stronger than

the nameless masses.. .the hero has the right to subject the people to his own will." But the

unfinished libretto also portrays the hero in a Promethean vein, a figure who brings light to

the people and saves them from misery:

If only I could give you a grain of my blessed self,

If only a ray of the caressing light that inhabits my soul
Could for a moment illumine the sorrowful lives of people
Devoid of happiness, without a future!4

Drawing on Wagner's theme of the transcendent joining of souls in erotic love from

Tristan and Isolde, Scriabin's hero—representing the active, masculine principle—falls in love

with the king's daughter, a representation of the Eternal Feminine.5 Schloezer writes, "The

consummation of this love is a prototype of the final ecstasy."6 Just as the hero and the

king's daughter are united in the bliss of spiritual love, the hero succeeds in uniting the

masses through the dissemination of his doctrine, allowing them to experience transcendent

beatitude as well. The opera concludes with the hero's death. Significandy, this death occurs

"during a great festival, which crowns the attainment of universal unification with the

1910 on. Sabaneev wrote numerous pieces of music criticism published during Scriabin's lifetime, as well as
two biographies of the composer, CxpJiffuH [Scriabin], (Moscow and Petrograd: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo,
1916 and 1923), translated as Alexander Skrjabin—Werke und Gedankenwelt, by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst
Kuhn, 2006); and BocnoMitHcmwt o CKpx6um [Memories ofScriabin] (Moscow: Klassika-XXI, 2000, originally
published in 1925) translated by Ernst Kuhn as Erinnerungen an Alexander Scriabiti (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn,
2005). Viacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949) was a symbolist poet, playwright, and literary critic. He met Scriabin in
1909, and the two became close friends in 1913. Ivanov wrote several articles on Scriabin after he died,
including "Scriabin's View of Art" (1915), "The National and Universal in Scriabin's Creativity" (1916),
"Scriabin and the Spirit of the Revolution" (1917), and "Scriabin" (1919). Bird's translation of "Scriabin's View
of Art" appears in Ivanov, Essays (2001), 211-228; the others are cited in Morrison, Russian Opera (2002), 237,
note 40.

4
Quoted in Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 165.

5
Ibid., 170.

6
Ibid.

36
production of a grandiose musical drama created by the hero. He dies in a state of ecstasy,

joined in death by the king's daughter and surrounded by jubilant multitudes united in

exultation." Schloezer points out that the hero is a thinly-veiled idealized portrayal of

Scriabin himself, and that the dramatic action consists of Scriabin's fantasy of his own

artistic mission.8

Although he spoke about the opera avidly to his friends, Scriabin put off its

completion. By 1907 he had completely abandoned his sketches for the opera, believing his

design to be derivative and immature. Something more serious was needed—something that

went beyond the Festspielhaus. The portrayal of the attainment of universal ecstasy was simply

not enough. The musical work itself \\?L& to become the agent of universal ecstasy in the real

world. Scriabin's creative production and life continued to fuse as he, like the artist-hero in

his opera, began to plan the creation of his own grand festival, the Mysterium. This idea struck

him in late 1902, just a year after conceiving of the opera. "It was to encompass the vision of

an apocalyptic ecstasy and the end of the world," Schloezer wrote. "Scriabin firmly believed

that the production of this work would actually lead to cosmic collapse and universal

death."10

Scriabin's conception of the Mysterium maximalized the Wagnerian ideal of the

Gesamtkunstwerk,}1 Scriabin planned to create a unified complex of not only music, text, and

gesture, but also "symphonies of odors and tastes; he intended to introduce tactile sensations

7
Ibid., 171-172.

8
Ibid., 165.

' I b i d , 181.

10
Ibid, 177.

11
For an account of Scriabin's ambivalent relationship with Wagner, see Morrison, Russian Opera (2002), 184-
241.

37
into the score oi Mysterium, so as to transform the entire human body into a sounding

instrument."12 For Scriabin, Wagner's approach had been too formulaic, a lifeless parallelism

of heterogeneous elements. Instead of parallelism, Scriabin's Mysterium would create a

"counterpoint" of multisensory sensations. According to Schloezer, Scriabin believed that

Wagner's error lay in his failure to realize the fundamental correspondence between music

and other artistic forms.

[Wagner's] narrow formula of parallelism derives from the thesis of an intrinsic

heterogeneity of separate arts, whereas [Scriabin's] free formula of polyphonic
combinations rests on the realization of an intrinsic homogeneity of all elements of
Omni-art. In the latter verbal expression is, in a sense, also a color, an action, a
movement, a chord.13

Scriabin imaged the dramatic action of "omni-art" as taking the form of a

magnificent ritual, taking place over seven days and seven nights, staged in the foothills of

the Himalayan mountains. The ritual would reenact the evolution of the cosmos and the

history of humankind.14 Scriabin believed that there had once been a divine, primal unity

which had been broken to form the diversity of the material world. Art, too, had once been

unified, but had since been fragmented to form the separate genres of music, painting,

dance, and poetry. Scriabin's belief in the fundamental correspondence between art and life

led him to theorize that by reuniting the arts in the Mysterium, his "omni-art" could bring

about the primal unity which had existed at the beginning of the cosmos. At a certain point

in the ritual, the Mysterium would cease to be a re-enactment of universal history, and would

become the agent of universal change. The musical action would cause time to speed up,

hastening the fiery end of the material world and the advent of the new spiritual epoch.

12
Ibid, 84.
13
Ibid, 254.
14
Ibid, 213-214.
15
Ibid, 252-253.

38
Scriabin imaged the apocalypse as a "grandiose sexual act" as all human souls unite in cosmic

ecstasy.

As time passed and Scriabin's vision for the Mysterium became ever more

impracticable, his friends expressed concern for his sanity and tried to gently bring his

creative ambitions down to earth.

Discussions and conversations often went on from 8 p.m. to 3 or even 4 a.m. before
it was time to walk home through the deserted streets of Moscow. During these
gatherings Viacheslav Ivanov, who had a great gift for gentle and insinuating
persuasion, managed to convince Scriabin that he should for a time defer his great
Mystery, which was to culminate in the 'annihilation of the world in a fiery ecstasy'
and write an interim work to be called the 'Initial Act.' This was to be a grandiose
cantata on the same theme, but without the cataclysmic finale. Scriabin agreed to this
and we nicknamed it the "Safe Mystery."17

Scriabin, perhaps following Ivanov's recommendation, began to transfer much of his

material from the Mysterium to the Arte prealabk, or"PreparatoryAct. Schloezer wrote, "Scriabin

felt that he had to accomplish something tangible, here and now, so the Arte prealabk became

an abridged version of the Mysterium. In it Scriabin returned to the obsessive image of cosmic

death in a state of ecstasy, along the lines of his opera libretto but elevated to a much higher

plane."18 While Scriabin initially intended the Preparatory Act to be a preliminary study for the

Mysterium, designed to ready the world for its coming transfiguration, to Scriabin's friends it

seemed that the idea of the Preparatory Act had become fused with the Mysterium in Scriabin's

mind, and had assumed similarly impossible proportions.19 While Scriabin actively planned a

16
Ibid., 212. To facilitate this, Schloezer reports that the temple in which the Mysterium was to be performed
would include "an intricate network of sexual symbols" in its design.

17
Sabaneev, "A. N. Scriabin: A Memoir," Russian Review 25/3 (July 1966): 265-266.

18
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 292.

19
Ibid., 294.

39
research trip to India, "and even bought himself a tropical hat," according to Sabaneev, his

musical creativity stalled in a process Simon Morrison has compared to an asymptote, a

geometrical figure consisting of two lines that infinitely approach one another without ever

intersecting.21 When Scriabin died in 1915, he had completed fifty-five pages of sketches for

the Preparatory Act/Mysterium and a draft of the libretto.22

Example 2.1 shows a timeline for the Mysterium which includes Scriabin's other large-

scale works conceived and completed during the years 1901-1915. Although Scriabin's

contemporaries encourage us to view all his works as progressive experiments toward the

ideal of the Mysterium, Prometheus, op. 60—the last large-scale musical composition he

finished—has the most in common with its incomplete successor.

Like the Mysterium, Scriabin's Prometheus was premised on multi-sensory

correspondences, but on a less comprehensive scale. When the pianist Anna Goldenweizer

queried Scriabin about his plans for the the Mysterium, he began to describe a list of

performing forces identical to that of Prometheus—"an orchestra, large mixed choir, an

instrument with visual effects,"—before moving on to include "dancers, a procession,

incense, rhythmicized textual articulation..."23 Colored lights were to play a prominent role in

the Mysterium. Scriabin told Goldenweizer, "The form of the cathedral, in which it will all

take place, will not be of one monotonous type of stone, but will continually change, along

20
Sabaneev, "A Memoir," (1966), 266.

21
Morrison, Russian Opera (2002), 194-201.

22
Scriabin's sketches for the Preparatory Act are published in Manfred Kelkel, Alexandre Scriabine: sa vie,
I'esotericisme et le langage musicale dans son oeuvre, volume three (Paris: Editions Honore Champion, 1978). Simon
Morrison provides an English translation of the libretto in Russian Opera (2002), 313-347.

23
Anna Goldenweiser, undated diary entry, in A. CKpn6uu TlucbMa [Letters ofA. Scriabin] edited by A. V.
Kashperov (Moscow: Muzyka, 1965), 612. Quoted in Morrison, Symbolist Opera (2002), 194.

40
with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This, of course, [will happen] with the aid

of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours." 2 4

EXAMPLE 2.1: The "Asymptotic process" (after Morrison), including Scriabin's large-
scale works conceived and completed 1901-1915, as well as Scriabin's contact with
literature known to have been influential o n him.

Mysterium timeline

1915: Death

1913: Annotated Parisian score,

began Preparatory Ant

1911: Premiered and published Prometheus, op. 60

1910: Completed music for Prometheus
1909: Met Symbolist poets, read Ivanov
1908: Premiered Poem of Ecstasy, op. 54; began Prometheus
1907: Abandoned opera

1905: Began Poem of Ecstasy, read Blavatsky

1904: Premiered The Divine Poem, op. 43

1902: Conceived Mysterium, began The Divine Poem

1901: Planned opera (Wagner, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche)

As the 1913 Parisian score reveals, the part for tastiera perluce in Prometheus'was to be

more than just a play of colors. 25 Scriabin's notes provide a wealth of other information

regarding dynamic changes in lighting intensity, mood, and various spectacular effects.

24
Ibid.
25
Autograph score of A. Scriabin, Promethee, k Poeme du Feu, pour grand orchestre et piano avec orgue, choeurs, et clavier a
lumiirs, op. 60 (Berlin and Moscow: Edition Russe de Musique, 1911), archived under the Bibliotheque
Nationale catalogue number Res. Vma 228. It contains Scriabin's handwritten annotations regarding the tastiera
per luce, and has been available for study since 1978.

41
Although Prometheus did not premiere with lights in 1911, at least two performances of the

work during Scriabin's lifetime did include the light part. The first was in Moscow in 1912,

and the second in New York in 1915.26 Neither of these performances, however, approached

the level of spectacle called for by the Parisian score. The original tastiera per luce designed by

Alexander Mozer, shown in Example 2.3, consists of a circle of colored bulbs screwed onto

a wooden disc. In order for the colors to fill the hall, as Scriabin imagined, the luce would

have had to be outfitted by some type of powerful projection apparatus.

The Chromola, designed by Preston S. Millar of the Edison Testing Laboratory for

the 1915 New York premiere, included just such an apparatus, but it still was not powerful

enough for colors to fill the entire hall. A musical keyboard, shown in Example 2.4A,

controlled the lights, which were mounted on a rotating belt affixed with mirrors. This

allowed the lights to move as they were projected on a small screen above the orchestra.

Despite the innovations of the Edison Testing Laboratory, the 1915 Chromola was

still a far cry from the type of sensory onslaught Scriabin imagined. The Parisian score calls

for every type of fire imaginable: lightning bolts, tongues of flame, cascades of sparks, and

fireworks. While Prometheus could have been staged out-of-doors, with effects supplied with

real fire, real fireworks, and lighting bolts effectively simulated by a Tesla coil (invented

1891), the Parisian score makes it clear that Scriabin required these effects to counterpoint

the music with a degree of speed and precision that was unfeasible given the limitations of

early-twentieth century lighting and pyrotechnic technology.

26
Sabaneev, "A Memoir," (1966): 257; James Baker, "Prometheus and the Quest for Color-Music: The World
Premiere of Scriabin's Poem ofFire with Lights, New York, March 20,1915," in Music and Modern Art, edited by
James Leggio (New York: Routledge, 2002), 61-95.

27
"'Color Music' Tried Here For the First Time," The New York Times (March 28,1915).

28
Interested readers may refer to George W. Weingart, Dictionary and Manual of Pyrotechny: Covering the Author's
Work and Experimentsfrom 1890-1935 (New Orleans: self published, 1935).

42
 EXAMPLE 2.3: The original tastieraperluce, designed by Alexander Mozer (ca. 1910),
now housed in die A.N. Scriabin Memorial Museum in Moscow.29

EXAMPLE 2.4 The Chromola, designed by Edison Testing Laboratories (1915).

A. Keyboard and foot pedals. B. Projection apparatus.

29
Left photograph reproduced from E.N. Rudakova, editor, Ajieiccandp C/cpJiffuH [Alexander Skriabin] (Moscow:
Muzyka, 1979), 198; right photograph reproduced from http://prometheus.kai.ru/ck+kand_e.htm.

30
Photographs reproduced from Charles W. Person, "Seeing Music in Colors," Illustrated World 24/1
(September 1915): 44-45.

43
 Scriabin's annotations in the Parisian score not only reveal a conception far in

advance of its time, but also make clear that he was imagining something more than the

spectacle of a symphony accompanied by bla2es of color and fire. Near the end of the work,

Scriabin's annotations become increasingly violent: "a whole sea of light and fire," "terrifying

flames break away," ending with "inferno, the whole world engulfed," "cataclysm, all in

fire." Significantly, the Parisian score dates from 1913, the same year Scriabin began plans

for his Preparatory Act (Example 2.6). As he scaled down his immediate plans for the

Mysterium, Scriabin re-imagined Prometheus as an impossible apocalyptic ritual.

EXAMPLE 2.6: The relationship between Prometheus, the Parisian score, the Preparatory
Act, and the Mysterium.

[J?ansmnjscore ___ 121^_ El^S2L°U S^ '

The similarities between Prometheus and the Mysterium go beyond their appeals to

multi-sensory synthesis and their unattainable performance indications. As we shall see,

Scriabin's decision to write a theurgic work of art on the Prometheus legend is a

consequence of his fascination with India, ecstatic participatory theater, mystic ritual, and his

beliefs regarding cosmic evolution and his own power to hasten the process of

44
dematerialization and spiritual unification. These connections can only be fleshed out

through the texts Scriabin used to justify his theurgic mission and their larger intellectual

context.

The birth of Prometheus: Nietzsche, Ivanov, and Blavatsky

Scriabin's contemporary biographers were fond of claiming that the metaphysical

views which inspired his creative works are unknowable. In the autumn following Scriabin's

1915 death, Viacheslav Ivanov wrote, "the sun of this genius has suddenly been obscured by

the cloudy veil of impenetrable mystery, and the final meaning of his art and the deepest

meaning of his fate remain mysterious."31 Sabaneev put it this way:

Perhaps [Scriabin's] music is alien to modernity for the very reason that when
severed from his philosophy, it is incomprehensible and incomplete, while his
philosophy suffers from too manifest faults. Scriabin very rashly bound his huge ship
of musical creativeness organically by ties that were too firm, to the frail and
ephemeral skiff of his philosophical views of the world.32

Despite their insistence on the ephemerality of Scriabin's metaphysics, the first-hand

accounts of Ivanov, Sabaneev, and Schloezer provide at least a tantalizing glimpse into

Scriabin's world-view. Importantly, these authors also pointed out aspects of his thinking

which can be attributed to his encounters with specific texts. In a letter to Tatiana Schloezer

dated April 25, 1905, Scriabin wrote, "The Key to Theosophy [by Helena Blavatsky] is a

wonderful book. You will be amazed how close it is to my thought." Schloezer reported

that in the summer of 1907, when he visited Scriabin and Tatiana in Switzerland,

31
Ivanov, "Scriabin's View of Art," in Essays (2001), 228.

32
Sabaneev, Modern Russian Composers, translated by Judah A. Joffe (New York: International Publishers, 1927),
53.

33
Letter from Alexander Scriabin to Tatiana Schloezer dated April 29/May 12,1905, in Kashperov, letters
(1965), 369.

45
 [Scriabin] was deeply engaged in reading works by Mme. Blavatsky, Annie Besant,
C.W. Leadbeater, and other theosophists. His conversation was full of theosophical
allusions to Manvantara, Pralaya, Seven Planes, Seven Races, and the like; he used
these terms volubly as if they were familiar to all and as if they reflected
incontrovertible truths.34

Later, Schloezer described how avidly Scriabin pursued this interest in Theosophy,

reading and rereading Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, marking significant passages in pencil.35

The journalist Ellen von Tidebohl mentioned Scriabin's engagement with two other sources

in 1910, the year he was finishing the music for Prometheus:

I had with me Nietzsche's book "Die Geburt der Tragodie." Scriabin, seeing it in my
hand one day, spoke of the wonders of the book and the views on art, especially
where the philosopher speaks of Dionysius. He confessed he had been much
strengthened in his doctrines and work by this book, and spoke of another which
had an equal influence on him. Next morning he brought this book to lend to me to
read—Viacheslav Ivanov's "All Above the Stars [i.e., By the Stars]." This copy had
been sent him by the author, who had autographed the book. In this book, Scriabin
said, all the chief values of the mental and living struggle of artists are thoroughly
discussed. Often we talked together on the significance of symbolism in art and life.36

These three texts—Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine (1888), Nietzsche's The Birth of

Tragedy (1872/1886), and Ivanov's essays on symbolism collected in By the Stars (1909)—

provide the intellectual background against which Prometheus may be read. The ancient Greek

legend of Prometheus was one of the most stimulating pieces of Hellenic mythology for the

nineteenth-century imagination, and all three authors refer to it in their writings. In

34
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 67.

35
Ibid., 72.

36
Ellen von Tidebohl, "Memories of Scriabin's Volga Tour (1910)," The Monthly Musical Record 56/5 & 6 (May
& June 1926): 168. Scriabin's contact with the 'mystic' phase of symbolism in Russia was both literary and
personal. In December 1909, Scriabin received a copy of Viacheslav Ivanov's By the Stars from the poet himself
after a concert held at the editorial offices of the St. Petersburg symbolist journal Apollon. The volume collected
some of Ivanov's most cogent articulations of mystic symbolism's shifting and disputed ground gleaned from
articles that had appeared in various Symbolist journals. The Apollon concert marked the beginning of Scriabin's
acquaintanceship with Ivanov, Konstantin Balmont and Jurgis Baltrusaitis. Ivanov's friendship with Scriabin
deepened after 1913. See James West, Russian Symbolism: A Study ofVyacheslav Ivanov and the Russian Symbolist
Aesthetic (London: Methuen, 1970), 48.

46
Prometheus Bound'by Aeschylus (525-426 BCE), Prometheus the Titan provokes Zeus by

stealing divine fire and bequeathing it to mankind.37 Along with fire, Prometheus gives

humans the gift of intelligence and self-sufficiency, raising them up from their previous state

of dreamlike helplessness. In Ovid's later treatment, Prometheus became humankind's

creator, shaping them from daubs of clay and breathing life into them with his own breath.

In retribution for these acts, Zeus condemns Prometheus to be chained to a rock and

tortured for eternity.

Nietzsche considered Aeschylus's treatment of the myth in Prometheus Bound to be

the crowning masterpiece of Greek drama, the final burst of genius before its long decline.38

The frontispiece for the 1872 edition of The Birth of Tragedy depicted Prometheus released

from his chains. In 1919, Ivanov wrote his own play on the Prometheus myth, and he often

referred to the legend in his earlier essays collected in By the Stars.39 Scriabin's decision to

create a work based on the Prometheus legend was undoubtedly influenced by his reading of

Nietzsche and Ivanov, whose celebration of Aeschylus and views on the decline of Greek

theater emerge strongly in the quotation from Schloezer below.

In his search for lost innocence Scriabin found precursors in remote antiquity. He
hoped that the Mysterium would revive the forgotten achievements of the ancient
mystagogues. But in the ancient mysteries, particularly the Eleusinian.. .there already
existed an element of play, of representation; they already carried the taint of
decadence. They had lost their religious and liturgical character and were rapidly
approaching the theatrical genre. This trend, however, did not completely deprive
the Greek theater of the character of a mystery play. It is present in the works of
Aeschylus, whose Prometheus Scriabin gready prized.40

37
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, translated by James Scully and C. John Herington (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1990) .Versions of the Prometheus story also appear in Hesiod's Theogony (8th century BCE) and Ovid's
Metamorphosis (ca. 8 CE).

38
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy," in Bask Writings ofNietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann
(New York: The Modern Library, 2000), 69-72.

39
Viacheslav Ivanov, YlpoMemeu: mpazebm [Prometheus: a tragedy] (Petersburg: Alkonost, 1919).

40
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 190.

47
 Yet, Scriabin's choice of Prometheus as subject-matter is even more deeply tied to his

admiration for Blavatsky. In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky interprets Aeschylus's Prometheus

Bound as an allegory for the most crucial moment in the development of humankind: the

acquisition of intellect, symbolized as celestial fire. According to Blavatsky, Aeschylus was a

fellow initiate into the great eternal truths that her own work revealed. His Prometheus Bound

had been the central drama in the ancient Sabasian Mysteries, which Blavatsky described as a

ritualized re-enactment of human evolution.41 As we shall see, Scriabin's Prometheus and the

Mysterium were efforts to revive this secret ritual for modern times.

Prometheus, India, and the search for myth

Nietzsche, Blavatsky, and Ivanov's fascination with the Prometheus legend reflects

their shared preoccupation with myth and its potential to bring about aesthetic and spiritual

renewal. Myth had the power to reveal essential truths about the cosmos and human origins,

and for Nietzsche and Ivanov, the use of myth in modern art provided a means to revive the

lost theurgic function of ancient Greek drama.

Why this focus on myth? The importance of myth in Scriabin's source texts may be

traced back to the birth of comparative philology in Germany in the early decades of the

nineteendi century.42 Both Nietzsche and Ivanov were trained as philologists (Ivanov studied

41
Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis ofScience, Religion, and Philosophy, vol. 2 (London: The
Theosophical Publishing Company, Ltd., 1888), 419.

42
George S. Williamson, The Longingfor Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culturefrom Romanticism to Nietzsche
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).

48
Sanskrit with Ferdinand de Saussure in Geneva). In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky cites the

scholarship of founding German philologists Adalbert Kuhn and Max Muller.44

The comparative philological project was inspired by the increasing availability of

ancient Indian scripture in the West.45 The observation that Sanskrit shared certain features

widi Greek, Latin, and otiier modern inflected languages inspired linguists such as William

Jones and Friedrich Schlegel to trace the origin of European languages back to Sanskrit.

Adalbert Kuhn and Max Muller tried to show how the characters and symbols of Greek

mydiology had their precursors in Vedic literature, speculating diat India and its ancient

Aryan civilization represented the Urkultur from which the West had sprung. The idea of

extant religious texts belonging to a culture existing thousands of years before Christ fueled

the European obsession with origins and die post-enlightenment search for alternatives to

the hegemonic authority of the Christian Bible. The urge to reconnect with die spirit of

primordial humanity motivated Scriabin's fantasies about staging his Mysterium at die

foodiills of die Himalayas and his brief consideration of Sanskrit as the language for die

Mysterium's libretto.46 Scriabin imagined that India might still possess some vestige of the

pure, uncorrupted transcendental spirituality diat must have existed at the beginnings of

civilization—die spirituality he sought to revive dirough his art for the benefit of all

humanity.

43
Michael Wachtel, introduction to Ivanov, Essays (2001), viii-ix.

44
See particularly Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine (1888) vol. 1, xxi-xxxiv, where she describes the findings of
Orientalist scholars and comparative philologists in relation to her own work.

45
Williamson, The Longingfor Myth, (2004); J.J. Clarke, Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and
Western Thought (London: Routledge, 1997); Raymond Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance: Europe's Rediscovery of
India and the East, 1860-1880, translated by Gene Patterson-Black and Victor Reinking (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1984).

46
Schioezet, Artist and Mystic (1987), 178, 264, 259.

49
 Scriabin's "contact" with India was mediated primarily by his reading of Blavatsky,

who appropriated various metaphysical elements and vocabulary from Hindu and Buddhist

texts to create her new phantasmagorical Eastern-influenced spiritual movement,

Theosophy.47 Though the Theosophical Society had been founded in the United States, it

moved its headquarters to India in order to be closer to its inspirational source and (as its

leaders hoped) assist with Hindu religious reform.48 Adopting the rhetoric of comparative

philology, Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine purported to be a lengthy scholarly "commentary"

on a spurious ancient pre-Vedic text called the "Stanzas of Dzyan."49 Through her

commentary on the "Stanzas," Blavatsky tried to reveal that all world myths, religions, occult

lore contained fragments of a single, universal Truth, which was confirmed by modern

science. The comparative philologist Muller, seeing the manner in which Blavatsky adapted

elements of his working method and discourse to her own purposes, wryly remarked that

she "was either a remarkable forger or that she has made the most valuable gift to

archeological research in the Orient."50

Scriabin's reading of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation around age

twenty also provided him with an early, brief introduction to certain Eastern philosophical

47
Scriabin's letters reveal that he also relied heavily on theosophist acquaintances with connections in India to
help him work out the logistical arrangements for the Mysterium. "There was much talk with (Jean] Delville
about the trip to India," Scriabin wrote to Tatiana de Schloezer in a letter dated February 26/March 11,1914;
"On Friday, which is the day after tomorrow, I will dine with some theosophists. The arrangements were made
by Vida, who was the secretary of the Theosophical Society 32 years ago (at the time of its foundation). .. .At
his home I will make the acquaintance of the woman in whose arms Blavatsky died. On the whole, this dinner
promises much. Every day Alexander Nicolaevich [Brianchaninov] gathers more new information about India,
finds interesting people experienced in occultism and introduces them to me, and generally stimulates me in my
work," letter to Tatiana de Schloezer, March 11/24,1914. See Kashperov, Letters (1965), 622 and 630.

48
See Peter van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2001) 55-82.

49
Blavatsky introduces die "Stanzas of Dzyan" under the heading "Pages from a Pre-historic Period," writing,
"An Archaic Manuscript—a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water, fire, and air, by some
specific unknown process—is before the writer's eye." Secret Doctrine (1888), vol. 1,1.

50
Quoted in Alvin B. Kuhn, Theosophy: A Modem Revival of Ancient Wisdom (New York: Henry Holt, 1930), 195.

50
concepts. Schopenhauer confessed that "the best in my own development is due to that of

the works of Kant, as well as to that of the sacred writings of the Hindus, and to Plato."51

Schopenhauer drew upon the Vedic concept of maya—die idea that the material world is an

illusion, and that true reality consists of something other than diat which is presented to us

as sense data-—to justify his idea of die "world as representation." Scriabin also could have

read about the Hindu cyclic conception of time, the "days and nights of the Brahma;"52

reincarnation; and Nirvana, which Schopenhauer understood as "complete self-nullification

and denial of the will.. .which alone provides that contentment which can never again be

disturbed, alone redeems one from the world."33 Schopenhauer's understanding of Indian

religious doctrine and the manner in which he enfolded his misreadings of certain principles

into his own world-view has left him open to criticism.54 However, the manner in which he

championed Indian philosophy in his work had a deep impact on his readers, notably

Wagner and Nietzsche.5s

51
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Presentation, translated by Richard A. Aquila and David Carus,
vol. 1 (New York: Pearson Education, 2008), 481. Schopenhauer's early (pre-1818) knowledge of Indian
philosophy probably derived solely through the Oupnek 'hat, a Latin translation by A. H. Anquetil-Duperron of a
Persian translation of the Upanishads, 2 vols. (Argentorati [Strasbourg]: Levrault, 1801-1802), supplemented by
various journal articles collected in Asiatick Researches, the published proceedings of the Asiatick Society
(Calcutta, 1788-1839). At the time of Schopenhauer's death, however, his library contained between 130 and
150 volumes of Orientalist scholarship. For a list of Schopenhauer's citations of this literature in his works, see
Moira Nicholls, "The Influences of Eastern Thought on Schopenhauer's Doctrine of die Thing-in-Itself," in
The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer, edited by Christopher Janaway (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), 197-204.

52
Schopenhauer, Will and Presentation \o\. 1 (2008), 571.

53 Ibid, 421.

54
Sai Bhatawadekar, "Symptoms of withdrawal: The Threefold Structure of Hegel's and Schopenhauer's
Interpretation of Hindu Religion and Philosophy" (Ph.D dissertation, The Ohio State University, 2007.)

55
See Williamson, The Longing For Myth (2008) on Wagner, 180-210; and on Nietzsche, 234-384; Schwab, The
Oriental Renaissance (1984) on Schopenhauer, 427-435; on Nietzsche, 435-438; on Wagner, 438-449; and on
Russian culture, 449-453. For more on Wagner's engagement with Schopenhauer and Buddhism, see Eric
Chafe, The Tragic and the Ecstatic The Musical Revolution of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde," (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004); 3-48; Derrick Everett, "Parsifal under die Bodhi Tree," Wagner 22/2 (July 2001): 67-92;
Warren Darcy, "Redeemed from Rebirth: The Evolving Meaning of Wagner's Ring," in Wagner in Retrospect: A
centennial reappraisal, edited by Leroy R. Shaw, Nancy Cirillo, and Marion Miller, 50-61 (Amsterdam: Rodopi,

51
 Scriabin also pursued his interest in Indian philosophy through other sources.

Schloezer listed several texts related to India which Scriabin read: Religions de llnde by

Auguste Barth, The Ufe of the Buddha by the second-century Indian poet Asvaghosa,

translated into Russian by Scriabin's symbolist associate Konstantin Balmont,58 and the

enormously popular epic poem The Ught of Asia, written by the Theosophist Sir Edwin

Arnold, which recounted the imagined spiritual life of Prince Gautama as told through the

voice of an imaginary Buddhist votary.59 Although we might make distinctions regarding the

validity of all these sources—comprising the paraphrase and appropriation of concepts

widiin a new spiritual movement and a new philosophical system, a scholarly account, a

Classical Indian devotional poem in translation, and specious romantic mythologizing—diey

probably combined widi equal aumority in Scriabin's mind to create a composite image of

India and Indian religious philosophy. The power of an idealized image of Eastern mysticism

on Scriabin's thought should not be underestimated, despite the fact that it lacked

foundation in any authentic information or experience. Schloezer wrote, "Half in jest, half

seriously, Scriabin used to call himself a true Hindu, in the sense that his spiritual fatherland

was India."60 For Scriabin, India was the occult holy land, infused with an eroticized

1987). For Nietzsche's engagement with the east, see David Smith, "Nietzsche's Hinduism, Nietzsche's India:
Another Look," The journal ofNietzsche Studies 28 (Autumn 2004): 37-56; Graham Parkes, editor, Nietzsche and
Asian Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

56
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 200.

57
Auguste Barth, Religions de llnde (Paris: Librairie Sandoz et Fischbacher, 1879). Schloezer lists Scriabin's likely
Indian readings in Artist and Mystic (1987), 69.

^Auteazxouta: yKumb Byddu / KaAudaca: ApaMu [Ashvaghosa: Ufe of Buddha / Kalidasa: Dramas], translated by
Konstantin Balmont (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1990).

59
Sir Edwin Arnold, The Ught of Asia, or, the Great Renunciation: Being the life and teaching of Gautama, prince ofIndia
andfounder of Buddhism, as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist, 28* edition (London: Triibner and Co., 1885).

60
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 281.

52
exoticism that only he could truly appreciate. He suspected that Indians themselves might be

less sensitive to the deeper dimensions he perceived in their culture. In 1912, Scriabin met

the musician and Sufi teacher Inayat Khan. Scriabin found Khan's music disappointing, and

reported to Sabaneev,

"I believe that the 'Orient' is nodiing else than the idea from which die current
Orient developed. And today this idea is much more deeply in us than in the land of
die real orients. .. .As peculiar as it may sound, it is we who create die true Orient in
Art! I create the oriental languor, die caresses of kisses, die unutterable delights of
dematerialization, die aromas marked in sound.. ."61

Significandy, eroticism and ritual were united in die philologist Adalbert Kuhn's

construal of the Prometheus myth, which he believed originated in ancient India. In Die

Herabkunji des Feuers und des Gottertranks (1859),62 Kuhn identified an episode in the Rig Veda

which uncannily paralleled die mythic exploits of die Greek Titan.63 In both stories, a demi-

god had taken fire from a divine source in an act of rebellion, leading to die creation of

humanity. According to Kuhn, the name "Prometheus" was actually a corruption of the

Sanskritpramantha, die stick used to kindle sacred fires in a ritual practice described in the

Vedic sutras. During the ritual, the pramantha was inserted into an indented disc made of

wood called an arani. The shapes of the fire-kindling instruments as well as die eroticized

language of the Vedic hymns indicated to Kuhn an extra dimension to the exercise. "To die

simple natural man, the procedure for producing fire.. .must have easily recalled the act of

procreation," Kuhn wrote.54

61
Sabaneev Erinnerungen (2005), 222-223; BocnoMUHartun o CKpa6une (2000), 202.

62
Adalbert Kuhn, Die Herabkunji des Feuers und des Gottertranks (Berlin: F. Durnmler, 1859).

63
See discussion in Williamson, The Longingfor Myth (2008), 214-216 and 359n. He notes that modern scholars
have rejected Kuhn's faulty etymological connections regarding the Prometheus story.

64
Kuhn, Die Herabkunji (1859), 70; quoted in Williamson, The Longingfor Myth (2008), 215.

53
 By Scriabin's time, the idea that the Prometheus story had originated in Indian

mythology had become widely disseminated. In a chapter from The Secret Doctrine entitled

"Prometheus, the Titan: His Origins in Ancient India," Blavatsky provides an elaborate

reinterpretation of Kuhn's basic findings.65 Nietzsche also cites the Indian origins of the

Prometheus legend in The Birth of Tragedy.66

However, Nietzsche was more attracted to comparisons between Prometheus and

Dionysus, the dark god of wine and music, who embodied the intoxication, terror, excess

and ecstasy of ancient ritual celebration. Like Prometheus, who was chained to the rock and

tortured, Dionysus was a suffering god, a tragic hero, ripped to pieces as an infant only to be

reborn. "All celebrated figures of the Greek stage—Prometheus, Oedipus, etc.—are mere

masks of this original hero, Dionysus."67 Nietzsche's identification of Prometheus with the

god of music and ecstatic ritual made him a fit subject for the type of theurgic art Scriabin

hoped to achieve.

Music and Myth in Theurgic Art

Although Scriabin envisioned his apocalyptic Mysterium as an omni-art, music was to

have a special role. "As it was for the mythical Orpheus, Music was, for Scriabin, a first

principle, moving and organizing the world."68 If music lay at the heart of the world's

organization, it would also have the power to transfigure it. Schloezer carefully explained

Scriabin's views on the transformative power of music. The details of Schloezer's argument

65
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 519-528.

66
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Birth," in Basic Writings (2000), 69-72.

67
Ibid., 73.

68
Ivanov, "Scriabin's View of Art," in Essays (2001), 214.

54
provide important insights into why Scriabin believed his art could change reality, so I quote

him at length:

A work of art, specifically a musical work, produces an impact on matter, altering it

in a certain way. This impact is physical, but in Scriabin's idealization it extended to
all states of being, including the astral and mental. Although the nature of this impact
has not been thoroughly evaluated and its manifestations may not be immediately
evident, they are present in the artist's creative design. .. .A system of sounds in any
musical composition affects the entire world of matter and alters it in various ways.
Stricdy speaking, any object, even if it is totally devoid of aesthetic value, exerts some
influence on its milieu. The very emergence of such an object disrupts, to a certain
extent, the equilibrium existing before its appearance and therefore must create a
new interrelationship among other objects. And since even the most minute part of
the world system is intimately connected with all other parts, it may be said that the
building of the pyramids in Egypt or the sailing of a boat from Europe to America
alters the entire equilibrium of the universe. From this standpoint there is no
difference, in principle, between Scriabin's Third Symphony and some grandiose
engineering project, such as the construction of the Panama Canal. Naturally one
thinks of the physical identity of air waves in music and explosions. Destructive
results of explosive air waves are in evidence all around us, but it is at least
conceivable that their energy can be directed, organized and systematized for
constructive projects as well. We must not conclude that constructive use would
require an amplification of vibrations and the employment of sounds of maximum
intensity. The same result can be achieved not only by a quantitative increase in the
power of sound waves, but by a greater intricacy of sound combinations. One can
conjure up a vision of the reconstitution of dead flesh and reorganization of matter
effected by an especially complicated system of sound waves. There is no doubt that
if we could make visible all the vibrations of the air mass produced in the vicinity of
a sound source—as a result, say, of a performance of Scriabin's Promethe'e—we would
find that all objects, including our own bodies, vibrate in such complex rhythms as to
induce the disintegration and transformation of matter.69

Like many statements of those who speak for Scriabin, Schloezer's words above

echo a passage from one of Scriabin's sources. Blavatsky, in the The Secret Doctrine, wrote,

We say that SOUND, for one thing, is a tremendous Occult power; that it is a
stupendous force, of which the electricity generated by a million Niagaras could
never counteract the smallest potentiality when directed with occult knowledge. Sound
may be produced of such a nature that the pyramid of Cheops be raised in the air, or
that a dying man, nay, one of his last breath, would be revived and filled with new
energy and vigor.. .It may even resurrect a man or an animal whose astral 'vital body'

69
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 240-242.

55
 has not been irreparably separated from the physical body by the severance of the
magnetic or odic chord.70

Blavatsky's text then goes on to extensively discuss the Keely motor, an "edieric

generator" which allegedly produced enough force to run a 25-horsepower engine by

"simply by drawing a fiddle-bow across a tuning fork."71

The harmonic experimentation characteristic of Scriabin's late style is a manifestation

of his belief in the transformative power of sound. As Schloezer maintained, this power

resided not just in amplitude but also in the complexity of tonal combinations. 72 The music

of Prometheus as well as Scriabin's sketches for die Preliminary A.ct can be viewed as

progressive compositional experiments for the numinous music that Scriabin hoped would

ultimately bring about the world's end.73

Scriabin's other source readings would also have confirmed his view of the power of

music to change reality. Schopenhauer had viewed music as unique among the arts in its

ability to allow people to see past the superficial appearances of the material world and

perceive the terrifying presence of the Will, the universal life force, the true reality lurking

beneath the illusory surface of quotidian existence. For Schopenhauer, music did not

70
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888) 555.

71
Scriabin could have read about the Keely motor in Blavatsky's lengthy account in the Secret Doctrine, vol. 1
(1888), 554-566. In 1872, John Keely of Philadelphia formed the Keely Motor Company. Keely, a violinist,
persuaded investors that he had invented a generator which channeled a very powerful, hitherto unknown force
called "etheric vapor." Etheric vapor was supposedly produced through the machine's response to vibrations
produced through scraping a violin bow on a set of tuning forks, conducted to die motor by steel piano wire.
For a skeptical account of one of Keely's demonstrations, see "Keely's Red Letter Day: He Starts his Motor for
a Few More Turns," New York Times (June 7,1885). For a more credulous account, see "A Keely Motor Tested:
New Etheric Engine and Its Powers Displayed in Philadelphia to Representative Railroad Men," New York
Times, June 20, 1897. The Keely motor was later revealed to be a hoax.

72
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 240-241.

73
Morrison discusses the music contained in the Preparatory Act sketches in Russian Opera (2002), 214-234.

56
represent reality—it was an intense form of knowledge about reality. Music allowed a

person to pierce the deceiving veil of mayd and see things as they really were. Nietzsche,

following Schopenhauer, called music "the immediate language of the will." 75

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche reformulated Schopenhauer's dualism between the

superficial world of material appearances—the "world as presentation"—and the terrifying

reality that lurked underneath it—die world of Will. For Nietzsche, these two metaphysical

domains became, respectively, the Apollonian form of art, concerned with representation

and clarity, and the Dionysian art of music, which, lacking the artifice of representation, had

the power to communicate the ultimate truth which was otherwise inexpressible. Nietzsche

saw die Apollonian and Dionysian as two opposing forces cast in a dialectical struggle,

"continually incit[ing] each other to new and more powerful births, which perpetuate an

antagonism, only superficially reconciled by the c o m m o n term 'art'; till eventually.. .they

appear coupled with each other, and through this coupling ultimately generate an equally

Dionysian and Apollonian form of art—Attic tragedy." 76 Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, the

pinnacle of Greek tragedy, embedded b o t h Nietzsche's polar values of the Dionysian and

Apollonian in art. 77

In the following passage, Nietzsche describes the Dionysian power of music.

In the Dionysian dithyramb man is incited to the greatest exaltation of all his
symbolic faculties; something never before experienced struggles for utterance—the
annihilation of the veil of mayd, oneness of soul and of the race and of nature itself.
T h e essence of nature is n o w to be expressed symbolically; we need a new world of
symbols; and the entire symbolism of the body is called into play, n o t the mere
symbolism of the lips, face, and speech but the whole pantomime of dancing, forcing

74
Schopenhauer, mil and Presentation vol. 1 (2008), 313, 308, 312.

75
Nietzsche, "Birth," in Basic Writings (2000), 103.

76
Ibid., 33.

77
Ibid., 72.

57
 every member into rhythmic movement. Then the other symbolic powers suddenly
press forward, particularly those of music, in rhythmics, dynamics, and harmony."78
Now, in the gospel of universal harmony, each one feels himself not only
united, reconciled, and fused with his neighbor, but as one with him, as if the veil of
rnaya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the
mysterious and primal unity... [man] is no longer an artist, he had become a work of

The destruction of individuality and the revelation of primal unity is as terrifying as it

is ecstatic. "Pain begets joy, ecstasy may wring sounds of agony from us. At the very climax

of joy there sounds a cry of horror or a yearning lamentation for an irretrievable loss." 80 In

art as in life, raw Dionysian truth is too much to bear; it must be tempered with Apollonian

artifice. Nietzsche acknowledges their mutual relationship of necessity. While the Dionysian

provides depth to Apollonian art, the Dionysian "also needs the rapturous vision, the

pleasurable [Apollonian] illusion, for its continuous redemption."81 Music, the art which has

the power to reveal the primal terrors of Dionysian unity, must be joined by the reassuring

Apollonian images of myth.

Between the universal validity of its music and the listener, receptive in his Dionysian
state, tragedy places a sublime parable, the myth, and deceives the listener into
feeling that the music is merely the highest means to bring life into the vivid world of
myth. Relying on this noble deception, it may now move its limbs in dithyrambic
dances and yield unhesitatingly to an ecstatic feeling of freedom in which it could not
dare to wallow as pure music without deception. The myth protects us against the
music, while on the other hand it alone gives music the highest freedom. In return,
music imparts to the tragic myth an intense and convincing metaphysical significance
that word and image without this singular help could never have attained. And,
above all, it is through music that the tragic spectator is overcome by an assured
premonition of a highest pleasure attained through destruction and negation, so he
feels as if the innermost abyss of things spoke to him perceptibly."82

78
Ibid, 40.

79
Ibid, 37.
80
Ibid, 45.
81
Ibid.
82
Ibid, 126.

58
 Nietzsche's ideas in The Birth of Tragedy made a deep impression on both Scriabin and

Ivanov. Ivanov described Nietzsche as the '"prime mover' of the modern soul," 8j and "the

forger of our future." Ivanov was inspired by Nietzsche's description of Dionysian rapture,

and marveled over the "holy intoxication and orgiastic oblivion.. .tortuously blessed

oversaturation, the sense of miraculous power and a surfeit of strength, the consciousness of

an impersonal and will-less elemental force, and the terror and ecstasy of the loss of the self

in chaos and of the new discovery of the self in God." 85

In essays collected in By the Stars, Ivanov theorized the formation of a new theurgic

art based on the Dionysian model.86 But while Ivanov echoed Nietzsche's view that music

was "the soul of Dionysian purification,"87 Ivanov, a poet whose medium was words, had to

adapt Nietzsche's conception to his own purposes.

In Ivanov's 1908 essay, "Two Elements in Contemporary Symbolism," collected in

By the Stars, he identifies the symbol as another agent of primal revelation. In Ivanov's

formulation, the symbol is an abstraction, something like a Platonic Idea.89 Ivanov posited a

83
Ivanov, "On the Joyful Craft and the Joy of the Spirit," in Essays (2001), 115. See also "Nietzsche and
Dionysus," ibid., 177-188.

84
Ivanov, "Nietzsche and Dionysus," ibid., 178.

85
Ibid, 181.

86
See Ivanov, "HOBMH MacKii [New Masks]," "BaniepT> H AHOHHCOBO AHCTBO [Wagner and the Dionysian
Rite]," and "npeAiyBCTHa H npeABcnm [Presentiments and Portents]," in TIo 3eed3i)aMb [By the Stars] (St.
Petersburg: Ory, 1909), 54-64, 65-69, and 189-219.

87
Ivanov, "The Hellenic Religion," Noiyput'?> (1904), 50-51; quoted in Bartlett, Wagner and Russia (1995), 120.

88
Ivanov, "Two Elements in Contemporary Symbolism," in Essays (2001), 13-35. Originally published in Zolotoe
rum 3-4 (1908): 86-94, and 5 (1908): 44-50. Collected in By the Stars (1909), 247-308.

89
Ivanov, "Two Elements," in Essays (2001), 17: "Since Plato's ideas are res reaUssimae (things in truth), he
demands that art provide such a close signification of these things that the accidental features of their reflection
in the physical world would fall away like scales that obscure their true vision."

59
relationship between the symbol and myth that was nearly identical to Nietzsche's construal

of the relationship between music and myth.

For Ivanov, symbols were "signs of another reality,"90 a reality more real than the

illusory phenomena of daily existence. "The phenomenal is all the illusion of mayd; beneath

the veil of the shrouded Isis, perhaps there is not even a statue but only emptiness."91 The

symbol could pierce this veil of illusion, providing a "brush with the dark roots of being,"92 a

glimpse of noumenal truth hidden from regular sense perception. Ivanov's essay ends with

what became the slogan of the Russian mystic symbolist movement: a realibus ad realiora—

from the real to the more real.

Like music, the symbol had the potential to acquire powerful signification precisely

because of its abstraction:

The symbol is a sign, or signification. That which it denotes or signifies is not any
particular idea. One cannot say that the serpent, as a symbol, means only "wisdom,"
while the cross, as a symbol, means only: "the sacrifice of redemptive suffering."
Otherwise, the symbol would be a simple hieroglyph, while the combination of
several symbols would be a visual allegory, an encoded message that can be read only
if one finds the key. If the symbol is a hieroglyph, then it is a mysterious hieroglyph,
for it has many denotations, many meanings. In various spheres of consciousness,
one and the same symbol may acquire varying significance. Thus, the serpent can
simultaneously signify the earth and incarnation, sex and death, vision and
knowledge, temptation and sanctification.93

Multivalence is the key to the symbol's power, a multivalence acquired through its

appearance in various myths.

Like a ray of sunlight, the symbol cuts through all planes of being and all spheres of
consciousness, signifying different essences on each plane, performing a different
function in each sphere.. ..At each of the points at which the symbol intersects the

90
Ibid, 13.
91
Ibid., 28.
92
Ibid, 32.
93
Ibid, 13.

60
 sphere of consciousness like a descending ray, it is a sign, the meaning of which is
visually and fully revealed in a corresponding myth. Therefore, the serpent of myth
represents one essence, while in another myth it represents another essence. But the
entire symbolics of the serpent, all denotations of the serpentine symbol, are united
in the great cosmogonic myth, within which each aspect of the serpentine symbol
finds its due place in the hierarchy of the planes of divine all-unity.94

The relationship between symbols and myths is reciprocal: symbols acquire their

multivalence through their appearance in various myths, and the simple signs belonging to

individual myths acquire their metaphysical significance through the multivalent symbolism

developed in the great intertext of world myths.95 Because myths have no single author and

are created collectively through the oral traditions of a community of people, the meaning is

shared. The symbol had the power to reveal this shared meaning and thereby tear down the

isolating barriers of personal subjectivity. Ivanov wrote, "the symbol is.. .die principle that

connects separate consciousnesses, but their union in sobernost'is achieved by their common

mystical vision of an objective essence, a vision that is the same for everyone."96

Ivanov's use of the term sobornost'—a term denoting the unity of collective

experience arising in a community of worshippers—identifies his essay with the work of the

ecumenical philosopher Vladimir Solovyov.97 Taking up Solovyov's call for a theurgic art,

Ivanov transplanted sobernosf to the realm of aesthetics, applying the concept to the ideal

relationship among a work of art's creator and receivers.98 The artist's creative consciousness

remains open to inspiration outside himself, and a similar openness is necessary in the

94
Ibid, 13.

95
Ibid, 29.

96
Ibid, 27.

97
Ivanov, "The Religious Task of Vladimir Solovyov," in Essays (2001), 189-199.

98
Michael Wachtel, editor's introduction to Ivanov, Essays (2001), xiv.

61
receiving public. The artist's role is to remind the people of their shared reality through

mythopoesis, a reality based in their common mythic past.99

Hence follows the first condition of mythopoesis we have in mind: the emotional
labor of the artist himself. He must not create outside of his connection to divine all-
unity; he must train himself to realize this connection in his art. And myth, before
being experienced by all, must become an event of inner experience, personal in its
arena, suprapersonal in its content.100

The uniting of souls in common experience is at the heart of Ivanov's conception of

theurgic art. He drew inspiration from Nietzsche's description of ancient Greek mystery

plays. It was the chorus, in Ivanov's view, that raised Greek theater to the level of symbolic

drama.

The chorus is in and of itself already a symbol, a sensible signification of the concord
and unanimity of sobornost', the visible evidence of a real connection that brings
isolated consciousness together into a living unity. The chorus cannot arise without a
res, a universally significant reality outside of the individual and above the
individual.101

According to Ivanov, ancient Greek drama lacked the artificial division between

spectators and performers. The chorus mediated between the actors and audience, and

functioned as both active participants in the drama and its ideal spectators.

The viewers participated in the rite by identifying not with the hero-protagonist but
with the chorus, from which the hero emerged. The viewers were perhaps
participants in the hero's tragic guilt, but they also restrained him from it, opposing
their voice to the hero's daring in the collective [sobornyi] court of the chorus; they did
not offer sacrifice, and least of all did they experience the illusion of temporary
sacrifice and harmless, hour-long heroism. Rather, they partook of the sacrifice, in
the round dance of celebrants of the sacrifice, and they returned from the realm of
Dionysus truly cleansed, having experienced a liturgical event of inner experience.102

99
Ivavov, "IIoeT H Hepm, [The Poet and the Crowd]," in By the Stars (1909), 33-42.

100
Ivanov, "Two Elements," in Essays (2001), 32.

101
Ibid, 33.
102
Ibid, 33-34.

62
 Schloezer's description of Scriabin's ideas for the Mysterium resonates strongly with

Ivanov's version of ecstatic, participatory drama.

In the Mysterium, there is no room for actors or passively receptive listeners

and spectators; its participants—from the protagonists to every artist in the
symphony of odors and lights—all, without exception, were to perform not only
their appointed tasks, as subjects of the action, but also to react to performances by
the rest of the cast, as objects of their own action. Singers, musicians, and dancers, in
mutual interaction, were to reach a higher state of being and receive, at the same
time, the sensations induced in them by symphonies of aromas and caresses. The
participants in the Mysterium were not to be actors, but rather votaries in the
sacrament of theophany, a liturgical act in which their flesh and souls would undergo
the miracle of transubstantiation. This communion could no more be called a
theatrical production than could a religious service during which devout celebrants
identify themselves with priests performing a bloodless sacrifice and the choir in
their prayers.
In the sacrament envisioned by Scriabin, the gift of transfiguration was not
only for the immediate participants, but for all who were aware of the event, even if
they did not actually attend it.. .the sphere of action of the Mysterium, though it would
take place at a certain point in time and space, would actually embrace the entire
universe, and millions of people would actually participate, even if they happened to
be far away.. .thus all mankind was to participate in the Mysterium, which would then
become a truly communal act, not only by virtue of the great number of performers,
but by its quality and spirit of communion.103

According to Schloezer, Scriabin embraced the idea of an "omni-consciousness," an

eternal, collective mental stream, shared by all individuals.10 As a theurgic artist, he had the

power to tap into this omni-consciousness make it available to the masses through their

common experience in performance, tearing down the boundary between self and other. In

his journal, Scriabin wrote,

By identifying "I" with "non-I," I annex "non-I." From this point on, the
consciousness of all men are dissolved in my individual consciousness. I become for
them the fulfillment of all their yearnings; the world becomes a unified action, an
105
ecstasy.
103
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 267-268.

104
Ibid, 201.

105
Quoted in Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 197. Scriabin's formulation of " I " and "not-I" echoes the
Ichheit and Nicht-Ich of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose philosophy attracted Scriabin in his youth.

63
 The unified world-consciousness Scriabin imagined resulting from his art was a

cornerstone of die symbolist project. Ivanov echoed his friend's formulation in his 1912

essay "Thoughts on Symbolism," writing, "I am not a Symbolist if my words do not arouse

in die listener a feeling of connection between his T and what he calls his 'not-I,' a

connection between things that are empirically divided; if my words do not immediately

convince him of a hidden life where his reason did not suspect any life at all."106

The Wagnerian model

As Rosamund Bardett has shown, Ivanov's vision of a communal art owes much to

his reception of Wagner and Nietzsche's writings.107 In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche argued

that Wagner was the composer who could reverse die precipitous decline of western culture

with his fusion of myth and music in the music drama.108 In "Wagner and the Dionysian

rite," 109 Ivanov identified Wagner's music dramas as the art which had come closest to the

Dionysian ideal. Still, Wagner had never approached true theurgic art, and his dramas

became merely "festive holy spectacles."110 Although Wagner had modeled his Festspeilhaus

on the arrangement of ancient Greek amphitheaters, he had made a serious mistake in

omitting the interstitial space between the stage and the audience, the area where the chorus

had originally performed their ritual action. In its place was the orchestra pit, which created

106
Ivanov, "Thoughts on Symbolism," in Essays (2001), 53.

107
Rosamund Bartlett, Wagner and Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 123-125. See also
Morrison, Russian Opera (2002), 189-194.

108 Nietzsche famously rejected this and other aspects of the book later in his career. See his "Attempt at a Self-
criticism," attached as a preface to the 3 r d edition of The Birth of Tragedy, in Basic Writings (2000), 18-27; Ecce homo
in Basic Writings (2000), 655-802; "The Case of Wagner," Basic Writings (2000), 601-654; and "Nietzsche contra
Wagner," translated by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche, 663-683 (New York: Penguin, 1976).

109
This essay was written in response to a debate in the press regarding Wagner's status as a true Dionysian
artist. See Bardett, Wagner and Russia (1995), 123-125.

110
Ivanov, By the Stars (1909), 66.

64
an unbridgeable gulf between performers and audience, preventing them from truly

becoming unified in communal experience. While Ivanov acknowledged that Wagner had

conceived of the orchestra as a replacement for the Greek chorus, the orchestra's invisibility

defeated its theurgic potential. The audience could not identify en masse with the symbolic

crowd of the chorus. Instead, individual onlookers identified with individual singer-heroes

on the stage.

In clear contradiction of the synthetic principle, Wagner excludes both the

play of the dramatic actor and the real chorus with its song and orchestics [i.e., the
art of dance] from his "round dance of the arts"... For Wagner, the chorus is the
very content of the drama, or, as we would say, the very Dionysian element that
creates the drama. But this chorus is hidden and voiceless: it is the orchestral
symphony that signifies the dynamic basis of being. This symbolic, wordless chorus
is mute Will, with which its incessant tide throws human images and voices of
'endless melody' onto the spectral island of Apollonian dreams of the stage. Those
who have gathered at the Festspielare conceived of as molecules of the orchestra's
orgiastic life; they participate in the act, but only latendy and symbolically. Wagner
the hierophant does not give the community a choral voice and word. Why? The
community has a right to this voice because it is supposed to be not a crowd of
spectators but a gathering of orgiasts.
Wagner stopped halfway and did not utter the final word. His synthesis of
arts is not harmonious and not full. With a one-sidedness incompatible with the
entirety of his plan, he presents the solo singer and ignores speech and dance,
manifold vocal expression, and the symbolism of the manifold. In Wagner's musical
drama, "just as in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the mute instruments try to speak,
straining to utter what is sought for and ineffable. Just as in the Ninth Symphony,
the human voice alone will utter the Word. The chorus' ancient rights must be
restored in full. Without the chorus there is no common rite, and the spectacle
dominates."111

Morrison has pointed out that, despite Scriabin's fascination with the Wagnerian

model, he had litde direct contact with Wagner's own writings.112 What Scriabin learned of

the theory behind Wagnerian music drama probably came through secondary sources, most

111
Ivanov, "Presentiments and Portents," in Essays (2001), 106-107. The quotation is from Ivanov's essay
"BanrepT. H AHOHHCOBO AHCTBO [Wagner and the Dionysian Rite]," collected in By the Stars (1909), 65-69.

112
Morrison, Russian Opera (2002), 236n. See also Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A
Biography of the Works Through Mavra, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 487-90.

65
likely Ivanov and Sabaneev. Indeed, Scriabin parroted Ivanov's critique of Wagner to

Sabaneev, which Sabaneev reported in two different sources:

If [Scriabin] singled out Wagner from among other composers it was just because he
felt that Wagner's range was not limited to opera, but extended to something else,
something bigger. Scriabin had the courage, however, to reproach the Titan of
music-drama for restraining himself, for stopping short on his path."11"

Gotterddmmerung made a great impression on [Scriabin], while the Feuer^auber [from

Die Walkiire], with its mighty play of light and color shook him to the roots and
made him think even more intensely about his own 'color symphony.' He greeted the
very mystical idea of the Nibelung tetralogy, in which he saw occult meaning and
symbolic significance, as one of the nearest approximations of the human spirit to
his idea of the Mysterium. Wagner limited himself, according to Scriabin, he could not
rise above the theatrical plane and therefore his reforms had not essentially reformed
anything...114

Even if Scriabin did not have direct contact with Wagner's writings, Wagner's

achievements still exerted a powerful influence on Scriabin's imagination. Ivanov would hail

Scriabin as the natural heir of Beethoven and Wagner, the composer who had come closest

to fulfilling the mission they had left incomplete.115 Scriabin's emulation of Wagner's music

and libretti is evident from Schloezer's account of Scriabin's unfinished opera:

Undoubtedly, Scriabin was inspired during the composition of his opera by

characters in Wagner's music dramas; he even dreamed of surpassing the master of
Bayreuth. He thought that in rejecting history in favor of legend and myth, Wagner
and his successors were eventually bound to abandon any historical or legendary
references and create an abstract philosophical drama. In this way Scriabin believed it
would be possible to attain perfect clarity of artistic images and invest them with
universal characteristics free of mundane particularities.
The influence of Wagner is evident also in the musical sketches of Scriabin's
opera, in which he had intended to build a wide-ranging system of leitmotivs. .. .For
some of the dramatic moments Scriabin had already found fitting musical phrases
illustrating the action, but he made use of these unorganized materials in other

113
Sabaneev, "Scriabin and the Idea of Religious Art," translated by S. W. Pring, The Musical Times 72/1063
(September 1,1931): 790.

114
Sabaneev, A. N. CJ$M6UH (MOSCOW: 1922), 189; quoted in Barlett, Wagner and Russia (1995), 114.

115
Ivanov, "On Wagner," Vestnik teatra, 31/2 (1919), 2. Cited in Bartlett, Wagner and Russia (1995), 117.

116
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 174.

66
 compositions, while indefinitely postponing the completion of the opera.. ..thus a
phrase that Scriabin jotted down in 1903 as a leitmotiv of the opera found its way
into the Sixth Piano Sonata, written in 1911 . m

While Ivanov and Scriabin believed that Wagner had failed to create the type of

participatory theurgic theater they yearned for, Wagner's innovation of the leitmotiv truly

excited them, for they perceived it as a musical symbol. In "Wagner and the Dionysian Rite,"

Ivanov explained that leitmotiv was like the symbol in its limidess capacity for signification,

its power to reveal hidden essences, and its ability to mediate between sensible and supra-

sensible reality. In Opera and Drama, Wagner had described how the leitmotiv accumulated

meaning through recontextualization and evolution, and how it could become a device of

musical recollection and presentiment.

Interestingly, the very language Ivanov uses to describe the poetic symbol suggests

its conceptual debt to Wagner's musical technique. Like the leitmotiv, the symbol is

ineffable, awakening "through an imperceptible hint or influence incommunicable feelings in

the listener's heart." Like the leitmotiv, the symbol gains meaning through

recontextualization in its appearances in different world myths. Like the leitmotiv, one

function of the mythic symbol is remembrance, "similar at times to a primeval

recollection."119 Like a leitmotiv, the symbol can also create future-oriented sensations of

foreboding or yearning: "at times [the feelings awakened by the symbol are] similar to a

117
Ibid., 175.
118
Ivanov, "Baraep-b H AHOHHCOBO AHCTBO [Wagner and the Dionysian Rite]," 65-69, see discussion in
Morrison, "Skryabin and the Impossible," (1988), 289.

119
Ivanov, "Thoughts on Symbolism," in Essays (2001), 53.

67
distant, vague presentiment, at times to the tremor felt at someone's familiar and desired

approach."120

If the Symbolist poets sought to capture the music drama's multivalent networks of

meaning in a genre without music, Scriabin's Prometheus may be considered an attempt to

capture the music-drama's multivalence without the drama. The result is a highly abstract

treatment of Wagner's basic compositional technique, now reduced to a formal procedure all

but stripped of its poetic content.121 Scriabin's earlier Poem of Ecstasy was received in precisely

this way by at least one critic, Yuri Engel, who reported on the effect in 1909 with a bit of

frustration:

The composer handles these themes [in the Poem ofEcstasy] in the same way that
Wagner handles leitmotivs in his operas. But with the difference, however, that in
Wagner the words and the stage come to the composer's aid, and in only a few cases
can one speak about a tacit agreement between composer and listener about the
meaning of this and that theme. In Skryabin everything is based on such an
agreement. You hear, let's say, a combination of three themes, and you interpret this
combination as something ecstatic, extremely complicated and beautiful. But the
composer, evidently, wants to give the psychology of creation here: he has united the
themes of 'the created,' 'delight,' and, predominating over everything, 'the will'. And
to whatever lengths you go in order to be able to imagine these themes as the
individual bearers of abstract ideas, which, I am prepared to believe, live in the
composer's consciousness, you will never be able to say that you have grasped the
philosophical secret of Skryabin's music. Is it in fact possible to do that at all?!"122

120
Ibid.

121
On Scriabin's somewhat ambivalent relationship with Wagner, see Maria Lobanova, Mystiker, Magier,
Theosoph, Theurg: Alexander Skrjabin und seine Zeit (Hamburg: von Bockel, 2004), 251-254; Morrison, "Skryabin
and the Impossible," (1998): 288-291; Bartlett, Wagner and Russia (1995), 114-116; Bernice Glatzer Rozenthal,
"Wagner and Wagnerian Ideas in Russia," in Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics (Idiaca: Cornell University
Press, 1984): 221-223; On Wagner's influence on Scriabin's harmonic language, see Richard Taruskin, "Scriabin
and the Superhuman," in Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutic Essays (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1997): 322-349; for a study that analyzes Scriabin's use of leitmotivic techniques across the
late piano works, see Michael Schmidt, Ekstase als musikalisches Symbol in den Klavierpoemes Alexander Skrjabins
(Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus Verlagsgesellschaft, 1989).

122
Yuri Engel, "The Music of Skryabin," Russian Bulletin 44 and 45 (February 24 and 25,1909), in Russians on
Russian Music, 1880-1917, edited and translated by Stuart Campbell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003), 200-201.

68
 Sabaneev's statement that Scriabin's music was "programme music without a

programme"123 also speaks to the mysteriousness of the music's content. However, if

symbolism, as Ivanov defined it, was "an art that turns the perceiver into a. participant m the

creative act,"124 the burden of supplying musical meaning is shifted from the composer to

the listener. James Hepokoski described a similar division of responsibility between

composer and listener as constituting the essence of the symphonic poem:

The essence of a symphonische Dichtung is situated in the listener's act (anticipated by

the composer's) of connecting text and paratext, music and nonmusical image, and
grappling with the implications of the connection. The genre exists, qua genre, solely
within the receiver, who agrees to create it reciprocally by indicating his or her
willingness to play the game proposed by the composer; it does not exist abstracdy in
the acoustical surface of the music.125

Not only did Scriabin often supply suggestive paratextual materials such as titles,

abstract metaphysical programs or libretti, and evocative performance indications for his

symphonic poems, but his contemporaries also described a secret program which formed

the dramatic trajectory of both Prometheus and the Mysterium. If Scriabin's encounters with the

writings of Nietzsche and Ivanov provided him with information on how to create a work of

theurgy, it was Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine that provided Scriabin with ideas for its form

and content. Referring to the time when Scriabin was just beginning his work on Prometheus,

Schloezer wrote:

In the winter of 1907-1908, he formalized the content and the subject of his
Mysterium, which he understood as a history of the races of man and of individual
consciousness or, more accurately, as an evolutionary psychology of the human

123
Sabaneev, "Religious Art," (1931), 791.

124
Ivanov, "Thoughts on Symbolism," in Essays (2001), 51.

125
James Hepokoski, "Fiery-pulsed libertine or Domestic Hero? Strauss's Don Juan Reinvestigated," in Richard
Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, edited by Bryan Gilliam (Durham: Duke University Press,
1992), 136.

69
 races. This phase of Scriabin's spiritual development owed most to theosophy, which
supplied him with the necessary formulas and schemes, particularly in the notion of
Seven Races, which incarnated in space and time the gradual descent of the psyche
into matter.126

What is The Secret Doctrine?

The Secret Doctrine was Blavatsky's most elaborate exposition of Theosophy's

metaphysics. As a text, it has an intriguingly complex ontology. Part of its complexity derives

from the history of its composition. Blavatsky originally conceived of The Secret Doctrine

(1888) as an expansion of her earlier book, Isis Unveiled (1877) ,127 but she later decided that

the subject required "a different treatment." 128 In the preface to The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky

claimed that "the present volumes do not contain, in all, twenty pages extracted from 'Isis

Unveiled.'" On the surface, the texts would appear to be quite different, as Blavatsky

claimed. Unlike its predecessor, The Secret Doctrine is framed as a scholarly commentary on

stanzas from the Book of Dzyan—allegedly an ancient manuscript written in Senza, a

language unknown to modern philologists, which Blavatsky claimed to have obtained and

"translated" herself.130 The Secret Doctrine is more overtly metaphysical than Isis Unveiled and

lays out tenets of Blavatskyian cosmology in a clearer fashion than its predecessor. However,

in terms of its basic message and content, much of the The Secret Doctrine is, in fact, a

reworking and clarification of Isis Unveikd. Like Scriabin's idea of the Mysterium and its many

instantiations as in pieces of varying stages of completion, Blavatsky's project is an "open"

126
Scbloezet, Artist and Mystic (1987), 67-68.

127
Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, two volumes
(Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1998; reprint of the original 1877 edition.)

128
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), vii.

129
Ibid.

130
Ibid., xxii, xliii.

70
work,131 originating in her previous project and extending limidessly into the future. "It is

needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its entirety, but a select

number of fragments of its fundamental tenets," Blavatsky wrote in her preface.132 Although

Blavatsky originally projected four volumes,1"3 only two appeared during her lifetime. A third

volume appeared after Blavatsky's death in 1891, compiled by Annie Besant and others from

extant material. The fourth volume never materialized. Still, the "select number of

fragments" of her secret doctrine that Blavasky chose to reveal to the world fill two volumes

of Isis Unveiled and three volumes of The Secret Doctrine, comprising nearly 3,500 pages

altogether.

Other issues regarding The Secret Doctrine arise in relation to its authorship. Blavatsky

was aided by a team of adherents who helped her bring the manuscript to press. Those who

took dictation (such as Constance Wachtmeister), corrected Blavatsky's English, and verified

citations might be considered assistants or editors, but Archibald and Bertram Keightley,

who shaped Blavatsky's incoherent ramblings into its final form, and Edward Fawcett and

Richard Harte, who both contributed their own sections to the book, should probably be

regarded as co-authors.135 Thus, The Secret Doctrine is a work of literature truly created by a

collective, a process that matches the letter, if perhaps not quite the spirit, of symbolist art as

Ivanov described it.

131
Morrison discusses the Mysterium and all its iterations as an open work in Russian Opera (2002), 194-201.

132
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), viii.

m
Ibid., vii.

134
Helena Blavatsky and Annie Besant, Occultism of the Secret Doctrine (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 1993).
135
See Bruce F. Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived-A History of the Theosophical Movement (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), 40.

71
 There are other aspects of the way Blavatsky described her work which, at least on

the surface, match the type of artistic process Ivanov envisioned. Ivanov spoke of the

symbolist artist as a receiver of inspiration from a realm outside of himself or herself, a realm

beyond normal sense perception. "Realistic Symbolism, in its final content, presupposes a

clairvoyant vision of things in the poet and postulates the very same clairvoyance in the

listener." He wrote of the symbolic use of myth as "a recollection of a mystical event, of a

cosmic sacrament" by the artist.138

According to Blavatsky, she did not compose The Secret Doctrine in the usual way, but

rather "recollected" it. Her recollections were guided by her two mysterious spiritual

teachers, Koot Hoomi and Master Morya.139 Blavatsky described these Mahatmas as

immortal, spiritually-enlightened adepts from the East, members of The Great White

Brotherhood, a secret fraternity in charge of mamtaining vast underground libraries in the

Karakoram Mountains in Tibet. These libraries were dedicated to preserving the philosophia

perennis, the core of universal wisdom collected from all times and all places.140 Blavatsky

claimed that the Mahatmas had given her access to The Book of D2yan and The Book of the

136
For an account of Blavatky's reception in Russia and its impact on the 'mystic' phase of Russian symbolism,
see Maria Carlson, No Religion Higher Than Truth: A History of the Theosophkal Movement in Russia, 1875-1922
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 38-76 and 188-208.

137
Ivanov, "Two Elements," in Essays (2001), 28.

138
Ibid., 30-31.

139
Blavatsky refers to Master Morya and Koot Hoomi often in his Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, and explains
their relationship to her work in "My Books," an appendix to Isis Unveiled, vol. 2, 48. According to Schloezer,
Artist and Mystic (1987), 218, Scriabin suspected that he might, in fact, be a Mahatma himself. "Scriabin found
vindication for his own mission in the lives of consecrated votaries, missionaries of superior powers sent to
earth to reveal the secret truth in its various aspects for the benefit of humanity. He regarded himself as a
member of this select fraternity of messengers of the Unique and as a custodian and restorer of ancient
wisdom. During the last years of his life he even thought of assuming a formal title in that fraternity, known in
mystical lore as the 'White Lodge,' in whose existence he earnesdy believed and which, he was sure, secretly
awaited his coming."

140
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), xxiv.

72
Golden Precepts, the latter of which Blavatsky also "translated" to create The Voice of the

Silence (1889).141 The Mahatmas taught her much of his Unveiledand The Secret Doctrine's

content through extra-sensory means. These communications came complete with the

relevant citations to world literature—the Mahatmas were, after all, librarians. Blavatsky

described this process in a letter she wrote to another Theosophist, A.P. Sinnett: "Master

[Koot Hoomi] finds that it is too difficult for me to be looking consciously into the astral

light for my S[ecret] Dfoctrine] and so, it is now about a fortnight, I am made to see all I have

to as though in my dream. I see large and long rolls of paper on which things are written and

I recollect them."142

The Mahatmas were rarely "seen" by anyone other than Blavatsky herself, but their

communications were prolific. Not only were they responsible for transmitting the content

of all Blavatsky's most important works, but they expressed their views on a wide range of

cosmic and mundane issues in letters written to Blavatsky, Annie Besant, A. P. Sinnett, and

other Theosophist leaders, ultimately totaling approximately 1,300 pages.143

While Theosophists regarded the content of The Secret Doctrine as having originated

from the Mahatmas, those outside the Theosophical community had a different view. Still,

both Theosophists and outsiders would agree that Blavatsky had not authored the text in the

141
Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence, Being Chosen Fragments From the "Book of the Golden Precepts" (Pasadena:
Theosophical University Press, 1992, reproduction of 1889 edition).

142
Helena Blavatsky, letter to A. P. Sinnett, March 3,1886 in The Letters ofH. P Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett
(London: 1924), 194.

143
The Mahatma Tetters to A. P. Sinnett, compiled and edited by A. Trevor Barker (Pasadena: Theosophical
University Press, 1926). In 1884, the London-based Society for Psychical Research conducted a full
investigation into Theosophical paranormal activity. They sent one of dieir researchers, Richard Hodgson, to
the offices of the Theosophical society in India for the purpose of collecting evidence. The SPR, though
initially pre-disposed to believe Theosophic claims of astral manifestation, ultimately declared the psychic
operations of the Theosophical Society to be fraudulent, and the existence of the Mahatmas to be a hoax. See
Richard Hodson, "Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate Phenomena Connected widi The
Theosophical Society," Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, IX (December 1885). See also Edmund
Garrett, Isis Very Much Unveiled: The Story of the Great Mahatma Hoax (London: Westminster Gazette, c. 1894).

73
traditional sense of the term. In 1895, William E m m e t t e Coleman dedicated himself to

proving that Blavatsky's books were not received compilations of esoteric wisdom held in

secret underground libraries located in remote, exotic places, but rather were assembled

from texts catalogued in real libraries m u c h closer to home. Coleman wrote,

In Isis Unveiled, published in 1877,1 discovered some 2000 passages copied from
other books without proper credit. By careful analysis I found that in compiling his
about 100 books were used. About 1400 books are quoted from and referred to in
this work; but, from the 100 books which its author possessed, she copied everything
in Isis taken from and relating to the other 1300. There are in Isis about 2100
quotations from and references to books that were copied, at second-hand, from
books other than the originals; and of this n u m b e r only about 140 are credited to the
books from which Madame Blavatsky copied them at second-hand. The others are
quoted in such a manner as to lead the reader to think that Madame Blavatsky had
read and utilised the original works, and had quoted from them at first-hand—the
truth being that these originals had evidently never been read by Madame Blavatsky.
By this means many readers of Isis, and subsequently those of her Secret Doctrine and
Theosophical Glossary, have been misled into thinking Madame Blavatsky an enormous
reader, possessed of vast erudition; while the fact is her reading was very limited, and
her ignorance was profound in all branches of knowledge. m

Coleman was able to identify these textual corroborations because, in most cases,

Blavatsky had actually cited her sources within the text itself. T h e problem was with the

placement of her quotation marks. Some of Blavatsky's borrowings ran on for pages. T o

those close to her, Blavatsky maintained that the text of The Secret Doctrine merely "passed

through her" as writer/medium—"Countess [Wachtmeister] here, and she sees I have

almost no books. Master [Morya] and Kashmiri [i.e., K o o t Hoomi] dictating in turn. She

copies all." But to readers of The Secret Doctrine, she likened the book's manifest

intertextuality to that of any work in the philological tradition. "As well charge Renan with

144
William Emmette Coleman, "The Sources of Blavatsky's Writings," in A Modern Priestess of Isis by Vsevolod
Sergyeevich Solovyoff (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895), 353-366.
http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/colemansourcesl895.htm. accessed 3/1/10.

145
"H.P.B. on the SPR Report," The Theosophist 52 (August 1931), 667.

74
having stolen his Vide de Jesus from the Gospels, ** and Max Mullet his "Sacred Books of the

East," or his "Chips" from the philosophies of the Brahmins and Gautama, the

Buddha 4 .. .1 may repeat what I have said all along, and which I now clothe in the words of

Montaigne: Gendemen, 'I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have

brought nothing of my own but the string that ties them.'"148

Although Coleman's purpose was to unmask Blavatsky as a fraud by revealing that

the content of her works had been stolen from readily available secondary sources, the sheer

diversity of those sources is admittedly impressive. Coleman's list of borrowed material can

give one a sense of the scope of the Blavatskyian project. The Secret Doctrine is sub tided, "The

Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy," and, accordingly, Blavatsky lifted passages

from studies on physics, geology, metallurgy, astronomy, astrology, ancient Greek and

Egyptian mystery cults, Gnosticism, early Christianity, Jesuitism, neo-Platonism, Pythagorean

lore, Hermetic doctrine, Zoroastrianism, Freemasonry, Buddhism, Kabala, Vedanta,

Brahmanism, Jainism, Rosicrucianism, Swedenborgianism, magic, demonology, alchemy,

supernaturalism, spiritualism, mesmerism, paganism, witchcraft, mythology, as well as studies

on various important figures, such as the Buddha, Paracelsus, Sir Thomas More, Jakob

Bohme, Newton, Darwin, and Jesus.149

Coleman identified several key texts which made up the bulk of The Secret Doctrine.

Blavatsky's geological descriptions came from Alexander Winchell's World-Ufe, or Comparative

146
Ernst Renan, Vide de Jesus (Paris: M. Levy freres, 1863).

147
Friedrich Max Miiller, Chipsfrom a German Workshop, 2nd edition (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1868-
1875); The Sacred books of the Hast; translated by various Oriental scholars, edited by F. Max Miiller (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1879-1910).

148
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), xivi.

149
Coleman, "The Sources" (1895), 353-366.

75
Geology (Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1883) and Ignatius Donnely, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World

(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1882). Blavatsky had gleaned passages on Hindu doctrine

from Horace Hayman Wilson's translation and commentary on die Vishnu Purana (London:

Triibner and Co., 1840), supplemented by John Dowson,^4 Classical Dictionary of Hindu

Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, andUterature (London: Triibner & Co., 1879).

Information on Greece had come from P. Decharme's Mythologie de la Grece Antique (Paris:

Gamier Freres 1879), her descriptions of Jewish mysticism came from Isaac Myer, Qabbala:

The Philosophical Writings ofIbn Gebirol, etc. (Philadelpia: self-published, 1888). Her

numerological musings came from Reverend George Oliver, The Pythagorean Triangle, or, The

Science ofNumbers (London: John Hogg & Co., 1875).150

While poststructuralists identify every text as an intertext, Blavatsky's work is an

extreme example. Even beyond its obvious textual assemblage, The Secret Doctrine contains a

text-within-a-text, stanzas from the Book of Dzyan. The stanzas, too, were probably

compiled from other ancient texts Blavatsky had at hand, most likely English translations of

Tibetan scripture or Kabalistic writings.151

Coleman's charge of plagiarism, though accurate, somewhat missed the point. For

Blavatsky never claimed that her work was original. Rather, she pitched it as a re-synthesis of

a fragmented body of human knowledge which had once been whole, deep in humanity's

past.

150
Ibid.
151
Modern scholars have identified possible sources Blavatsky used to create "The Stanzas." Rene Guenon
suggested that the stanzas had come from Tibetan Kanjur and Tanjur, translated by Alexander Csoma de
Koros in Asiatic Researches 20 (Calcutta: 1836); see Guenon, Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion, translated by
Alvin Moore, Jr., Cecil Bediell, Hubert and Rohini Schiff (Hillsdale: Sophia Perennis, 2001), 86. Blavatsky cites
the Kanjur and Tanjur in Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), xxvii. Gershom Scholem suggested that the Book of
Dzyan came from the Sifra Di-Zeni'uta, contained in Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala Denudata (1684);
see Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1961), 398.

76
 These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the author claim the
position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for the first time in the
world's history. For what is contained in this work is to be found scattered
throughout thousands of volumes embodying the scriptures of the great Asiatic and
early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed
because of this veil. What is now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets together
and to make of them one harmonious and unbroken whole. The sole advantage
which the writer has over her predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal
speculations and theories. For this work is a partial statement of what she herself has
been taught by more advanced students, supplemented, in a few details only, by the
results of her own study and observation.152

It is not much of a stretch to relate the core of Blavatsky's project to the "great

cosmogonic myth" which Ivanov identified as the source of symbolist inspiration.153 Ivanov

was a philologist, but also a poet with Theosophical, Anthroposophical, and spiritualist

leanings.154 His own interest in the esoteric tradition emerges in the following quotation.

The time is coming when science will have to recall certain truths that have been
clearly understood by researchers of myth and symbol—for instance, in the time of
Creuzer.155 Antiquity on the whole is incomprehensible unless one takes account of
the great, international, and most ancient (in root and rudiment) organization of
mystical unions, guardians of inherited knowledge, and mysteries through which man
was reborn.. ..Disciples of philosophers joined together into societies similar to the
cultic thiases, discipleship was already esotericism, whether one speaks of Egypt or
India, of the ancient Pythagoreans or Neoplatonists, or, finally, of the Essenes and
the apostolic community.156

152
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), vii-viii.

153
Ivanov, "Two Elements," in Essays (2001), 13.

154
Ivanov's interest in esotericism was stimulated in 1906-1907 through his acquaintanceship with Anna
Mintslova, a disciple of the then-Theosophist Rudolph Steiner. Steiner eventually broke with the Theosophical
Society in 1912 to create his own movement, Andiroposophy. Meanwhile, Ivanov became increasingly invested
in spiritualism after the deadi of his second wife in 1907. See Carlson, No Religion (1993), 94-104; and Renata
von Maydell, "Anthoposophy in Russia," in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, edited by Bernice Glatzer
Rosenthal, 153-170 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997). See also Gennady Obatnin, "HBaHOB-MncTHK:
OKKyAbTHwe MOTHBH B II033HH H npo3e BjreecAaBa HBaHOBa (1907-1919) [Mystical Ivanov: Occult themes in
the poems and prose of Viacheslav Ivanov (1907-1919)]" Ph.D dissertation, University of Helsinki, 2000.

155
German philologist Georg Friedrich Creuzer, author oiSymbolik und Mythologie der alten V'olker, besonders der
Griechen (Leipzig: Heyer und Leske, 1810-12), who first argued for die eastern origin of ancient Greek legends.

156
Ivanov, "Two elements," in Essays (2001), 34.

77
The secret doctrine of The Secret Doctrine

According to Blavatsky, the Book of Dzyan provides insight into "the universally

diffused religion of the ancient and prehistoric world"—in other words, the secret doctrine,

which was once unified but became fragmented and distorted through time.157 The stanzas

reveal fundamental truths concerning the nature of reality, the birth and evolution of our

current cosmos, the development of humanity, and the nature of human beings.

The metaphysics related by The Secret Doctrine is suffocatingly recursive and cross-

relational. Reality, the universe, the earth, and man share a fundamental correspondence in

that they are all organized in seven parts. Blavatsky presents her seven-part schemes as

structures when they relate to the essences of reality and of human beings, but these structures

become chronologies when she relates the history of the cosmos and the evolution of the

human soul. In humans especially, not all seven parts of their nature are present at any given

moment. Some have been acquired through a process of evolution, while the remainder exist

as latent potentialities.

Theosophy is basically an idealist philosophy, in that the universe and everything in it

is comprised only of totally unified Absolute Thought.158 This eternal unified spiritual

essence, beyond human conception or expression, constitutes the true reality. For

Theosophists, the apparent dualism between matter and spirit is a false dichotomy. The

materiality and multiplicity of the world and everything in it is actually an illusion, or mayd, a

veiling of the true cosmic oneness. The cosmic essence is at once being and negation, spirit

157
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), xxxiv.

158
Ibid., 50-51; 62-64.

78
and matter, light and darkness. But these false dualisms are merely means by which feeble

human minds grapple with the profundity of divine unity.159

Example 2.7 shows Blavatsky's diagram of the seven planes of reality. Because reality

is essentially thought, Blavatsky describes die diagram as representing levels of "cosmic

consciousness." The diagram compares two septenary schemes from different traditions,

which Blavatsky labels "Eastern Gupta Vidya" and "Chaldean Kabala," claiming that they

share several major features. The plane of consciousness relating to the phenomenal,

material world is located at the bottom of the diagram. Although it is illusory, this is the level

of reality diatis most comprehensible to human minds. As the diagram progresses up the

seven levels, it moves towards more "real," less illusory planes, but these are also increasingly

incomprehensible for humans. The third, second, and first planes in the lower division are

accessible given the right training and circumstances, but the upper three levels, labeled "the

Divine and Formless World of Spirit," are completely beyond the realm of human

conception.

Blavatsky describes the planes of existence in Example 2.7 as "worlds." She loosely

relates the structure of "cosmic consciousness" to her narrative of cosmic evolution.

Following the Hindu conception of "Days and Nights of the Brahma," 16° Blavatsky claimed

that the wholeness of eternity possesses two states which alternate in periodic succession,

Pralaya and Manvantara. Pralaya is the primal state of absolute spiritual unity, or "being in

non-being." In Manvantara, the entire cosmos springs to life, giving birth to the material

complexity and diversity which human minds view as reality, but is in fact a result of maya. In

Manvantara, the manifested cosmos progresses through a series of seven stages, completing a

159
Ibid, 45; 274-276.
160
Ibid, 41.

79
cyclic journey from an original state of pure spirit to a state of increased materialization,

followed by a reversal of this process resulting in dematerialization and a return to pure

spirit.

EXAMPLE 2.7: Blavatsky's comparison between conceptions of reality in the "Eastern

Gupta Vidya" and "Chaldean Kabala."161
/'-'Plane

J'-'Plane The SuustanttalorFomatu

World
flhe£artR\
UfrtkiUA)
wend
* The Arupa or " formless," there where form ceases to exist, on the objective plane.
t The word *• Archetypal" must not be taken here in the sense that the Platonists
gave to it, i.e., the world as it existed in the Mind of the Deity ; but in that of a world
made as a first model, to be followed and improved upon by the worlds which succeed
it physically—though deteriorating in purity,
X These are the four lower planes of Cosmic Consciousness, the three higher planes
being inaccessible to human intellect as developed at present. The seven states of
human consciousness pertain to quite another question.

The "Stanzas of Dzyan" begin with an account of Pralaya, the profound nothingness

before Manvantara begins.

The eternal parent wrapped in her ever invisible robes had slumbered once again for

m
Ibid., 242.

80
 seven eternities.
Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite b o s o m of duration.
Universal mind was not, for there were n o Ah-hi to contain it.
T h e seven ways to bliss were not. T h e great causes of misery were not, for there was
n o one to produce and get ensnared by them.
Darkness alone filled the boundless all, for father, mother, and son were once more
one...
The causes of existence had been done away with, the visible that was, and die
invisible that is rested in eternal non-being—the one being. 162

Significandy, during the transition from Pralaya to Manvantara the manifestation of

the universe is catalyzed by a vibration:

T h e last vibration of the seventh eternity thrills through infinitude. T h e mother

swells, expanding from without like the bud of the lotus.
T h e vibration sweeps along, touching with its swift wing the whole universe, and the
germ that dwelleth in darkness: the darkness that breathes over the
slumbering waters of life
Darkness radiates light, and light drops the one solitary ray into the mother-deep.
T h e ray shoots through the virgin egg. T h e ray causes the eternal egg to thrill,
and drop the non-eternal germ, which condenses into the world-egg.
T h e n the three fall into the four. T h e radiant essence becomes seven inside, seven
outside. T h e luminous egg, which in itself is three, curdles and spreads in
milk-white curds throughout the depths of the mother, the root that grows in
the depths of the ocean of life.
T h e root remains, die light remains, die curds remain, and still O e a o h o o is one.
The root of life was in every drop of the ocean of immortality, and the ocean
was radiant light, which was fire, and heat, and motion. Darkness vanished
and was n o more; it disappeared in its own essence, the body of fire and
water, or father and mother. 163

Manpantara occurs in a seven-stage process, illustrated in Blavatsky's diagram shown

on the far left side of Example 2.8. Each cosmic stage of Manvantara is called a Round,

represented by a circle o n the diagram. T h e shading in each circle represents die proportions

of spirituality and materiality of each Round. The white Round seven is the most spiritual,

and the black Round four is the most material. Rounds one, two, and three represent die

descent into matter and die gradual process of diversification. Round four, our current

162
Blavatsky, "The Book of Dzyan," stanza I, verses 1-5, 7, in Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), 27.

163
Blavatsky, "The Book of Dzyan," stanza III, verses 1-6, Ibid., 28-29.

81
epoch, is the most completely materialized globe, yet the farthest away from its spiritual

origins. During Rounds five, six, and seven, die cosmos retraces its padi in a process of

involution, gradually dematerializing as it retracts back into spiritual unity of non-being in

Pralaya. While cyclic, this pattern is also progressive, in that the level of spirituality attained in

Rounds five, six, and seven are all higher than their parallel Rounds three, two, and one. This

implies diat with each successive Manvantara, the entire cosmos is tracing an overall

trajectory through higher and higher degrees of spirituality.

Schloezer indicates how closely Scriabin followed the Theosophic model of

Manvantara in his own basic conception of the universe.

Scriabin's cosmogony embodied a gradually intensified differentiation in cosmic

evolution. Absolute oneness disintegrates, giving birth to multiplicity, and together
they form a correlative oneness—a reflection in multiplicity of the original absolute
oneness. The Deity sacrificialry disappears in its own creatures, but its image is
preserved in them as a formal principle of this multiplicity. Scriabin here introduced
into his system a new element—Deity as an absolute, autonomous state of being
revealing itself in the cosmos. Yet he continued to insist that in the process of
evolution and gradual differentiation diere can be no other state of being than
mutually related multiplicities, the product of the final disintegration of the Deity.164

In Example 2.8, Blavatsky tries to posit a correspondence between the progression

of cosmic Rounds, shown on die right side of die diagram, with the basic structure of man,

shown on the left. The problem with the diagram is that the "Planetary division" indicating

the evolution and involution of Rounds in the Manvantara is a cycle (see the progression of

Blavatsky's numbers); while the "Human Principles," or the planes of human consciousness

is really a structure, more similar to die diagram of cosmic consciousness presented in

Example 2.7. The table reproduced in Example 2.9 presents the human principles in a linear

format. Like cosmic consciousness, human consciousness is separated into a "lower"

164
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 206.

82
division consisting of the four material aspects, and a "higher," more spiritual division of

three aspects (note that the spatial layout of the diagram reverses the "high" and "low"

designations). The four lower aspects are the transitory and mortal, the three higher aspects

are eternal and are the aspects which are preserved through reincarnation. Manas, the

intellect or mind, operates as a gateway between the four lower planes and the two highest

planes.

EXAMPLE 2.8: Blavatsky's table of correspondences between "The Human

Principles" and "Planetary Division."165

HUMAN PRINCIPLES. PLANETARY DIVISION.

(Z)Scul
Vehicle of Spi)
(1) Spirit*
o
3

(if.)Animal Soitim
(3)Mind k <§•

'Upadhi cfJlmdx

(Sjlife I
{6)Astral Bcdy
Upadhi of life

£
The Upadhiof^Ball the 6Princ,
I
(7) Physical t D OiuEarth
Body t)r a/iy (Visible) Planet
DIAGRAM I.
' As we are proceeding here from Universals to Particulars, instead of using the
inductive or Aristotelean method, the numbers are reversed. Spirit is enumerated the
first instead of seventh, as is usually done, but, in truth, ought not to be done.
t Or as usually named after the manner of Esoteric Buddhism and others: r, Atma ;
2, Buddhi (or Spiritual Soul); 3, Manas (Human Soul): 4, Kama Rupa (Vehicle of
Desires and Passions); 5, Linga Sarira; 6, Prana; 7, Sthola Sarira.

165
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, (1888), 153.

83
 EXAMPLE 2.9: The seven planes of human consciousness.

SANSCRIT TERMS. EXOTERIC MEANING. EXPLANATORY.

(a) Rupa, or Sthula- (a) Physical body. (a) Is the vehicle of all the
Sarira. other "principles" during
life.
I (6) Prana. (6) Life, or Vital prin- (b) Necessary only to a, c, d,
and the functions of the
ciple.
lower Manas, which em-
I' brace all those limited to
the (physical) brain.
(c) Linga Sharira. (c) Astral body. (c) The Double, the phantom
body.
3 (d) Kama rupa. (d) The seat of animal (d) This is the centre of the
animal man, where lies the
desires and pas-
sions. line of demarcation which
separates the mortal man
from the immortal entity.

SANSCRIT TERMS. EXOTERIC MEANING. EXPLANATORY.

THE UPPER IMPERISHABLE TRIAD.

(e) Manas — a dual (e) Mind, Intelligence: (e) The future state and the
principle in its func- which is the higher Karmic destiny of man
tions. human mind, whose depend on whether Manas
light, or radiation gravitates more downward
links the MONAD, for to Kama rupa, the seat of
the lifetime, to the the animal passions, or up-
mortal man. wards to Buddhi, the
Spiritual Ego. In the
latter case, the higher con-
sciousness of the individual
Spiritual aspirations of
mind (Manas), assimilating
Buddhi, are absorbed by it
and form the Ego, which
goes into Devachanic
bliss.*
(/) Buddhi. (/) The Spiritual Soul, (/) The vehicle of pure uni-
versal spirit.
(g) Atma. (g) Spirit. (g) One with the Absolute, as
its radiation.

Not all aspects of man were present from the beginning, but rather evolved in a cycle

of involution and evolution that is a miniature, recursive replication of the cosmic cycle.

Each cosmic Round contains within it a seven-stage cycle of human development. The Secret

Doctrine claims that our current cosmic epoch is die Fourth Round; Blavatsky's story of

human evolution takes place entirely within diat Round.

166
Derived from the table that appears in Blavatsky, Key to Theosophy, Being A Clear Exposition, in the Form of
Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science, and Philosophy, for the Study of which the Theosophical Society Has Been Founded
(Pasadena: Theosopical University Press, 1987; reproduction of the original 1889 edition), 91.

84
 Example 2.10 shows Blavatsky's spiral of human evolution in the Fourth Round.

Each horizontal line represents a different grade of spirituality, with the most material grade

located at the b o t t o m and the m o s t spiritual grade located at the top. Like the cosmos,

human souls begin their life cycle as pure spirit, a divine emission from their creators. They

gradually acquire material embodiment, yet as they do so, they lose touch with their spiritual

origins. At a certain point, the process of involution sets in, and they begin to dematerialize

in preparation for their reunification with the divine spiritual essence. Like the cosmic cycle,

the human cycle is also progressive, as indicated by the spiral. In Blavatsky's diagram, the

seventh stage of human development transcends the level of the first stage.

EXAMPLE 2.10: Blavatsky's progressive spiral of h u m a n evolution. 167

E V O L U T I O N O F ROOT RACES IN T H E F O U R T H ROUND,

g TTII ROOT RACE | g

- -!>-. .v. 6i §1
Ms "~ ~ \ :|£
3"1| 1st R . R a c e X VI.B-R ^ 1
s_o -/- lot uiu,
2 "3 '8 _. _ / I -«r R 2 8 °
III " f P^ T» T»
Ml*
s^-5 -U± s°Ji
§I HI R.W /lYR-H | -, |
.2 o> \ X > ts d
|fl _\^ ^4 -7^ g S.'S
«•§ \ . / «5 - a
rt ^- ——"^ £ .O
MERIDIAN OF RACES.

As Example 2.10 indicates, Blavatsky calls the beings of each stage a Root Race.

Each Race was associated with a specific geographical area. T h e first Root Race was located

on the vague and mysterious "imperishable sacred land," the second race existed on the

167
Ibid, vol. 2, 300.

85
"Hyperborean" continent, the third race belonged to Lemuria, and the fourth Race dwelt on

Adantis. The fifth (current) race belongs to Eurasia.168 Each continent—and all the beings

on it—was destroyed in a cataclysm "to make room for another. The whole globe is

convulsed periodically; and has been so convulsed, since the appearance of the First Race,

four times."169

Blavatsky's concept of "races" progressing in "stages" calls to mind the

unfortunately prevalent theory in nineteenth-century comparative anthropology that various

human ethnic groups represented distinct stages of human evolution. She cites such

literature profusely (usually to show how scholars have misunderstood the "true" history of

mankind), but occasionally she does use the ideas of the anthropologists to support

certain aspects of her own evolutionary narrative.171 However, Blavatsky's general

168
Ibid, 775-776.

169
Ibid, 776.

170
Blavatsky refers to die work of W. H. Flower, F.W. Farrar, Thomas Henry Huxley, Anders Retzius, Paul
Broca, Nicolas Joly, Andre Lefevre, Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Breau, Rudolf Ludwig Karl
Virchow, Eduard Oskar Schmidt, Berthold Seemann, and Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel, to name just
a few. See particularly The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 779-781.

171
For example, Blavatsky, ibid, uses the term "human race" to encompass the three "main races" identified by
Andre Lefevre: Africans, Asians, and Europeans. While Blavatsky stated that the first main tenet of die
Theosophical Society was "To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction
of race, colour, or creed," in Key to Theosophy (1987), 39, she does, in fact, repeat the racism of die early
anthropologists when she postulates that the members of some edwic groups (including but not limited to
Khoikhoi, San, aboriginal Australians, Polynesians, Malays, Hawaiians, Native Americans, and circumpolar
indigenous peoples) are die last surviving remnants of Root Race Four and are dying out as a result of cyclic
Karmic law. See Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 162, 330, 780. Blavatsky's theory of Root Races and her focus on
ancient Indian (i.e., Aryan) doctrine has been linked to Nazi racial ideology dirough die manner in which the
Austrian occult movement Ariosophy engaged widi certain aspects of Theosophy. However, Nicolas
Goodrick-Clarke interprets die rise of Ariosophy as yet another manifestation of a generalized racialism in late-
nineteenth century German culture alongside the rise of Nazism, radier than its direct cause. See The Occult
Roots ofNazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Naij Ideology (London: LB. Tauris & C o , 2004). The
Nazi's identification of themselves as descended from Aryans (i.e., ancient Indians) can, in fact, be traced back
to the early days of German comparative philology and die idea mat die Vedas presented an alternative to the
Christian Old Testament based on Hebrew scripture. On this point, see Dorothy M. Figueria, Aryans, Jews,
Brahmins: Theorizing Authority Through Myths ofIdentity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002) and
essays collected in The German Invention of Race, edited by Sara Eigen and Mark J. Larrimore (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2006). Blavatsky's identification of die fifth race as Indo-European may be

86
conception is drawn from Hesiod's mythic account of die Five Ages of Man contained

Works and Days (ca. 700 B.C.) In Hesiod's tale, Zeus created and destroyed five successive

races of human beings. Blavatsky's story of Root Races is similar to Hesiod's Five Ages in

that Blavatsky uses the term "race" in a generic sense to refer to a class of beings, beginning

with semi-divine figures who descend into materiality. In Hesiod, the first race of man

mingled with the gods, while the current, fifth race toils in misery. Blavatsky also identifies

the current "human race" as the fifth race, but she believes that the most material race was

Root Race Four, and the human race has already begun the process of dematerialization and

ascent back toward spiritual transcendence.

Blavatsky's conception of race is recursive: she describes each Root Race as having

seven sub-races, and each sub-race has seven family races. She illustrates this idea of organic

interrelatedness via a diagram of a cactus plant, where the stem represents the Root Race and

the spines represent all the innumerable tribes coming off the family branches (Example

2.11).

According to Blavatsky, as the human soul progresses through its series of Root

Races, it gradually acquires the seven ideal aspects of man presented in Example 2.9. At any

given point in time, some aspects lie dormant while others are actualized. Her narrative of

human history from the dawn of the current Round to the present Root Race five tells the

story of the gradual accumulation of human aspects thus far. Example 2.12 shows

Blavatsky's diagram of the descent of man from its primeval, disembodied astral ancestors.

related to her own engagement with the racial theories of early nineteenth-century German philosophers and
philologists such as Gottfried Herder, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Friedrich Schlegel.

172
Hesiod, Theogony; Works and Days; Sheild, translated by Athanassakis N. Apostolos (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1983), 68-70. Blavatsky writes, "But as it is now the conviction of more than one Greek
scholar.. .that Hesiod's theogony was based upon historical facts, it becomes easier for the occult teachings to
find their way into the minds of thoughtful men," The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 777.

87
 EXAMPLE 2.11: Blavatsky's diagram of the Root Race, with sub-taces and family
branches. T h e letter A signifies the Root Race; B signifies the sub-race, and C
signifies the family race. 173

Example 2.12: T h e descent of the first five Races.174

Primeval Astra/ Mao

ktral
$*(Race Nkn
M,.pbysical
an.

m
Ibid, 434.
174
Ibid, 688

88
 The main drama of Blavatsky's narrative in The Secret Doctrine concerns the problem

of creation and procreation. While the first race possessed a high degree of spirituality, it was

mindless, and could not emulate the creative powers of the original divine Ancestors by

generating a fully-embodied second race. Instead, the beings of the second race emerged

from the first though an asexual process Blavatsky likens to budding.175

In turn, the second race excreted drops of moisture from its pores, which hardened

into egg-like objects, from which the third race emerged. Although the third race began as

sexless, androgynous creatures, over a long period of time they developed dual sexual

characteristics before separating fully into distinct male and female beings.176 The members

of the third race were now able to fully reproduce, but many of them still lacked the spark of

creative intellect. The Stanzas claim that only a select few members of the Third Race

received the spark of divine wisdom:

The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night, ready for rebirth, came down. They saw the
vile forms of the First Third, "We can choose," said the Lords. "We have Wisdom."
Some entered the Chhaya. Some projected the spark. Some deferred till the Fourth.
From their own Rupa they filled the Kama. Those who entered became Arhats.
Those who received but a spark remained destitute of knowledge; the spark burned
low.177

True intellectual enlightenment, corresponding to Manas in Blavatsky's scheme,

would be the achievement of the Fourth race. As the text in the table in Example 2.9

indicates, Manas serves as a link between the four lower aspects of man and the two higher

aspects in Blavatsky's septenary structure. Manas makes it possible for humans to access

these higher realms of consciousness.

175
Blavatsky, "Book of Dzyan," stanza V, verse 18-21, in Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), 18.

176
Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), 167.

177
Blavatsky, "Book of Dzyan," stanza VII, verse 24, in Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 18.

89
 Blavatsky claimed that the human acquisition of Manas, symbolized in die Book of

Dzyan as a spark of cosmic fire, is the event allegorized by Aeschylus in his Prometheus

Bound™ However, just as the Titan's theft of fire had both positive and negative

consequences, so did the gift of Manas, which at once caused a conflict between the lower,

more material aspects of man and the "higher" spiritual aspects. Ultimately, however, Manas

enabled humans to transcend their base materiality and begin their journey of involution,

ultimately to reunite with the divine essence in some future epoch.

Scriabin was fascinated by Blavatsky's race theory, but gradually adapted it to his

own ends, seeing it as more of a psychological metaphor than as actual historical fact.

Schloezer writes,

The doctrine of Seven Races attracted Scriabin with its psychological ramifications,
even when he no longer tried to interpret it in a literal sense. Each race, according to
this interpretation, reflects a certain phase in the evolution of man's spiritual life, so
that the history of the races becomes a history of the human psyche, which acquires
senses and desires vested in the flesh and then gradually denudes itself, abandoning
its belongings and returning to the simplicity of primordial oneness. Having accepted
this postulate, Scriabin reorganized in his own terms the entire history of humanity,
of which the cycle of his own psychic life was a particular case. This gave him a key
to the understanding of world history.

Schloezer's description of the Mysterium indicates how much of the dramatic action

would be based on Blavatsky's narrative of human evolution through the Root Races,

presented in a dramatic form modeled on Nietzsche and Ivanov's conception of theurgic art.

It was the task of the participants in the Mysterium to identify themselves with special
states of being corresponding to the seven human races of the theosophic doctrine.
Some were to assume the inner aspects of the Lemurians (the third race in Mme.
Blavatsky's scheme) or Altants (the fourth race). The fifth day of the Mysterium
corresponded to the time of our own race. On that day, a symphony of sounds,
colors motions, forms and caresses was to be raised to the highest possible degree of
spontaneity, the finest perfection of design, leading to an ultimate fusion in a
disembodied, phantomlike mirage.
With the aid of sorceries and enchantments of Omni-art, the Mysterium was
to take humanity back to its primordial state. But this was not to be a mere

Ibid., 411-412. This connection will be explored in greater detail in Chapter Four.

90
 recapitulation of the past; it was to be an illumination, a transfiguration, so that the
participants would identify themselves with their remote ancestors, infusing their
past with beauty and investing it with as sense of oneness, greater organization, and
perfection. In this manner, the past was to join the higher states of being through its
reorganization in the Mysterium, and the power of art would reach the remotest
periods of antiquity, with each successive stage permeated by the spirit of divinity. As
for the stages of ascendance, they were projected into the future. By the magical
agency of art, humanity could pass through the stages of the sixth and the seventh
races in the shortest possible time and be reincarnated successively, while the
corresponding psychic and material states of being would be illuminated by beauty.
The initial days of the cycle were to project the idealized and transfigured images of
extinct races; the last two races were to be revealed on the sixth and seventh days in
forms infused witii oneness. The human spirit, the human body, and all nature would
recapitulate their cosmic cycles in their alternations of descent and ascent. These
cycles would culminate in the apotheosis of the kingdom of the beautiful,
inaugurated by the mighty impact of the art of sounds, colors, forms, plastic motion,
caresses, and perfumes. This was to be a crowning theophany of seven days, realizing
a complete transfiguration of the world.179

Esoteric epistemology and Scriabin's web of sources

Schloezer reported that despite Scriabin's enthusiasm for what he read in The Secret

Doctrine, he used Theosophy largely as a springboard for generating his own ideas.

With the intransigence of a neophyte, he dismissed my doubts about theosophical

postulates. "Read it," he would say, "I refuse to discuss the subject until you have
read, even if superficially, the first volume of The Secret Doctrine of Mme. Blavatsky." I
followed Scriabin's advice, but when I began to read theosophical literature I became
aware that Scriabin used theosophical terms quite loosely. He adapted them to his
own ideas, aspirations, and yearnings and employed theosophical postulates as
formulas to describe his own experiences.

This seems to have been Scriabin's general method of assimilating the ideas from any

source into the personal philosophy which fueled his creative projects. Schloezer described

desultory nature of Scriabin's intellectual pursuits, and his habit of "misreading" texts

179
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 266.

180
Ibid., 67.

91
according to his own preconceptions. Scriabin's letter to Tatiana after his first exposure to

Theosophy confirms Schloezer's description: "You will be amazed how close [The Key to

Theosophy] is to my own thought," he wrote. Scriabin apparently omnivorously

consumed literature of a philosophical and religious nature, selecting and internally

reformulating what he read, using the resulting melange to inspire and support aspects of his

personal creed. "[Scriabin] was constantly under various influences," wrote Sabaneev. "He

had little background in philosophy, was extremely impressionable and regarded all thoughts

of others as his own,"184 adding, "it was Scriabin's tragedy that, called to be a philosopher, he

was born a musician. There was tragedy also in the sketchy and undisciplined nature of his

ideas; Scriabin was an untrained, amateur philosopher, though real philosophers were at

times amazed at the truth and power of his sentiments."185

Scriabin's epistemological practices indicate that his metaphysical views took the

form of a complex assemblage, much like The Secret Doctrine itself. The religious historian

Olaf Hammer described this strategy of knowledge as characteristic of modern esotericism

in general, which borrows ideas from multiple sources and finds meaning through creating

intricate webs of relationships among them.186

181
Schlatter, Artist and Mystic (1987), 64, 70, 191-192; Sabaneev, "Religious Art," (1931): 791.

182
Kashperov, Letters (1965), 369.

183
ScMoezet, Artist and Mystic (1987), 140,144.

184
Sabaneev, "A memoir," (1966), 263.

185
Sabaneev, "Religious art," (1931): 791.

186
Olaf Hammer, C/aiming Knowledge: Strategies ofEpistemologyfrom Theosophy to the New Age (Leiden: Brill, 2001),
158-172, 203ff. Hammer identifies several epistemological strategies used by Blavatsky which also apply to
Scriabin: the construction of idealized cultural Other which offers the potential for renewal or redemption (as
in ancient cultures, India); appropriation of ideas from a wide variety of sources; source reduction, in which the
complexity and variety within a tradition is distilled down to a simplistic abstraction of the original; pattern
recognition, a circular form of epistemology in which a selective hypothesis is formed to help order a vast
stream of data and then the hypothesis is used to select data to confirm the hypothesis; the search for parallels

92
 I have pointed out some ideas that may have struck Scriabin as he familiarized

himself with Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy, Ivanov's By the Stars, and Blavatsky's The Secret

Doctrine. All three texts would have reinforced Scriabin's basic belief in the transformative

power of music and sound, and would have supplied him with supplementary ideas

regarding the Mysterium 's purpose, form, and content. But there are deeper ways in which

these texts relate to each other within the broader scope of European intellectual history,

which contribute to the manner in which they may have mutually reinforced each other in

Scriabin's mind. All three texts arose out of the aesthetics and intellectual ferment of early

nineteenth-century German Romanticism. This is particularly noticeable in the way each text

direcdy refers to die German philological project and its reception of ancient Eastern

scriptures.

In The World as Will and Representation (1818) Schopenhauer predicted that the new

"discovery" of Indian texts would transform European culture.

The benefaction of the Vedas, access to which, opened up to us through the

Upanishads, is in my eyes die preeminent greatness that this still young century has
to show over earlier ones—in that I presume that the influence of Sanskrit literature
will be no less deep in its reach than that of die revival of Greek literature in the 15th
Century.187

Schopenhauer's prediction was not inspired from merely his own sense of revelation

upon encountering Indian doctrines, but also was prompted by the prominence of India in

German intellectual life and aesthetics in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The

Indologists Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel were leaders of the Jena group, whose

between various sources and the construction of correspondences; synonymization, where a foreign term from
one tradition is directly related to another in a different language whether they denote the same thing or not;
and scientism, die appropriation of scientific or academic discourse to establish die validity of claims made
without adopting legitimate scientific methods.

187
Schopenhauer, Will and Presentation, vol. 1 (2008), 13.

93
members laid the foundations of German romanticism and idealist philosophy: Ludwig

Tieck, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Schelling, Novalis and,

somewhat at the periphery, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The relationship of Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy to Schopenhauer's The World of

Will and Representation is well-known.189 Blavatsky's discussion of the early German

philologists, appropriation of their methods, as well as her comparison of her own

metaphysics to the idealist philosophies of Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling imply that she saw

herself engaging in a German-dominated discourse that was already underway.190 Finally,

Ivanov's deep engagement with Nietzsche and other German authors prompted Bartlett to

write, "at the root of Ivanov's ideas on myth and music, then, lie the basic precepts of

German Romanticism."191 Avril Pyman and others have remarked how the members of the

'mystic' phase of the Russian Symbolist movement (including Ivanov) took more inspiration

from nineteenth-century German literature and aesthetics than from their French

192
counterparts.

188
Friedrich Schlegel, Uber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (Heidelberg: Mohr und Zimmer, 1808); August
Wilhelm Schlegel, translation of the "Bhagavad-Gita" in Accidentia Borussica Rhenana Typiis Regis, (E. Weber,
1823); Indische Bibliothek (Bonn: E. Webb, 1820-30); Ramayana (Bonn: Sumtibus editoris, 1829-38). See
Williamson, The longingfor Myth (2004), 19-120.

189
For Nietzsche's engagement with Schopenhauer, see Martha C. Nussbaum, "Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and
Dionysus," in The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer, edited by Christopher Janaway, 344-374 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999).
190
See Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), xxi-xxxiv, 50-51, 640-641. Theosophy shares its dual ideological
parentage in German Romanticism and Vendanta with American Transcendentalism. In this regard, it is
perhaps significant diat Blavatsky's doctrine crystallized after her stay in America.

191
See Bartlett, Wagner and Russia (1995), 125; also Michael Wachtel, Russian Symbolism and literary tradition: Goethe,
Novalis, and the poetics ofVyacheslav Ivanov (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994). For Ivanov's
engagement with Nietzsche, see Benjamin Biebuyck and Nel Grillaert, "Between God and Ubermensch:
Viacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov and His Vacillating Struggle with Nietzsche" Germano-Slavica 14 (2003): 55-73.

192
Avril Pyman, A History of Russian Symbolism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 226-243; Simon
Morrison, Russian Opera (2002), 1-14; Bartlett, Wagner and Russia (1995): 117-218.

94
 Scriabin himself engaged deeply with German authors and philosophers.

Schopenhauer's The World As Will and Representation was the first work of philosophy he ever

read. He became interested in German idealism in general, particularly the writings of

Fichte.193 He quoted Hegel, read Goethe's Faust (1806-1808), and Ivanov introduced him to

Novalis's novel Heinrich von Qfterdingen, which shares its main protagonist with Wagner's

Tannhauser.m

Example 2.13 shows the intellectual web that surrounds Scriabin's conception of the

Mysterium and Prometheus, op. 60. Scriabin engaged direcdy with texts produced by each

author or associated with each class of literature. Yet these sources also engaged each other,

creating a complex web of association and reinforcement.

EXAMPLE 2.13: The intellectual web surrounding Scriabin's Prometheus, op. 60.

Ivanov

/
X
s^

Blavatskv
/k
-V \^~ Nietzsche
i i

Eastern Philosophy: German Aesthetics:

Hindui:>m aiKi B u d dhism Romar iticisr Q and Idealism

193
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic, (1987), 71. Schloezer lists Friedrich Paulsen, Einleitung in die Philosophie (Berlin:
Hertz, 1892); Alfred Fouillee, Extraits desgrandsphilosophes (Paris: Delagrave, 1877); Friedrich Uberweg, Grundrifi
der Geschichte der Philosophie (Berlin: Mntler, 1863-1866); Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte der Philosophie (Frieburg:
Mohr, 1892); and Kuno Fischer, ImmanuelKant undseine Eehre (Miichen: Bassermann, 1882). In addition,
Scriabin apparently read Plato's Dialogues and Symposium (in Russian translation by Vladimir Solovyov).

194
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 93-94, 122, 234.

95
 It is important to distinguish between a relationship of influence and one of

engagement. Scriabin's biographers list the sources he was drawn to, but deny that they had

much influence on his thought. Instead, they write that Scriabin used his sources to confirm

ideas he already held. A similar claim has been made regarding the relationship of Indian

philosophy to the development of German idealism in the early nineteenth century.195 And,

Taruskin noted a similar relationship of engagement, rather than influence, between Wagner

and the Russian Symbolists. He wrote that the serialization of Henri Lichtenberger's Richard

Wagner: Poete etpenseur (Paris, 1898) in the journal Mir iskusstva [World of Art] "was acclaimed

by theurgic thinkers like Beliy and Ivanov not because it had influenced them, but because it

confirmed their existing convictions as to the mythic basis of art and its furtherance of

religious collectivity."196

For my purposes, it is not necessary to establish a relationship of ideological

influence among Scriabin's source texts. Scriabin was predisposed to create mental networks

of ideas gleaned from his assembled materials, and the historical thread of engagement

connecting his readings would have only made the process easier. He would have been

encouraged to do so not only by Ivanov's theory of the symbol, which gains its power

through multivalence acquired through various appearances in world myth, but also by

Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, a maximalized emulation the methodologies employed by

German comparative philologists. The Symbolist's identification of the Wagnerian leitmotif

195
Bhatawadekar, "Symptoms of withdrawal," (2007). Ronald Taylor, "Herder and German Romanticism," in
Eastern Influences on Western Philosophy: A Reader, edited by Alexander Lyon Macfie, 130-140 (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2003); J.J. Clarke, The Encounter Between Eastern and Western Thought (London:
Routiedge, 1997), 69-70. See also two works considering the similarity between ideas of the 8th century founder
of Advaita Vendanta, Samkara, and the German Idealist philosopher J ohann Gottlieb Fichte: John A. Tabor,
Transformative Philosophy: a study ofSankara, Fichte and Heidegger (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985); Leta
Jane Lewis, "Fichte and Samkara," Philosophy East and West 12/4 (January 1963): 301-309.

196
Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, vol. 1 (1996), 489.

96
as a musical symbol, their views of symbols as the revelation of myth, and Blavatsky's vast

assemblage of myth in The Secret Doctrine provide insight into Schloezer's statement that

[Scriabin] was particularly fascinated by Blavatsky's courage in essaying a grandiose

synthesis and by the breadth and depth of her concepts, which he likened to the
grandeur of Wagner's music dramas.

Schloezer implies that Scriabin was attracted to the limitless signification he saw as

the common element in both Blavatsky and Wagner's work. As we have seen, the symbol's

profundity itself was acquired through the infinite accumulation of associations.

Scriabin's source readings help contextualize his theurgic aims, his belief in the

power of music and his attraction to the Prometheus legend. They also imply the outlines of

a dramatic plot, which will be further developed in Chapters Five and Six. Yet, they also

propose certain values or mentalities that the analyst can adopt in approaching the music.

Some aspects of Blavatsky's metaphysics, such as her prioritization of recursive relationships

and narratives of organic growth and decay, seem quite similar to values and narratives that

have traditionally been used to analyze western music.198 Additionally, Scriabin's sources and

the way that he seems to have approached them suggest a particular mentality that places

significance on the accumulation of meaning through rapid associative leaps in the mind of

the receiver. This is how the symbol derives its power. And, as I have suggested, this

mentality is derived from the epistemological strategies of comparative philology. George

Williamson described the associative leaps made by founding philologist Adalbert Kuhn in

his treatment of the Prometheus myth, which encouraged him to relocate the origins of the

story from Greece to India:

197
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 68-69.

198
Chapter Seven provides further consideration of this issue.

97
 The Vedic hymns to Agni were shot through with references to the practical details
of fire making. The ancient Aryans had produced fire by rubbing a stick in a hole
bored out of a block of wood. The Sanskrit name for that stick was pramantha, close
enough to the Greek "Prometheus" to suggest an etymological connection. In
addition, the Sanskrit verb for "rubbing" was mathnami, which evoked the Vedic hero
Mataricvan [who, like Prometheus, stole divine fire from the heavens]. Thus, Kuhn
established a link between the myth and the actual acquisition of fire. Before
Promedieus was a fire-robber, (Feuerrauber), he was a fire-rubber (Feuereiber).
Kuhn then linked the story of Mataricvan to a further complex of myths concerning
the soma, a sacred drink with life-giving powers. The verb mathnami, used to describe
rubbing, was also used to describe the churning action involved in making butter and
199

soma...

Williamson then goes on to quote Kuhn, who associates this churning and rubbing

action with sex, and Kuhn's ultimate conclusion that these connections provided the

rationale behind Prometheus as a creator figure in ancient Greek legend.200 As we shall see,

Blavatsky continues to heap on the layers of associative meaning in her own treatment of the

Prometheus myth.

Although prolific creation of meaning through wide-ranging associations was once a

legitimate scholarly tool, it has since fallen from grace as an acceptable academic mentality.

Yet for Scriabin's music, the self-conscious adoption of this strategy has the potential to aid

the analyst in reconceptualizing Scriabin's musical relationships. The following chapter

extracts one recurring value from Scriabin's source readings, the Law of Polarity. First, I

describe how the concept of polarity is framed by a number of different authors, which

establishes its pervasiveness in Scriabin's sources and endows it with a subdety of

connotation that is unavailable through other means. I then show how the idea itself can

lead to a reconceptualization of a persistent harmonic strategy in Scriabin's late music.

199
Williamson, The Longing For Myth (2004), 215.

200
Ibid.

98
 The PATH is one, Disciple, jet in the end, twofold.'

—Helena Blavatsky

CHAPTER THREE
THE LAW OF POLARITY AND
SCRIABIN'S LATE HARMONIC PRACTICE

Hypertonality and the tritone

Scriabin's gradual shift around 1908 from a fundamentally tonal idiom to a new,

hypertonal harmonic language based on mystic, whole-tone, octatonic, acoustic and other

closely-related collections reflects the composer's belief in the power of sound to change

reality. The term "hypertonal" in this context refers to the manner in which Scriabin's late

style grows out of common practice tonality, preserving certain principles of it, but yet

distorts and transforms them for the purpose of eliciting a heightened spiritual state and

revealing occult trufhs hidden from normal sense perception. The relationship of the

common practice to Scriabin's late style parallels the idea of the existence of two or more

realities: an illusory reality of quotidian existence, paired with a higher, more profound reality

(or realities) accessible through theurgic activity. This idea is alluded to in the symbolist

motto ad realibus ad realoria—"from the real to the more real," and reflected in Theosophy's

multi-leveled hierarchies of cosmic and human consciousness.

1
Helena Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence, Being Chosen Fragmentsfrom the "Book of the Golden Precepts" (Pasadena:
Theosophical University Press, 1992), 41.

2
Richard Taruskin describes the relationship of Scriabin's experimental tonal practice to common practice
tonality in precisely this way, in reference to the symbolist and Theosophist preoccupations with different
planes of reality. He very narrowly avoids using the term "hypertonal": "What Scriabin sought, then, and what

99
 One of the most prominent hallmarks of Scriabin's late style is his obsession with the

tritone, a preoccupation which manifested itself at all levels of musical structure. The tritone

is omnipresent in Scriabin's individual harmonies, and may be viewed as a generational Ur-

interval for favored collections such as the whole tone and octatonic. The tritone appears

frequendy as a type of harmonic motion in the bass—both fundamental and actual—

occurring at the chord-to-chord level as well as over longer phrase-length spans. At the

formal level, the tritone may often function as a large-scale transpositional value, providing a

sense of motion through pitch space while holding pitch classes in Scriabin's tritone-based

sonorities invariant.3

Schloezer explicitly described Scriabin's interest in "a greater intricacy of sound

combinations" as a possible means to achieve his theurgic ambitions through music. If

Scriabin indeed believed that the spiritual power of music could be enhanced by a move

toward greater sonorous intricacy, then his fixation on the tritone is not at all surprising,

given the tritone's complex tuning ratio and remote coincidence among its upper partials.5

Scriabin's use of tritone-rich sonorities in his late style, such as the "dominant" trichord [0, 2,

he to a large extent achieved, was not atonality at all, but a new (he might have said "higher") kind of tonality,
one that modulated dirough thirds rather than fifths through what might be called a musical hyperspace..." The
Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 218. See also Taruskin's earlier
work on Scriabin, from which much of die material in The Oxford History vtzs drawn: "Scriabin and the
Superhuman: A Millennial Essay," in Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1997), 329-349.

3
Taruskin describes Scriabin's use of tritone-based sonorities at length in The Oxford History, vol. 4 (2005), 204-
218 and "Scriabin and the Superhuman," ibid.

4
Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic, translated by Nicolas Slonimsky (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987), 240-242.

5
If die tritone is tuned to the ratio 45:32 (the ratio between the pitches C and Fjt in just intonation),
theoretically, the 45 th partial of die lower pitch will coincide as a "unison" with the 32 nd pitch of the upper
pitch. The coincidence theory of consonance and was put on a physical foundation by Hermann von
Helmholtz. See On the Sensations of Tone as a'PhysiologicalBasisfor the Theory ofMusic, translated by Alexander Ellis,
4 th edition (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), 185-186.

100
6] and the "French-sixth" [0, 2, 6, 8] and "fully diminished" [0, 3, 6, 9] tetrachords is well-

known. Early commentators such as Varvara Dernova observed that these sonorities seemed

to evolve seamlessly from Scriabin's earlier tonal practice, which involved extended

prolongations of die dominant sonority and delays of harmonic closure.6

The association of Scriabin's favored sonorities with dominant-type chords in tonal

music lends them additional connotations of musical meaning. In the middle-period music,

where vestiges of common-practice procedures generate expectations of tonic arrival,

Scriabin's avoidance of tritonal resolution may be construed as engaging a Wagnerian

musical trope of (amorous) yearning for metaphysical transcendence. For example, James

Baker read the exquisitely excruciating cadential delays in the Poem ofEcstasy as a projection

of "the erotic aspect of the soul's striving for union with the Divine Principle."7 Focusing on

the later, hypertonal works, Richard Taruskin wrote that Scriabin's "negation" of harmonic

function transforms the unresolved tritone "from an active tendency (as in Wagner) into a

latent or passive one." For Taruskin, die late music suggested "a quality of hovering, of time-

forgetful stasis, altered consciousness, or even trance," adding, "Scriabin's whole stylistic

evolution can be viewed as die gradual extinguishing of the desiring subject, the "petty-T,"

so as to make possible a dieurgic, world-(or at least consciousness-) transforming

transcendence."8

6
See, for example, Varvara Demova, FapMOHHH CKpaSiraa [Scriabin'sHarmony] (Leningrad: Muzyka, 1968);
translated by Roy James Guenther,"Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia Skriabina: A Translation and Critical
Commentary" (Ph.D dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1979). A consideration of Dernova's work
appears at the end of the chapter.

7
James Baker, "Scriabin's Music: Structure as a Prism for Mystical Philosophy," in Music Theory in Concept and
Practice, edited by James M. Baker, David Beach, and Jonathan W. Bernard (Rochester: University of Rochester
Press, 1997), 84.

8
Taruskin, The Oxford History, vol. 4, (2005), 207-208.

101
 The association of the unresolved dominant with spiritual ot romantic yearning and

die suppression of functional harmonic tendencies as a mystical negation of desire both

offer potential for rich hermeneutic application, very much in accordance widi what is

known of Scriabin's aesthetic orientation. However, while both Baker and Taruskin's

interpretations provide a general framework for contextualizing the rnimetic effect of

Scriabin's middle and late-period music, neither hermeneutic reading engages the detailed

mechanics of Scriabin's reification of dominant-type sonorities and the specific manner in

which he exploits the invariant properties of the tritone in his later works.

In both his middle and late periods, Scriabin's compositional practice manifests a

certain preoccupation widi duality. In music exhibiting vestiges of traditional tonal

procedures, duality arises in the tension between Scriabin's rhetorical use of his unstable

dominant-type harmonies at points of formal arrival and dieir functional implications of

resolution to a stable tonic. In the later style, this duality resides in Scriabin's obsessive use of

the tritone and his exploitation of its invariant properties when transposed by itself. These

aspects of Scriabin's compositional practice suggest his engagement with a very prominent

concept from his occult and philosophical source readings: the Law of Polarity.

Polarity, as the concept appears in Scriabin's inspirational literature, relates to the

ancient mystical paradox of duahty-within-unity. We are accustomed to thinking of polarity

in terms of diametrically opposed binaries, but in the literature that inspired Scriabin, such

diametric opposition is a condition of unity, and gives rise to it. Perhaps the most familiar

illustration of this paradoxical idea is the yin yang symbol. Indeed, the idea of duality-witiiin-

unity has a rich spiritual and intellectual heritage, part of which is sketched below.

Scriabin's contemporary biographer, Leonid Sabaneev, suggested that Scriabin

himself used the word polarity to describe his own harmonic practice. During one visit,

102
Scriabin described to Sabaneev how his own compositional approach differed from that of

the Classical era. Scriabin maintained that, in the older style, "the harmonic polarity

[noAJipHocTbj was between tonic and dominant: the dominant and the dominant chord

gravitated toward the tonic... [sic] In Prometheus, I have an entirely different system. Polarity

no longer exists between dominant and tonic, but rather between chords separated by a

diminished fifth."9

Sabaneev implies that Scriabin's idea of musical polarity had something to do with

the way he reinterpreted tonic and dominant functional categories and replaced harmonic

motion by perfect fifth with motion by tritone. To fully understand what Scriabin meant

when he described his new harmonic system as "polar," it is necessary to investigate the

layers of meaning in this term as it appears in the literature known to have contributed to

Scriabin's aesthetic assemblage: Eastern metaphysics, German romanticism and idealist

philosophy, Theosophy, and Russian mystic symbolism. In what follows, I adopt the

associative mentality described at the end of Chapter Two, which prioritizes perceived

similarities. In this way, the Law of Polarity as a concept accrues significance and power

through its multiple appearances in different contexts, just like the symbol as Ivanov

described it.

Polarity as metaphysical worldview

"The One becomes the Two," states a passage from Blavatsky's inspirational text

The Voice of the Silence.™ A fundamental concept in some Eastern metaphysical traditions,

9
Leonid Sabaneev, Erinwrungen an Alexander Skrjabin, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn,
2005), 289; BocnoMummw o CKpn6una [Memories of Scriabin] (Moscow: Klassika-XXI, 2000), 260.

10
Helena Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence (1992), 41.

103
Western alchemy, and some strains of Gnosticism and the mystical Christian metaphysics of

Jakob Bohme, the idea of polarity as duality-within-unity infused the natural philosophy of

F.W.J Schelling, J. W. von Goethe, and the dialectics of G.W.F. Hegel" Helena Blavatsky

drew upon all these diverse sources in her formulation of Theosophy, and accordingly

"polarity" became one of its doctrinal cornerstones.

Perhaps the early German natural philosophers provided the clearest explanations of

their understanding of duaHty-within-unity. F.W.J Schelling and J.W. von Goethe viewed all

natural phenomena in terms of the complementary interaction of opposing forces. In On the

World's Soul (STIR'S), Schelling articulated this idea as follows:

A dualism must be assumed, because without opposed forces no living movement is

possible. Real opposition is, however, only possible where that which is opposed is
posited in one and the same subject. The original forces (to which all explanation
finally returns) would not be opposed if they were not original activities of one and
the same nature, which acted in opposed directions.. .In this original antithesis lies
the seed of the general world organization.12

Schelling asserted a rather peculiar and profound relationship between opposition

and unity, namely, that one is a necessary condition of the other. Opposition can only arise

within a more fundamental unity, and, as Goethe implied in his article "Polaritat" (1799), the

interaction of opposing forces may also produce a higher unity, in the manner of a dialectic

process.

Whatever appears in the world must divide if it is to appear at all. What has been
divided seeks itself again, can return to itself and reunite. This happens in a lower
sense when it merely intermingles with its opposite, combines with it; here the
phenomenon is nullified or at least neutralized. However, the union may occur in a

11
See M.H. Abrams, NaturalSupematuralism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: W.W.
Norton and Company, 1971), 161-172.

12
Quoted and translated by Dale E. Snow, Schelling and the End of Idealism (Albany, SUNY Press, 1996), 87-88.

104
 higher sense if what has been divided is first intensified; then in the union of the
intensified halves it will produce a third thing, something new, higher, unexpected.

In the same article, Goethe brainstormed a list of opposing pairs to show the extent

to which the concept of polarity governed reality. Goethe asserted that each pair comprised

two aspects of the same essence.

Duality of the phenomenon as opposites:

We and the objects
Light and dark
Body and soul
Two souls
Spirit and matter
God and world
Thought and extension
Ideal and real
Sensuality and reason
Fantasy and practical thought
Being and yearning
Two halves of the same body
Right and left
Breathing.
Physical experiment:
Magnet. u

The magnet—a single object with two opposing charges—became the chief symbol

of polarity for Goethe and his contemporaries. Goethe wrote, "the magnet is an archetypal

phenomenon; this is clear the instant we say it. Thus it also comes to symbolize all else for

which no words or names must be sought."1 Schelling wrote, "in magnetism, we see clearly

13
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Collected Works, translated by Michael Hamburger, Christopher Middleton,
David Luke, and Vernon Watkins, vol. 12 (New York: Suhrkamp Publishers, 1983), 156.

14
Ibid, 155.

15
Ibid, 303.

105
in all nonorganic nature alone, what is equally characteristic of nature as a whole; namely,

identity in duplicity and duplicity in identity (what differently put, is termed polarity)."16

Magnetism provided yet another dimension to die idea of polarity: opposite charges

attract each other, while like charges repel. Opposing forces, rather than being in perpetual

conflict, required each odier, and were continually seeking to reunite. This aspect of polarity

was highlighted by Schopenhauer, in The World as Will and Presentation (1818):

Natural philosophers of Schelling's school.. .have called particular attention to the

fact that polarity, i.e., the separation of a force into activities that are qualitatively
different, in opposition to one another and striving for reunification (which even for
the most part reveals itself spatially through movement in opposite directions), is a
Fundamental Type that pertains to almost all the phenomena of nature, from
magnets and crystals on up to human beings. But in China, cognizance of this fact
has been widespread since die most ancient times, in the doctrine of the opposition
between Yin and Yang}1

EXAMPLE 3.1: Yin-yang, from Hu Wei, Yitu mingbian [Clarifications on Diagrams

Related to the Book of Changes], 1706. The text surrounding the perimeter of die circle
refers to eight stages in the cycle, representing a mixture of Yin and Yang in various
proportions.

/A
hp, 3

p3P\ ^ ?
*wU * . •&£!
I^B^M*^

16
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schellings Sammtliche Werke, edited by K.F.A. Schelling, vol. Ill (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1856-
61), 253n; quoted and translated by Iain Hamilton Grant, Philosophies ofNature after Schelling (London:
Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006), 189.

17
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Presentation, translated by Richard A. Aquila and David Cams,
vol. 1 (New York: Pearson Education, 2008), 185-186.

106
 Schopenhauer's parallel between the idea of polarity as presented by his Jena

predecessors and similar ideas he found in his own study of Eastern philosophy calls

attention to the considerable extent to which Eastern metaphysical ideas permeated German

intellectual life at this time.18 Indeed, the yin-yang symbol which appears in Example 3.1 is a

particularly vivid representation of the productive interaction of opposites to form a unity.

In Yijing or Book of Changes, yin and yang are opposing complementary energies, where

yang is spiritual, light, active, masculine, and yin is earthly, dark, yielding, feminine.19 The

combination of their shapes forms a circle, which represents dao or the wholeness of being.

All things contain a proportion of yin and yang, and the perpetual dynamic between the two

is the generative force of the universe. Even while seeming to embody binary opposition, yin

and yang require each other, and each contains a bit of its complement within it. The dot in

each shape represents the yin-within-the-yang and the yang-within-the-yin.

The idea of polarity as a productive union of opposites also resonates with the

doctrines of Sankhya, one of the six schools of classical Indian philosophy.20 In Sankhya,

reality is defined in terms of Purusha and Prakriti, cosmic forces which are gendered as male

and female. Purusha is associated with pure consciousness or universal spirit, which

18
See, for example, J.J. Clarke, Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought (London:
Routledge, 1997); Raymond Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance: Europe's Rediscovery of India and the East, 1680-1880,
translated by Gene Patterson-Black and Victor Reinking (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); Ernst
Benz, The Mystical Sources of German Romantic Philosophy, translated by Blair R. Reynolds and Eunice M. Paul
(Allison Park: Pickwick Publications, 1983).

19
See Richard Rutt's commentary to his translation of Zhouyi: The Book of Changes, A Bronze Age Document
(London: Roudedge, 2002), 45; see also Richard John Lynn, translator, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation
of the I Ching as interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 1-24.

20
See Gerald James Larson, Classical Samkhya: An interpretation of its history and its meaning (Delhi: Motilal
Banarshidass Publishers Private, Ltd., 1998), 173-174.

107
permeates all reality as well as individual souls. Prakriti is associated with primal nature and

material objects. Their interaction is dialectical and gives rise to all creation.21

In the 8th century, the philosopher Adi Shankara criticized the dualistic world-view of

Sankhya on the grounds that it did not reflect the central tenets of the Vedas and

Upanishads.22 Shankara's system, the Advaita Vendanta, posited an identity between

Brahman, the all-embracing cosmic spirit, and atman, the individual human soul. The

apparent division between human and divine consciousness was not a true reflection of

reality, as they were essentially one. Advaita Vendanta became tremendously influential both

in the development of Hinduism and the way it was construed and appropriated by the

west.23 Blavatsky took up this basic kernel of Shankara's metaphysics, translating it into her

idea that individual human consciousnesses are identical with the omnipresent divine spirit.

"It requires a metaphysician—and an Eastern metaphysician—to understand our meaning,"

she wrote. "All those [individual] atom-Souls are differentiations from the ONE, and in the

same relation to it as the divine Soul—The Buddhi—to its inforrning and inseparable Spirit, or

Atman. ' £4

Although Blavatsky employs different terminology, replacing Shankara's

Brahman/atman with Buddhi/atman, her conceptual indebtedness to Shankara's philosophy

21
Scriabin would have read about Sankhya in Auguste Barth, Religions de llnde (Paris: Librairie Sandoz et
Fischbacher, 1879). James Larson writes, "Because of [their] proximity, a kind of interplay or dialectic occurs
between prakriti and purusa. The mulaprakriti begins to undergo transformation or modification which issues in
the manifest world, and the purusa begins to witness this transformation. Each of die two principles appears to
take on the characteristics of the other. .. .This interaction brings about die creation of the manifest world."
Classical'Samkhya (1998), 173.

22
Eliot Deutsch and Rohit Dalvi, editors, The essential Vendanta: a new source book of Advaita Vendanta
(Bloomington: World Wisdom, Inc., 2004).

23
See, for example, J .A. Taber, Transformation Philosophy: A Study ofSankara, Fichte, and Heidegger (Honolulu:
University Press of Hawaii, 1983).

24
Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis ofScience, Religion, and Philosophy, vol. 1 (London: The
Theosophical Publishing Company, Ltd., 1888), vol. 1, 567.

108
is clear. Blavatsky (perhaps rather crudely) summed up the relationship of the human soul to

the divine cosmos in Advaita Vendanta as follows: "If a Vedantic Brahman of the Advaita

Sect [is] asked whether he believes in the existence of God, [he] is always likely to answer...

"I am myself 'God.'" 25 Incidentally, Scriabin's recurring notebook musing "I am God," often

interpreted as a statement of his Nietzschean megalomaniacal solipsism, takes on different

connotation when viewed in relationship to this basic idea of Shankara's metaphysics. In

fact, Ivanov interpreted Nietzsche's own solipsism in terms of the identity of

Brahman/atman in Advaita Vendanta:

At times, we encounter ellipses in Nietzsche's texts, right where the logic of his
thought suggests, 'I am a god.' So this position was unspoken and mystical for him:
he was still possessed by Dionysus. For the religion of Dionysus is a mystical
religion, and the soul of mysticism is the divinization of man, whether through the
grace-bearing approach of the Divinity to die human soul, which results in their
complete fusion, or through an inner insight into the true and eternal essence of the
'I,' into the 'Itself in the T (the 'Atman' of Brahman philosophy.)26

The idea of polarity as a unified duality, such as God/man, other/self, male/female,

spirit/matter appears frequendy in The Secret Doctrine. Blavatsky, an avid consumer of

German idealist philosophy, Eastern mysticism, and various traditions of esoterica, identified

oppositional polarity as the generational force of the cosmos. Like her Jena predecessors, she

considered true opposition as possible only within a more profound, fundamental unity. In

Blavatsky's own creation narrative—based largely on that presented in the Vedas—she

described the history of the universe as a dialectical process, beginning as a primal vibration

of pure spirit which separates into spirit and matter before reuniting in a primal, unified

25
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), 636.

26
Viacheslav Ivanov,"Nietzsche and Dionysus," in Selected Essays, translated by Robert Bird (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 2001), 185.

109
state. To the uninitiated, spirit and matter may seem like an opposed binary, but for

Blavatsky they are dual aspects of a single unified creation:

Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded not as

independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm),
which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.27

Just as opposition arises out of unity in Blavatsky's metaphysics, unity can arise from

opposition. "When 'the one becomes two,'" Blavatsky writes, "it may be then referred to as

Spirit and matter."28 In the manifested cosmos, the dynamic interaction of spirit and matter

produces a substance Blavatsky refers to as Fohat, the vivifying essence of the universe, a

single substance which retains a dual aspect in accordance with its origins.

The "Manifested Universe," therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as it were, the
very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation." But just as the opposite poles of
subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they
are synthesized, so, in the manifested Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to
matter, subject to object. This something, at present unknown to Western
speculation, is called by the occultists Fohat.. .Fohat, in its various manifestations, is
the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying
every atom into life. 29

Just as the magnet became the chief physical manifestation of polarity for the early

nineteenth-century German natural philosophers, electricity (as Fohat) becomes the symbol

of polarity in Blavatsky's late nineteenth-century metaphysics. Blavatsky's description of the

occult properties of Fohat endows Scriabin's use of electricity in Prometheus to power the

tastieraper luce with an added depth of mystical significance.

Fohat, the constructive Force of Cosmic Electricity, is said, metaphorically, to have

sprung like Rudra from Brahma "from the brain of the Father and the bosom of the
Mother," and then to have metamorphosed himself into a male and a female, i.e., a

27
Blavatsky, 1 he Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), 15.

28
Ibid., 328.

29
Ibid., 15-16.

110
 polarity, into positive and negative electricity. .. .he [i.e., Fohat] binds together and
unites those of unlike nature and separates those of similar temperament. This, of
course, relates, as any one can see, to electricity generated by friction and to the law
involving attraction between two objects of unlike, and repulsion between those of
like polarity. 30

Fohat retains aspects of both spirit and matter, a unified essence with dual

characteristics. But because Blavatsky follows Vedic creation narratives by relating Spirit to a

masculine entity (like Purusha) and matter to a feminine entity (like Prakriti), Blavatsky

describes Fohat as "an androgynous energy." 31 Over the course of The Secret Doctrine,

Blavatsky attributes the cosmic force Fohat as emanating from Akasa, the Astral Light,

which is microcosmicalry reflected in Manas, the light of intellect within human beings. Each

of these forces is described as a type of energy or light with dual characteristics of

spirit/matter, masculine/feminine, and, ultimately, good/evil. According to Theosophy,

goodness and evil were n o t absolute values, but rather were relative and reciprocal:

Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the incorruptible must
grow out of the corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast.
Absolute light is absolute darkness, and vice versa. In fact, there is neither light nor
darkness in the realms of truth. G o o d and Evil are twins, the progeny of Space and
Time, under the sway of Maya. Separate them, by cutting off one from the other, and
they will b o t h die. Neither exists perse, since each has to be generated and created out
of the other, in order to come into being; b o t h must be known and appreciated
before becoming objects of perception, hence, in mortal mind, they must be
divided. 32

Sabaneev described how Scriabin rejected the conventional relationship between

binaries in his own spirituality, which was governed by an all-encompassing, fundamental

belief in the unity of all things:

30
Ibid., 145.
31
Ibid., 137.
32
Ibid, 96.

Ill
 [Scriabin's] theology lacked an essential characteristic of conventional religious
mythology including Christianity: it lacked the dualism of divinity. This 'principle of
unity,' which ruled all his ideas and on which his entire schematically-constructed
system turned, did not admit the presence of two divinities, one good and one evil.
Not once were elements of good and evil juxtaposed. All was unity.33

Yet, as Schloezer maintained, in Scriabin's system this fundamental unity was

expressed through the compresence of opposites. Schloezer wrote, "when [Scriabin] was

writing The Poem ofEcstasy, he already realized that oneness could be attained only by the

deepening and sharpening of contradictions, and not by their negation or forcible

unification."34 Sabaneev and Schloezer's statements would seem to contradict each other,

and Schloezer's description of Scriabin's values would be opaquely paradoxical without their

esoteric context. Scriabin's religious and aesthetic ideas may have lacked absolute dualism as

proposed by some forms of traditional Christianity. Scriabin's explorations of Theosophical

and other philosophical readings would have prepared him to view opposition as a condition

of unity. Ivanov described this concept as it related to artistic experience, writing, "we

experience a perception of beauty when we discern a certain primordial dualism in the

sphere of a given phenomenon while simultaneously contemplating the eventual overcoming

of this dichotomy, which can be distinguished only analytically, in perfect synthetic unity."35

Schloezer's description of Scriabin's belief system closely parallels that of Blavatsky.

Like Blavatsky, Scriabin believed that both spirit and matter sprang from the unique cosmic

mind, and their reciprocal relationship is the source of all phenomena, "the result of either

33
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 150-151; BocnoMUHanun (2000), 141.

34
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 63.

35
Viacheslav Ivanov, "On the Limits of Art," (1913) in Selected Essays, translated by Robert Bird (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 2001), 75.

112
the materialization of the spirit or the spiritualization of matter." Matter is merely the self-

imposed limit that spirit sets for itself to overcome, and therefore cannot exist outside spirit.

Yet, spirit requires matter as its receptacle. Through the process of creation, matter and spirit

are gradually differentiated until they become polarized, resulting in a maximum of tension.

"This moment of the greatest antagonism between spirit and matter as fundamental

principles is at the same time the moment of their most intimate fusion in the concrete

phenomena of life."37 Conversely, "the closer, the more intimately spirit and matter are fused

in a phenomenon, the more intense is their polarity."38 Such dualistic tension results in a

powerful cosmic force. "Although mutually exclusive, they set in motion, when combined,

the evolution of the universe and of man in it.39

According to Schloezer, Scriabin related "the mutual attraction between spirit and

matter" to the attraction between the Eternal Masculine and the Eternal Feminine.40

Accordingly, human beings, as a reflection of the cosmos, embody a union of polarized

principles, such as spirit/matter, active/passive, feminine/masculine. Schloezer writes,

"Man's nature is 'actipassive,' 'femimasculine.' Man appears, therefore, in the image of God,

as its simulacrum; his reflection mirrors God's oneness, which, however, is cleft. The

oneness of man is a tense combination of two polar principles, which are fused in absolute

36
Ibid., 249.

37
Ibid, 211,249.

38
Ibid, 249.

39
Ibid, 209-210.

40
Ibid, 229

113
oneness only in God. In this sense man is the entity both closest to and most distant from

God."41

Scriabin characterized the human yearning to reunite with die Divine essence as

similar to the erotic relationship of spirit and matter, the Eternal Masculine and the Eternal

Feminine. Schloezer indicated that in Scriabin's mind, T and 'not-I,' the microcosmic and

macrocosmic consciousnesses, became "reduced to a sexual polarity."42

The erotic nature of polarity in Scriabin's world-view is confirmed by the following

summaries of his metaphysics by other contemporaries: Yuri Engel, Sabaneev, and Ivanov:

Spirit (the creative principle) feels within itself the primitive polarity of the principles
of male and female, active and passive, desire and resistance. The last principle,
sluggish, inert, is crystallized into the immobility of materialized forms, into the
Wor/dwith all its diversive [sic] phenomena. Disunited polarities attain in division
their culminating points.43

The whole universe in Skryabin's imagination (partly borrowed from theosophists) is

reduced to an 'alternation of rhythms' or as the Hindu occultists express it, to the
'breaths of the Brahma.' 'The creative spirit' of the universe first of all creates the
world by its desire, the creative will, it creates matter by the creative force of
resistance, and when this world has been created and everything is being
materialized, everything being differentiated in the process of 'involution,' there then
appears in that spirit a contrary striving toward fusion (the process of evolution) of
Spirit and World. Then the two polarities are combined in the erotic act of love, the
result of which is a return to the primordial state of chaos, after which follow new
'breaths of the Brahma.'" 44

The imprint of beauty is achieved by the sacrificial descent of The One. But the
Infinite One desires this sacrifice: he "wills to recognize Himself in the finite," and
this recognition, at all of its stages, is beauty; and this desire is passionate love, Eros.
By a primordial act of love, in the very womb of the Preeternal One, being becomes
bipolar and divides into two principles, the masculine and feminine, whose reciprocal

41
Ibid, 229-230.

42
Ibid, 131.

43
Yuri Engel, unpublished typescript translated by S.W. Pring, archived in the National Library of Canada, 136;
quoted in Kenneth Peacock, "Alexander Scriabin's Prometheus: Philosophy and Structure," (Ph.D dissertation,
University of Michigan, 1976), 101.

44
Sabaneev, Modern Russian Composers, translated by Judah A. Joffe (New York: International Publishers, 1927),
48-49.

114
 cravings give rise to all creative production. The divinely aesthetic phenomenon is, in
its real basis, a divinely erotic process.

Scriabin's unfinished libretto for the Preparatory Action is infused with complementary

polar symbolism.4* The libretto begins with a dialogue between the Masculine and Feminine

Principles, who respectively represent the active creative forces of the universe and the

passive world. In the first part of the Preparatory Action, the two polarities yearn to unite in a

mystical marriage. The Feminine Principle sings,

I am your dream about the future universe,

One of the bonds of dual being...

We will dwell in dreams with audacity

Equally serving dark and light [forces].47

The characters of the Masculine Principle and the Feminine Principle, correlated

with the polar attributes of spirit-matter, light-dark, and active-passive, are transfigured into

the Ray of Light ("AVH," a masculine noun) and the Wave ("BOAna," a feminine noun) after

their first mystical union. The Wave, referring to their polar fusion, sings, "I am the love that

sparkled within you/you are the light that sparkled within me," "You awakened in me

awareness of dual being/I am from now on a combination of " I " and alien "not I"."48

The libretto describes how this joining of opposites gave rise to the manifested

universe:

45
Ivanov, "Scriabin's View of Art," in Essays, 225-226.

46
Simon Morrison discusses this aspect of the Preparatory Action libretto and its relationship to the writings of
Jakob Bohme and Novalis in Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2002), 208-215.

47
Scriabin, "Libretto for the Preparatory Act" translated by Simon Morrison in Russian Opera (2002), 318.

48
Ibid., 324.

115
 The miracle of union came to pass
The circle closed and there arose
The fruit of the marriage of wave and light
The starry face of the created world.
The visions of creation blaze, and the wave,
Captivating inspiration with spells of consciousness,
Is all given to the contemplation of contrasts.
He shines in the sun, the God of the ruling light
And glitters in the stars in the boundlessness of night
She [the wave] hovers in space as a regal planet
Covered in a veil of pearl [colored] cloud.49

The concept of polarity, as it is constructed in Scriabin's own metaphysical

symbolism and his inspirational source literature, may be described as having five aspects: 1)

unity is defined through the compresence of polar opposition; 2) polarity arises out of a

more fundamental unity; 3) a thing and its opposite have relative, rather than absolute, value;

4) a thing and its opposite are never pure, but rather each contains a small amount of the

other; 5) the process of dividing a unity into its opposing components and the

recombination of polarities into a single fused entity is a productive, progressive force.

Polarity as musical woridview

Let us now take another look at the first part of Scriabin's comment to Sabaneev in

light of this definition of polarity. Scriabin commented that "in music of the Classical era,

the harmonic polarity was between tonic and dominant.. ."50 It is not difficult to imagine

why Scriabin applied the term polarity to the traditional relationship between tonic and

dominant sonorities.51 While these two harmonic functions have come to embody the

49
Ibid., 324-325.

50
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 289; BocnoMunaHux (2000), 260.

51
The compositional theories of A.B. Marx especially draw upon the idea of polarity as a concept applicable to
multiple aspects of a composition, including tonic-dominant harmonic motion. See Mark Spitzer, Metaphor and
Musical Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 308-309; Scott Burnham, editor and translator,

116
opposed values of consonant/dissonant, stable/unstable, thesis/antithesis, and home/away,

they are mutually dependent upon one another, in that the dominant requires the tonic for

its resolution and the tonic requires the dominant (especially the V7) for its definition. They

share a common tone, the fifth scale degree, and their interaction is the driving force behind

tonal music. However, dominant and tonic are usually sharply defined as functional

categories, and thus fall short of the values for reciprocity and identity among opposites in

the esoteric definition of polarity. Furthermore, in traditional tonality, tonic and dominant

possess an unequal hierarchical relationship. As Scriabin remarked, "the dominant and the

dominant chord gravitated toward the tonic." 52

Scriabin's new harmonic system may be understood as a modification of the

traditional tonal relationship between dominant and tonic to more accurately reflect the

esoteric properties of polarity. This modification occurred in four ways, summarized briefly

here and discussed in greater detail below. First, during his transition from common-practice

tonality to hypertonality, Scriabin "dominantized" his tonics. This process may be

conceptualized as the opposite of tonicization in tonal music, where an applied dominant

chord emphasizes a non-tonic triad as a temporary, local tonic. In dominantization, tonics

are destabilized by charging them with dominant functional potential. Tonics can be

dominantized either by preparing them with functional pre-dominants, or by replacing their

stable triadic consonance with dissonant, dominant-type harmonic structures. Thus, a single

referential harmony may be endowed by the musical context with a dual function as both

"tonic" and "dominant," a musical instantiation of the polar two-in-one. Sabaneev recounted

Musical Form in the Age ofBeethoven: Selected Writings on Theory andMethodby AdolfBernhardMarx (Cambridge:
Cambridge University press, 1997). Marx will be discussed in Chapter Seven.

52
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 289: BocnoMUHcmm (2000), 260.

117
his original impressions upon hearing the opening chord of Prometheus, which initially

struck him as a dominant ninth chord built on A (Example 3.2). Scriabin insisted that,

despite its sound, it should be viewed as a consonance:

"See, this is the fundamental chord," [Scriabin] said, playing the six-note
chord of Prometheus, "this for me replaces the triad. In the classical era, the triad
corresponds to equilibrium. Now, for me the equilibrium will be replaced by this
chord. It causes a wholly different sensation, does it not? Namely the sensation of
lights, the shining beams of luminosity. You mustn't think that this represents the
tonality of D," he added, as he noticed in my face my incomprehension as to why a
chord with all distinguishing features of a dominant ninth chord built on the fifth
scale degree in D major could now represent the tonality of A.
"That is certainly no dominant, but a fundamental sonority, a consonance.
Isn't it true that it sounds smooth and completely consonant?"
And although he played these "consonances" many more times, I only with
difficulty could hear them as such. But I must admit they did have a certain
smoothness and perhaps even a consonant character.53

EXAMPLE 3.2: The opening chord of Prometheus, and Sabaneev's initial aural
interpretation of it.

|ffg (flttg
•tfe m
Prometheus chord D: V9

In Scriabin's late, hypertonal music, all his musical structures became endowed with

dominant-like sound due to the increased presence of the tritone as a component interval.54

But despite the increasing uniformity in the quality of Scriabin's harmonies based on their

53
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 55; BocnoMunaHim (2000), 54.

54
The idea that Scriabin derived his harmonies from dominant sonorities appears in theoretical literature going
back to the earliest days of Scriabin analysis. A summary of this theory in Russian musicology may be found in
Guenther's translation of Dernova, Garmoniia Skriabina (1979), 79. Demova's own work is perhaps the most
systematic exploration of this idea. Other accounts of Scriabin's reliance on dominant-type harmonies during
his transition to atonality include those of Jim Samson, "Scriabin: The Evolution of a Method," Soundings 4
(1974): 64-75; James Baker, The Music of Alexander Scriabin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 1 -20;
Philip Ewell, "Analytical Approaches to Large-Scale Structure in the Music of Alexander Scriabin," (Ph.D
dissertation, Yale University, 2001), 78-132; Taruskin, "Scriabin and the Superhuman," (108-359 and The Oxford
History, vol. 4 (2005), 191-227.

118
intervallic structure, Scriabin's phrase rhetoric suggests that these sonorities often fulfilled

roles of preparation and resolution analogous to dominant and tonic functional categories in

tonal music. This is a second manifestation of the concept of polarity in Scriabin's harmonic

thinking: he took sonorities classifiable under a single functional category—the dominant—

and made them perform the work of both harmonic preparation and resolution in his

compositions.

The final type of harmonic polarization, common in the ^ost-Prometheus works,

occurred after Scriabin completely liberated the tritone from its conventional tonal

implications. Scriabin remarked, "in Prometheus, I have an entirely different system. Polarity

no longer exists between dominant and tonic, but rather between chords separated by a

diminished fifth."55 For Scriabin, the tritone as an interval and/or transpositional value came

to embody polarity at two different levels of structure in his later compositions. On a

harmonic level, bass motion by tritone often stood in for motion by perfect fifth or fourth.

At a higher level of structure, Scriabin's use of tritone cadential gestures combined with

large-scale tritonal transposition in the late small forms often results in a dual centricity

involving two pitch classes a tritone apart.

Polarity and the dominantization of the tonic, I: Prelude, op. 56 no. 1 (1908)

The Prelude, op. 56 no. 1 was the last of Scriabin's pieces to be written with an

explicit key signature.56 A comparison of the signature of three flats with the final,

concluding Eb triad would initially suggest El> as tonic for the work. However, Scriabin's bass

55
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 289; BocnoMUHaHux (2000), 260.

56
While this is true, it is possible to view quite a few of the signature-less works directly following op. 56 no. 1
as conforming to a contextually-established centricity about C. See op. 56 nos. 2-3, op. 57, nos. 1-2, and op. 58.

119
lines frequently feature passing motion from El> to C through Dl>, implying that the Eb major

chord is, in fact, operating as a functional dominant throughout the piece. Is the tonality of

op. 56 no. 1 El> or Ab? 57 As we shall see, Scriabin conflates the functional categories of

"dominant" and "tonic" by setting u p a conflict between the tonal implications of his

harmonic progressions and the phrase rhetoric of the work as a whole.

Example 3.3 shows the form of op. 56 no. 1 and a bass line reduced to reveal the

work's structural harmonic pillars. As the provisional analysis below the staff indicates, op.

56 no.l engages the expected harmonic trajectory of a rounded binary form in the key of E k

In the first A section, the initial phrase in measures 1-4 is repeated in measures 5-8, which

concludes with a strong closural bass gesture, Bb-Ek As one might expect, the B section

ends with an arrival on Bl> in measures 17-18, in the manner of a miniature retransition. T h e

final A ' section returns to El>, concluding with strong bass motion Bb-Eb in measures 21-22,

and the coda reiterates the arrival on Et> with plagal motion, Ab-Ek

EXAMPLE 3.3: F o r m and bass reduction of Prelude, O p . 56, no. 1

A B K coda
I ~4 ~§ I \ 9_n 13-18 ' 19-22 I 23-26 '

Ek I V I I V I V I iv I

57
Baker's Schenkerian reading of op. 56, no. 1 treats the piece as unequivocally in Ek See The Music ofAlexander
Scriabin (1986), 24-26.

120
 The chord structures and bass motion on the musical surface of op. 56 no. 1

consistently contradict my provisional analysis presented in Example 3.3. Example 3.4 shows

that, despite the key signature, the first phrase of Op. 56 no. 1 is analyzable in the key of Ak

In measures 1-2, the harmony moves from an El? dominant seventh chord in third inversion

to a tonic A\> triad in first inversion. Measure 3 sustains subdominant function to set up the

arrival on Efc> in measure 4, which sounds unmistakably like a half-cadence in At>, rather than

an authentic cadence in Ei>, as was implied by die bass reduction in Example 3.3.

EXAMPLE 3.4: Prelude, op. 56 no. 1, measures 1-4.

The ambiguity that characterizes the arrival on Eb in measures 3-4, (which are

repeated in measures 5-8 to conclude the A section), occurs at other structural moments in

the form. Example 3.5 shows the end of the B section, measures 17-18. A glance at the bass

reveals a sustained B!>, which seems to signal a dominant preparation for the return of Eb

and the reprise of the A section. However, Scriabin stacks a French augmented sixth

sonority above the Bb, implying a resolution to Eb as the dominant of AS>, radier than to El>

as a stable initial tonic.

121
 EXAMPLE 3.5: Prelude, op. 56 no. 1, end of B section, measures 17-18

ibh'r^3 —« —
f
-M
Qf-b-l- — 7
M

>
r~ \% >
•

«):•>, fll J M- • i ^ kS 1
»
—*
\>m * -« vm #— •

Ab Fr + 6
2 (=5 inEb? )

Similarly, die final cadence concluding die work consists of a German augmented

sixth chord in Ab moving to the final Eb harmony, as shown in Example 3.6. The Eb chord is

a stable triad, but one charged with dominant functional tendencies due to its preparation

and the manner in which it consistendy implied a withheld resolution to Ab elsewhere in the

work.

EXAMPLE 3.6: Prelude op. 56 no. 1, final cadence, measures 25-26.

S ^

Ab?: Ger + 6 V
b3

The ambivalent status of Eb as pitch class center in Op. 56 no. 1 is one manifestation

of polarity as it is defined in Scriabin's esoteric source readings. According to the key

signature and structural bass plan, Eb operates as a tonal center for the work, the root of its

122
final chord of resolution. However, the surface-level harmonic progressions and occasionally

the type of chord structure which appears above the El? fundamental bass pitch

dominantizes this pitch center. In op. 56 no. 1, El» operates as both a contextual tonic and a

functional dominant at once—a striking example of musical duality-within-unity.

The ambiguity of Eb extends to the augmented sixth sonorities Scriabin consistently

uses as his chord-of-preparation. If E!> is cast in the dual role of tonic/dominant for the

work, its preparatory augmented sixth chord must take on the supporting functions of

dominant/pre-dominant. This dual function of the augmented sixth chords is supported by

the ever-present tension between their functional status as pre-dominants and their

"dominant-type" chordal structures, which contain at least one tritone.

Polarity and the dominantization of the tonic, II: Desir, op. 57 no. 1 (1910)

Like the Prelude, op. 56 no. 1, Scriabin's Desir, op. 57 no. 1 maintains a connection to

the common practice polarity of tonic and dominant through use of bass motion by perfect

fifth. However, the esoteric notion of polarity manifests itself in a new way. At the opening

of Desir, two chords are presented separately as contextual tonic and dominant. In harmony

with the work's title, these two polar forces desire to reunite and merge with one another,

changing positions reciprocally, and melding as a composite in the concluding sonority.

As the score provided in Example 3.7 shows, the C-G and G-C bass gestures at the

opening and closing of the work suggest a centricity around C, an impression strengthened

by the strong arrivals on G and C in the bass in measures 4-5 and 9-10, respectively.

However, Scriabin's use of complex chord structures above the C bass weakens the sense of

tonal stability.

123
 Measures 1 and 2 begin with a gesture of two chords, labeled "T" and " D "

respectively. The reduction shown with stems and beams indicates an outer-voice framework

associated with the progression I-V in C major: the bass moves down by perfect fourth, C-

G, and the reduced upper voice moves down by step, E-D. However, the chromatic melodic

embellishments and the pitches of the inner voices transform this gesture into a hypertonal

progression.

The non-circled pitches above the C bass create a [C, E, F|] sonority—a

dominantrzed tonic. The circled pitches move from B to Ajt, perhaps a B appoggiatura

moving to an Aft chord-tone, which would create a [C, E, F#, A#] "French-sixth" sonority on

the last eighth-note of the beat. This dominantized C tonic moves on the second beat to the

dominant, [G, B, D, F], with chromatic embellishments circling the D. Over the course of

the piece, these two chords, the C tonic and the G dominant, strive toward fusion.

Their first encounter occurs on the downbeats of measures 4 and 5. The boxes show

pitches of the C tonic, [C F | E] over a sub-posed dominant fifth, [G D]. The circled inner

voice slips from B-BI? before moving to A—an echo and extension of the inner voice

descent B-A# in measures 1 and 2. In measures 4 and 5, however, the B on the strong beat

fills in the missing third from the lower [G-D] fifth—an example of interpenetration

between the tonic and dominant, like the yin within the yang.

124
 EXAMPLE 3.7: Desir, op. 57 no. 1.

C?: (N)

The second encounter between tonic and dominant forces, occurring on the

downbeats of measures 9 and 10, reverses their previous positions of power. Now, pitches

125
from the dominant sonority, [G, B, D, F, A], are in the upper voices, with a prominent scale

degree 4 in die highest register. The tonic filth C-G appears in the bass, and die E-El> inner

voice inflection fills in its missing diird.

In the gesture diat ends the piece, die bass indicates a cadential arrival on C, moving

dirough scale degrees i>2-5-l. However, the cadence does anydiing but confirm die original

[C, E, F#] sonority as tonic. On die downbeat of measure 13, a V9 [G B F A] returns widi

scale degree 7 in the upper voice, strongly implying a resolution to scale degree 1, which

never comes. The pitches of the dominant chord are sustained throughout die rest of die

gesture, even as a high E appears against it in octaves, a possible resolution of the hanging Fs

in measures 9-10. Yet this high E moves to Djt on beat four, which intensifies die dominant

as a raised fifth above die G bass. In die final bar, the pitches of this dominant are sustained

over die move to C in die bass. This final chord is intervallically-equivalent to a mystic

collection, almough it is an inverted form of the chord which is associated with Prometheus.58

Polarity and trifonal harmonic progressions: Etudes, Op. 65 nos. 2-3 (1911-1912)

In die works following Prometheus, functional tonal implications arising through

common-practice strategies are almost completely suppressed. Scriabin's sonorities in the

late music still retain the characteristic sound of dominants due to dieir tritone-rich

intervallic content, but no longer strongly imply resolution to a stable tonic. Instead, Scriabin

often treats diem as closural sonorities in themselves, prepared by a chord of similar type,

often accompanied by a ttitone bass gesture which stands in for motion by perfect fifth. In

That is, a set-analyst would label both sonorities as 6-34: [013579] hexachotds.

126
the late music, Scriabin retained the rhetoric of function even as he neutralized the tonal

implications of his compositional materials.

The first nine bars of Scriabin's Etude, op. 65 no. 2, shown in Example 3.8, exemplify

Scriabin's claim that he replaced the tonic and dominant of common practice harmony with

a new polarity involving chords related by tritone. The passage contains two repeated

cadential gestures in measures 2-3 and 6-9, indicated by beams below the score. In each case,

the two left-hand harmonies involved in the cadence are both [026] trichords. (I've labeled

bass pitches with numeric pitch-class designations to emphasize enharmonic equivalence

between F double-sharp and G.)

In measures 2-3, the motion in the bass between pes 1 and 7 creates a sense of

cadential articulation. Despite their similarity of interval structure and pitch-class content, the

two chords perform distinct roles in the cadential rhetoric. At measure 2, the agogic accent

emphasizes the sonority with pc 7 as a point of temporary arrival, and the sonority with pc 1

is its chord-of-preparation. In measures 6-9, transposition by tritone reverses this syntactic

order in the cadence that concludes the passage. Now the chord on pc 1 performs the role

of the closural sonority, and the sonority on pc 7 is its chord of preparation.

127
 EXAMPLE 3.8: Etude, Op. 65 no. 2, measures 1-9.

Allegretto « U _ _ . icinpo

t 7 1 (7?)

1 7 1

Example 3.9 extracts the left-hand harmonies involved in each cadence. Their status

as cadential harmonies encourages us to view their relationship in terms of transposition, as

shown in 3.9A. The transpositional paradigm creates the impression of two distinct chords,

differentiated by their orthography. However, transposition by tritone keeps the pitches B

and E i / F invariant, leaving only the tritone jumps of C#-Fx and G-C# as the sole means of

differentiation from a pitch-class standpoint. The spacing and orthography of these chords

in Scriabin's actual composition, shown in Example 3.9B, emphasizes the pitch class

invariance by the way the pitches of the invariant tritone [B, E#/F] are held (and spelled) as

common tones in the same register in measure 2. However, the doubled tone in the chord-

128
of-resolution thickens the texture slightly and contributes to a sense of differentiation along

with the tritone leap in the bass.

EXAMPLE 3.9: Cadential chords in op. 65, no. 2, measures 1-9.

A. Spacing and orthography showing their relationship of transposition by tritone.

m. 2 mm. 6-9

*e.
m IP
T, T„

B. Written according to their appearance in the left hand part of the score,

m. 2 mm. 6-9
He'
m *
It*

I've presented Scriabin's cadential [026] chords as related by transposition to

emphasize their analogy to the tonic and dominant in common practice tonality. Example

3.10A shows I and V chords in C# major, spaced in simple blocks to show their relationship

of transposition by perfect fifth. In Example 3.1 OB, these chords are spaced according to

voice-leading norms, emphasizing the sustained common tone G#. The difference between

3.10A and B is analogous to the difference between 3.9A and B: one is an abstract paradigm,

and one is a voice-leading procedure.

EXAMPLE 3.10: The common-practice analogy: I and V in Cjf major.

A. Spacing and orthography showing the relationship of transposition by
perfect fifth.

^#p w
T7 T7

129
 EXAMPLE 3.10, continued.
B. Written according to common-practice voice-leading norms.

Qt: I V V I

Unlike the diatonic model shown in Example 3.10, the structure of Scriabin's

cadential harmonies in Example 3.9 and their interval of transposition create a polar

paradox. Because the tritone symmetrically bisects the octave, a move by tritone is the

greatest intervallic distance in pitch-class space. Yet, because of Scriabin's tritone-rich

harmonic structures, the tritone's use as a transpositional value results in a maximum degree

of pitch class homogeneity between the two chords involved in the cadence.

The paradox is only deepened by the way Scriabin uses these chords in the passage

as a whole. The cadential gesture of measures 2-3 is itself transposed by tritone to form the

cadence of measures 9-10, resulting in a reversal of the syntactic order. This position-

switching corresponds to the reciprocal nature of polar pairs in Scriabin's esoteric source

texts. In the Etude, Op. 65 no. 2, Scriabin sets up his cadential harmonies as two

complementary aspects of the same essence, performing distinct yet reversible roles in the

rhetoric of his phrase.

The first eight measures of Scriabin's Etude, op. 65 no. 3, shown in Example 3.11,

provide another example of Scriabin's musical adaptation of polarity. The figuration in both

right and left hands is drawn from incomplete Prometheus chords, beginning with [G, F, B,

E, A], moving by tritone to [Db, O , F, Bi>, Eb] on the second beat of measure 1. The

130
reduction below the grand staff shows how the pitches in the upper voices relate to a

complete six-note mystic chord with the missing note indicated by parentheses.

Transposition of a complete mystic sonority by tritone holds four of the six pitch

classes invariant. Interestingly, Scriabin's decision to omit one common tone from each of

his tritone-related mystic pairs serves to further differentiate the two sonorities, as tritonal

transposition of the mystic pentachord now results in the appearance of three new pitch

classes, rather than just two.

EXAMPLE 3.11: Etude, op. 65 no. 3, measures 1-8.

131
 In measures 1-4, the fundamental bass and actual bass coincide, moving by tritone

within each measure. The missing pitch from each mystic chord is always a tritone above the

bass. The arrows show that the absent note from the harmony on beat one becomes the bass

of the incomplete harmony on beat two. Within each measure, each incomplete mystic

sonority provides the pitch its polar counterpart lacks, locking the two sonorities in a

perpetual dialectical relationship.

At first glance, the second part of the passage, measures 5-8, looks very similar to

what came before in measures 1-4. The bass continues its tritonal oscillation, this time

between the pitches B and E#. However, the actual harmonic rhythm has slowed to a

standstill, and the actual bass no longer corresponds to the fundamental bass. The entire

pitch content of measures 5-8 is drawn from a single B mystic chord, although, as the

reduction shows, each verticality on the quarter pulse is incomplete until the end. Like

measures 1 -4, the tritone bass oscillation fills in the missing pitch of the preceding chord.

In measure 8, Scriabin breaks the incessant left-hand rhythmic pattern, creating a

caesura to conclude the phrase. Instead of the oscillation between tritone-related bass

pitches, the left hand progresses through an octave B-B, divided by its tritone E#. Like the

previous three measures, the pitches in measure 8 are drawn from a single B mystic chord,

but the slowing of surface rhythm and change of pattern encourages us to hear this measure

as a single complete sonority, rather than the two incomplete versions of the same chord

seen in measures 5-7.

These first eight measures from the beginning of Op. 65 no. 3 present a progression

from harmonic duality to harmonic unity occurring in three stages. In measures 1-4, the two

tritone-related mystic chords within each measure share an intervallic structure, yet are

differentiated by their fundamental bass, pitch class content, and rhythmic emphasis. Each

132
possesses the pitch the other lacked in a perpetual cycle of reciprocal complementation, a

principle similar to yin-within-the-yang and the yang-within-the-yin. In measures 5-7, the

harmony splits into two incomplete chords which behave similarly to the tritone-related

pairs in measures 1-4, yet derive from a single B mystic chord. Finally, in measure 8, the

pattern breaks, and a complete B mystic chord becomes a single, unified concluding gesture

of the phrase.

The Etudes, Op. 65, nos. 2-3 illustrate Scriabin's claim that he replaced the fifth-based

polarity of tonic and dominant with a polarity between two chords related by tritone.

Scriabin's tritone-rich dominant-type harmonies, combined with the tritone's pitch class

invariance when transposed by itself, enabled Scriabin's new harmonic polarity to conform

more closely to the esoteric idea of polarity, which embedded the values of reciprocity and

identity within opposition. Instead of the unequal hierarchy of the tonic and dominant in

tonal music, Scriabin's polar tritone-related chords became equals, exchanging the roles of

chord-of-preparation and goal-sonority at will. The next section explores the implications of

this procedure for pitch-class centricity on the global scale.

Polarity and pitch class centricity: the Preludes, op. 74, nos. 1,3, and 5 (1914)59

Example 3.12 provides an annotated score for the texturally dense, chromatically-

saturated Prelude, op. 74 no. 1, part of Scriabin's last published collection. As in op. 65, nos.

2 and 3, Scriabin uses bass motion by tritone to emphasize cadential arrival at structural

divisions in the form.

59
Kip Wile discusses the contextual establishment of pitch class centricity in Scriabin's late works in
"Collection in Neocentric Music: A Study in Theory and Analysis of the Music of Debussy, Stravinsky,
Scriabin, Bartok, and Ravel," (Ph.D dissertation, University of Chicago, 1995).

133
 EXAMPLE 3.12: Annotated score of Op. 74 no. 1

D o u l o u r e u x , dechirant

6 6

& i> i>>- ,y„j^ . f c ^

A j^Y - Jffm A _ f l f fy \ ftfl P > "fT }

•^
V*
jlffiyM
*£
ssiP^S »*«

coda
^IP^o

134
 The first A section in op. 74 no. 1 consists of a single four-measure phrase. It begins

with a chord built on B# in the bass, and the appearance of C as a concluding bass pitch in

measures 3-4 suggests that the phrase is centered on B#/C, or pc 0, as indicated by

connecting beams. The cadential arrival on C is prepared by a tritone bass gesture from F(t—

a pitch which, in context, is acting as the tritonal para-dominant of C. In the opening phrase,

pes 6 and 0 have an unequal hierarchical relationship based on the rhetoric of the phrase—

pc 0 is the center, and pc 6 is its tone of preparation.

In measures 9-12, when the first section returns transposed by tritone, the parallel

cadence involves the same pitch classes in the bass, but the transposition reverses the initial

syntactic order and overturns their previous hierarchical arrangement. Now, F# is the

harmonic goal of the bass line, and B# (pc 0) is its tritonal para-dominant. The coda reiterates

this cadential tritone leap, confirming F# as the new pitch class center for the final section.

Example 3.13 shows a reduction of the bass line for op. 74, no. 1. The local tritone

bass leaps which conclude each A section are indicated by slurs. Each individual formal

section is centric, ending on the same (or enharmonically-equivalent) pitch class in the bass.

The large-scale transposition of the first A section by tritone has two effects: at the local

level, it reverses the syntactic order of the two pitch classes involved in the cadential gestures

which end each section, so that B#/C and F)( exchange roles of center and para-dominant.

The hierarchical status of the two pitches is relative, rather than absolute.60 At the formal

level, large-scale tritonal transposition sets up a conflict between sectional and global

centricities, resulting in a dual harmonic orientation around two pitch classes a tritone apart.

60
The piece ends with pc 0 sustained in die bass, prepared by pc 6, suggesting that 0 acts as a pc center for the
•work as a whole.

135
 EXAMPLE 3.13: Bass-line reduction of ternary Prelude, Op. 74 no. 1.

T6

A: mm. 1-4 B: mm. 4-8 A' + coda: 8-16

m f fc^
r
\r
tz—i r — f t :> ~N -

0 6
0 6 6

The Prelude, op. 74 no. 3 presents another type of bass plan conceived along similar

lines. Example 3.14 shows the first half of the piece, measures 1-12. The piece begins with

an oscillating bass gesture between B# and F#, but the hierarchical relationship between them

is not immediately clear. In measures 1, 3 and 5, the Fjt seems to be emphasized by its lower

registral placement, its position on beat 2, and its total agogic value, but measures 2 and 4

subtly reverse this accent, shifting emphasis to the B#. It seems that F# tends to slightly

dominate these first six measures, due to its lower register, rhythmic emphasis in the

initiating measures of each two-measure unit, as well as its status as the concluding melodic

pitch of the passage. However, the oscillation pattern creates undeniable ambiguity regarding

the contextual hierarchy of the two pitches involved.

In measure 5, the tritone bass oscillation begins to rise through a minor 3rd cycle,

moving from B#-F# through D|t-A, arriving at Ffl-BJf in measure 8, a repetition of the gesture

from the first measure transposed up a tritone. Just as in op. 74 no. 1, transposition by

tritone results in a local syntactic reversal, flipping the original oscillation pattern between F#

136
and B#. Now B# occupies the lower registral position, and receives the subde rhythmic

accent.

EXAMPLE 3.14: Prelude, Op. 74 no. 3, measures 1-12.

Allegro drammatico

137
 The first section ends in measures 9-12 with two long sustained chords, the first built

on Dtf, and the final chord on B#. While there is no tritonal cadential leap, harmonic

orientation on Bjt for the section is established through the sheer length of the concluding

sonority.

Example 3.15 shows a reduction of the bass line for the entire piece, which is in

binary form. In the first half, measures 1-12, die bass rises through a tritone from Fjt to Bft,

creating a dual orientation around the two pitch classes a tritone apart. The second half of

the piece repeats the first half, but transposes it by tritone. This reverses the sectional tritone

traversal of part one, creating global centricity on Fft for the entire piece. The dual/centric

interaction of op. 74 no. 3 is precisely the inverse of op. 74 no. 1. In the first Prelude, large-

scale tritonal transposition resulted in a global duality between two pitch classes a tritone

apart, but in op. 74, no. 3, sectional duality resulted in global centricity through the reversal

brought about by large-scale transposition by tritone.

EXAMPLE 3.15: Bass-line reduction of the binary Prelude, op. 74 no. 3.

T6

A: ram. 1-12 A' + coda: mm. 13-26

0 0
6 6

The fifth and final prelude in the op. 74 set manifests a similar procedure involving

syntactic reversal through large-scale transposition, but does so in a slightly different way.

138
Example 3.16 shows a bass-line reduction of the work. Two parallel sections are created

through the repetition of a miniature aab pattern. It is clear that tritone transposition in the

second section creates a large-scale dual orientation of the piece around the pitch classes A

and El>, but neither of these pitches are presented as candidates for centricity in the opening

of each section.

EXAMPLE 3.16: Bass-line reduction of binary Prelude, op. 74 no. 5.

a: mm. 1 -2 a': mm. 3-4 b: mm. 5-8

i r
A: • s
^
^-p-jjr-^-j
L
a: mm. 9-10 a": 11-12 b': 13-16
1 I
A': m =V
r—s:
s^a
+T-.

Example 3.17 provides a score for measures 1-4. The first measure actually begins

with a perfect fourth in the bass, but the Bb is raised by the end of the measure to create a

tritone leap, B-F. In measure 2, this gesture is transposed down a major third, G-Dt», and the

bass arpeggio figure confirms harmonic orientation on Dk

139
 EXAMPLE 3.17: Prelude, O p . 74 no. 5, measures 1-4.

a
Fler, belliqueux

140
 The second miniature section, measures 3-4, consists of a transposition of measures

1-2 down a major third. The material that concluded with Db now emphasizes A, or pc 9, as

a goal of the section. Measures 5-8, shown in Example 3.18, maintain this harmonic

orientation on A, which is re-emphasized through tritone bass leaps at the beginning and

end of the section. In measure 6, the tritone bass gesture D#-A is transposed by tritone,

reversing the syntactic order of its initial appearance. The leap then rises by minor third

through the tritone to conclude by confirming A at the end of the section in measure 8.

EXAMPLE 3.18: Prelude, Op. 74 no. 5, b section, measures 5-8.

b imperieux.

As the bass sketch in Example 3.16 shows, the second half of the binary form begins

with a repetition of measures 1-2 at their original pitch. The material of measures 3-12 is

141
then transposed by tritone in measures 11-12, resulting in a reversal of the bass gestures,

which now confirm Eb instead of A. In op. 74 no. 5, large-scale transposition generates a

global polarity between the members of the tritone pair [A, Dtf/Eb], but as we saw, neither

pitch class was emphasized in the opening measures of the piece. Rather, the harmonic

orientation of each section emerged gradually as a result of transposed repetition at the local

level, and large-scale transposition by tritone created a dual orientation around two pitch

classes a tritone apart at the global level.

In these three Preludes selected from op. 74, Scriabin's large-scale tritonal

transposition presents interesting issues regarding syntax and centricity, given his use of

tritones to structure his bass lines. Example 3.19 provides a synopsis. At the local level,

transposition by tritone reverses the syntactic order of Scriabin's tritone bass gestures—for

instance, a leap from C to Fjt becomes F#-C. Large-scale transposition may create conflicts

between harmonic orientation at the sectional and global levels. If a formal section is centric,

beginning and ending with the same pitch class in the bass, large-scale transposition of that

section by tritone can create a dual harmonic orientation for the composition at the global

level. We saw this type of bass plan in op. 74 no. 1. If, on the other hand, a formal section is

dual, beginning and ending with two pitch classes a tritone apart, large-scale transposition of

that section by tritone can create centricity at the global level, as we saw in op. 74 no. 3.

142
 EXAMPLE 3.19: Synopsis of the effects of large-scale T6

Local phenomenon:
T6
Tritone bass gestures *" Syntactic reversal

Sectional/global phenomena:

T6
Sectional centricity *~ Global duality

T6
Sectional duality * Global centricity

T o what extent did this very specific use of tritone invariance appear in the bass lines

of other small forms belonging to Scriabin's late period? Example 3.20 provides an overview

of twenty-two preludes, etudes, poemes, and character pieces, all published between 1910

and 1914. This list excludes Prometheus and the five sonatas that fall within this time period.

Although tritonal bass organization as outlined here plays a role in the larger works, their

more complex formal designs, transposition schemes, and narrative trajectories often

obscure or minimize the phenomenon. Scriabin's small forms provided an opportunity for

him to explore this maneuver in its most concentrated schematic format and raise it to the

level of a compositional premise.

For each opus number in Example 3.20, columns two and three identify the

composition's formal scheme and whether it features large-scale transposition by tritone.

Column four lists those pieces which contain Scriabin's much-favored tritone bass gestures

at some point in the composition. Column five identifies compositions that exhibit an

obvious pitch-class centricity at the global level. For the purposes of classification, the

concept of pitch-class centricity is defined rather narrowly: in order for a piece to be listed as

143
globally centric, the same pitch class that is contextually emphasized in the bass at the

beginning of the work must also be the lowest note of the final sonority.

EXAMPLE 3.20: Table of Scriabin's small forms, ca. 1910-1914. Those exhibiting the
features summarized in Example 3.18 are indicated in gray.

I II III IV V VI
Opus/no. Form Large-scale Tritone Global PC Tritone
T6? Bass Centricity61 Duality62
Gestures?
59/1 AAB No Yes E? E/5
59/2 ABAB Yes Yes 0? 9/3, 6/0
61 Sonata Yes Yes 1 7/1
63/1 ABCA No Yes 3/9
63/2 ABAB Limited Limited T?
65/1 ABABAB No Yes 4/T
65/2 AA Yes Yes 7/1
65/3 AB[B/A]AB No Yes 7/1
67/1 AfBIA No Yes 0 6/0
67/2 A[B]A No Yes
69/1 ABAB Yes Limited 0 6/0
69/2 ABABA Yes Yes 1 7/1
71/1 ABAB Yes Yes 9/3
71/2 ABAB No Yes 2 2/8
72 TC No Yes 4 4/T
73/1 ABAB Yes Yes 3/9
73/2 ABAB limited Yes 5 5/E
74/1 ABA Yes Yes 0/6
74/2 ABA No No 6
74/3 AA Yes Yes 6 0/6
74/4 ABA No No
74/5 ABAB Yes Yes 9/3

Column six indicates the compositions in which centricity at the sectional level

results in a dual emphasis of two pitch classes a tritone apart under large-scale tritonal

transposition. According to these criteria, pieces can exhibit a clear sectional tritone duality

61
Pieces are identified here as globally "centric" only if the same pitch-class is contextually emphasized in the
bass at both the beginning and die end.

62
Tritone duality may emerge over the course of a composition. Pieces may be centric A N D dual, or dual and
N O T centric.

144
and still be globally centric if they emphasize the same bass pitch at the beginning and end.

But pieces can be dual and not globally centric if sectional centricity shifts from one pitch

class of the tritone to the other over the course of the composition.

While many pieces use tritone bass gestures and quite a few use large-scale tritone

transposition, only the nine pieces highlighted in grey combine them to create the

phenomena summarized by Example 3.19. These nine compositions are classified according

to the models already encountered in the op. 74 set in Example 3.21.

In Model 1, tritone duality manifests itself as a global issue, as it did in op. 74 no. 1.

In Model 2, individual sections may be dual but the composition as a whole is globally

centric, as in op. 74 no. 3. Finally, Model 3 embraces the pieces which don't seem to fit the

other two models but still exhibit some type of tritone syntactic reversal through large-scale

tritonal transposition. In op. 74 no. 5, the bass polarity emerges over the course of the

composition. This is also the case with Op. 71 no. 1. However, in Op. 59 no. 2, two tritone

pairs seem to participate equally in the syntactic flip.

EXAMPLE 3.21: Pieces exhibiting tritone polarity and syntactic role reversal are
grouped according to their bass plans.

Title Pc Tritone Form

Center polarity
Model 1 Etude, Op. 65 no. 2 7/1 AA
(dual) Guirlandes, Op. 73 no. 1 3/9 ABAB
Prelude, Op. 74 no. 1 0/6 ABA
Model 2 Poeme-Nocturne, Op. 61 1 7/1 Sonata
(dual and centric) Poeme, Op. 69 no. 2 1 7/1 ABABA
Prelude, Op. 74 no. 3 6 0/6 AA
Other Prelude, Op. 59 no. 2 0? 9/3,6/0 ABAB
Poeme, Op. 71 no. 1 9/3 ABAB
Prelude, Op. 74 no. 5 9/3 ABAB

145
 How might this procedure be further conceptualized? If the global harmonic

orientation of the work is dual, as in op. 74 no. 1, should its two orienting pitch classes be

considered a unity, a kind of (neo)-double-tonic complex? Or, in those cases where the

relative hierarchical status of each pitch class at the level of the phrase or section can be

easily determined, should they be imagined as functioning as two separate entities, analogous

to a local tonicizer and tonic in tonal music?

This theoretical dilemma reflects the music's essential ambivalence regarding this

very question. This ambivalence is yet another manifestation of polarity in Scriabin's musical

metaphysics. Indeed, the almost paradoxical nature of polarity in Scriabin's source readings

would encourage us to maintain both conceptualizations simultaneously. Whether the overall

bass plan of the work is dual or centric, the two orienting pitch classes may be recognized as

fused in a tonic complex as well as performing separate local roles of tonic and tonicizer.

Our analytical contemplation of Scriabin's tritone bass organization and its behavior

under large-scale tritonal transposition invites us to understand something essential about

the mystical nature of polarity in his worldview. Opposites are complementary aspects of

one and the same thing. As such, they may fuse, reverse, or exchange identities in a perpetual

dialectic. Polarity is not mere duality, but also unity.

Polarity as a theoretical value in the Russian tradition

The polar quality of Scriabin's late music has been recognized in the Russian

theoretical tradition, beginning with the conceptually rich, though analytically problematic

theories of Scriabin's contemporary Boleslav Yavorsky, continuing with the work of Varvara

146
Dernova and more recently by Yuri Kholopov.63 All three identified Scriabin's use of the

unresolved tritone with this polar quality, although only Kholopov used the term explicitly.64

They agreed on the dominant-like structure of Scriabin's harmonies, but diverged on the

question of whether they should always be considered as functional dominants, implying an

imaginary resolution to a more stable tonic triad (Yavorsky and Dernova) or should be

viewed as contextual tonics in themselves (Kholopov).

Each scholar explored some aspect of the tritone's doubleness-within-unity in their

theories. The core of Yavorsky's "theory of modal rhythm" consisted of the recognition that

a single tritone could imply functional resolution to two different tonal centers at once,

located a tritone apart from one another (Example 3.22). Yavorsky constructed a series of

modes based on systematic transpositions of this basic idea, which resulted in various arrays

such as the octatonic, whole-tone, Hungarian scale, and chromatic aggregate.

63
For summaries of Yavorsky's work, see Gordon D. McQuere, "The Theories of Boleslav Yavorsky," in
Russian Theoretical Thought in Music, edited by Gordon D. McQuere (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1983),
109-164; Ellon DeGrief Carpenter, "The Theory of Music in Russia and the Soviet Union, ca. 1650-1950,"
(Ph.D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1988), 450-505; 718-795. Yavorksy's theories were extended by
his student S.V. Protopopov in EAHMeHTM crpoeHHH My3MKaAHofi p c m (Muzgiz, 1930); translated by Gordon
D. McQuere as "The Elements of the Structure ofMusical Speech by S.V. Protopopov: A Translation and
Commentary" (Ph.D dissertation, University of Iowa, 1978). An overview of die work of Yavorsky, Dernova,
and Kholopov is provided by Philip Ewell, "Analytical approaches to large-scale structure in the music of
Alexander Scriabin," (Ph.D dissertation, Yale University, 2001), 162-209.

64
Guenther explains why he translated Yavorksy's term AaAOMH pHTM, (literally "modal rhythm") as "polar
attraction" in "Varvara Demova's Garmoniia Skrabincf'(1979), 8-12. According to Guenther, this choice more
clearly reflects the sense of die term "mode" as it was used by Yavorsky to refer to a generalized sense of
stability and instability, contributing to harmonic gravitation toward a tonic. This is a slighdy different usage
from the more specific meaning of polarity adopted here. Kholopov's use of the term noAHpHocn> ("polarity")
derives direcdy from the passage in Sabaneev's memoir quoted above, and his analytical system more closely
reflects die properties of polarity in Scriabin's esoteric world view. See Ewell, "Analytical Approaches" (2001),
209.

147
 EXAMPLE 3.22: Yavorsky's "double system."

Resolution # 1 : Resolution #2: "Dual tonic"

• IZ2I
zzz:
P W1

Yavorsky's student S.V. Protopopov expanded his teacher's theories and applied

them to real music in his treatise "The Elements of the Structure of Musical Speech," which

was supervised by Yavorsky.65 Despite the potential of Yavorsky's system to generate many

of the sonorities favored by Scriabin, Dernova believed it fell short when it was applied to

actual compositions. She was particularly critical of Protopopov's Yavorskian analysis of

Scriabin's Enigma, op. 52, no. 2.66 Protopopov decided that the composition was in the "dual

augmented mode of C," largely based on the sonority in the final measure, shown in

Example 3.23A.

EXAMPLE 3.23: Protopopov's analysis of Enigma, op. 52 no. 2, measures 55-62,

A. Score

b
£ttm 1 1 1 1 F=r * te
leger
«*
i P IJ SEES PE
f

^rfafflam e
envoli

s ¥ I rs

65
McQuare, "The Elements" (\91$).

Guenther, "Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia S'kriabina" (1979), 61-62. Protopopov's analysis of Enigma ax^y be
found in McQuere, "The Elements of the Structure ofMusical Speech" part 2 (1978), 147ff.

148
 EXAMPLE 3.23, continued.

B. Derivation of the final sonority of Enigma, op. 52 no. 2

Resolution # 1 : Resolution #2: Dual tonic:

TL m % ff W dfg
-&-

In Protopopov's analysis of the final sonority, shown in Example 3.23B, a single

tritone, [B/Cb F] resolves to two augmented triads, [C E G#] and [Gb Bb D] respectively. The

combination of the two augmented triads, [C E Gft Gb Bb D] is enharmonically-equivalent to

the final sonority shown in the score, [C Ebb Gb Bb Fb Ab]. However, as Dernova pointed

out, there may be a much simpler explanation of the final harmony. Example 3.24 shows the

work's opening sonority, which is clearly an Ab dominant seventh chord. This same sonority

appears in root position near the end of the composition in measures 55 and 57. If one

imagines the bass still resounding through the work's concluding measures, the final sonority

could easily be interpreted as an Ab dominant thirteenth chord with flat fifth. This

interpretation makes far more sense given Scriabin's key signature of five flats, as well as his

stylistic tendency to dwell on the dominant function during this creative period, using

dominants to replace the tonic at moments of structural arrival.67

67
Guenther, "Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia Skriabina"(1979), 61-62.

149
 EXAMPLE 3.24: Enigma, op. 52 no. 2, measures 1-3.

Etrange, capricieusement

Despite the analytical oddities of Yavorsky's theory as practiced by Protopopov,

Dernova still praised Yavorsky's general notion of modal rhythm, writing that "one can say

without exaggeration that this discovery is one of the most important achievements

accomplished in the field of music theory in the early twentieth century."68 Indeed, Dernova

adapted some of Yavorsky's concepts to form her own theory of the "tritone link." She

maintained the idea that consonance and dissonance were relative, contextually-established

values, and adopted Yavorsky's focus on the symmetry and invariance of the tritone. 69

Dernova conceptualized all Scriabin's late harmonies as based on rninimally-altered

dominants, often containing a lowered or "split" chordal fifth, as shown in Example 3.25.70

EXAMPLE 3.25: Dernova's minimally-altered dominants.

Dominant Fr.+6: Oct./mys. subset: WT: Oct./mys. subset:

[0258 [0268] [02368] [02468] 2368!

y? VI VI V" V*

;
Ibid., 65. It is not clear how much of Yavorsky's original writings were available to Dernova.

Guenther, "Varvara Dernova's System of Analysis and the Music of Skryabin," in Russian Theoretical Thought
(1983), 168-170.
70
Guenther, "Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia Skriabina" Q.919), 85.

150
 Dernova's manipulations of the dominant resulted in sonorities other scholars have

identified as Scriabin's favored harmonic resources: the French augmented sixth tetrachord,

as well as subsets of the mystic, whole-tone, and octatonic collections. However, Dernova

was not very interested in the specific intervallic content of Scriabin's harmonies or the

collectional arrays these sonorities generate when put through various transposition

patterns.71 Dernova's main concern was explaining what she perceives as the core essence of

Scriabin's harmonic progressions. By classifying all Scriabin's sonorities as altered dominants,

Dernova was able to describe how Scriabin used sonorities drawn from a single functional

category and made them do the work of two.

EXAMPLE 3.26: Dernova's "tritone link."72

DA DB

Example 3.26 shows Dernova's representation of the "tritone link," the harmonic

maneuver that she felt was the core of Scriabin's late practice. It consists of two sonorities,

which Dernova labeled the "initial dominant" or DA, and the "derived dominant" or DB. In

Dernova's abstract model, both DA and DB are French sixth tetrachords, and all four pitch

classes are held invariant through the transposition by tritone. Despite the fact that the two

71
Dernova selected various whole-tone sonorities and put them through sequential transposition patterns to
illustrate paradigmatic fundamental bass motions. These "sequences" generated various collectional arrays. In
her "major enharmonic sequence," Dernova transposed whole tone chords by tritone and major thirds/minor
sixths, which resulted in a whole tone array; in her "minor enharmonic sequence," she transposed whole tone
chords by tritone and minor thirds/major sixths, which yielded an octatonic array; and in the "functional
sequence," she transposed chords by tritone and perfect fifth/fourth, which yeilded a chromatic array. See
Guenther, "Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia Skriabina" (1979), 97, 211, and 239.

72
Ibid., 89.

151
chords are identical in terms of their pitch content, Dernova's orthography emphasized that

transposition results in a change of chordal root. The tritone link, as Dernova initially

explained it, consisted of a single sonority, but two chords with distinct fundamental basses

related by tritone. While the initial and derived dominants may be equal in terms of pitch

content, they are not equal in terms of their contextually-established hierarchical relationship

to one another. Dernova explained,

Usually one of these dominants acquires, in Skryabin's musical context, the status of
the principal sonority, the other being derived from it.. .To be sure, in the course of
a musical composition, the relation of the initial and derived dominants can change;
that is, the original derived dominant can become the initial, and the initial, the
derived."73

Dernova's tritone link was a dual expression of a single function, two chords with

distinct fundamental basses comprised of the same set of enharmonically-equivalent pitches.

Additionally, a two-level hierarchy is embedded within Dernova's tritone link, that of

"initial" and "derived," yet either chord could assume either role over the course of a

composition. These attributes of the tritone link are very similar to the polar qualities of

Scriabin's tritone usage described earlier in the chapter.

Dernova's work has been received quite favorably in English language scholarship.

For example, Jay Reise described her as having "cracked the code" of Scriabin's late music,74

and Jim Samson and Richard Taruskin cite her approvingly in their own overviews of

Scriabin's style.75 But as elegant as Dernova's system is in theory, it has some analytical

73
Ibid, 89-91.

74
Jay Riese, "Late Skiiabin: Some Principles Behind the Style," Nineteenth-Century Music 6/'3 (Spring 1983): 221.

75
Jim Samson, Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900-1920 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1977; reprint, 2002), 209-210; Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music vol. 4
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 208; "Scriabin and the Superhuman: A Millennial Essay," in Defining
Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 330-331.

152
weaknesses. Her method of determining chordal root by referring to a normalized chord in

stacked thirds is questionable given the evidence of Scriabin's predilection for quartal and

quintal chordal morphologies. Dernova's commitment to traditional tertian chord structures

sometimes causes her to misidentify the fundamental bass.

Example 3.27 shows Dernova's own analytical reduction of die parallel A sections of

op. 74 no. 1. (The full score with my annotations is given in Example 6.12). Interestingly,

Dernova interprets F# as her primary dominant, DA. In Dernova's sketch, F(t appears as the

fundamental bass of her opening and closing sonorities. A glance at the opening gesture in

die score, Example 3.28, reveals that the actual bass is B#. Dernova's normalized chord

structure, shown below die staff, interprets this first gesture as an F | dominant seventh

chord with split fifth—implying diat the opening chord is in second inversion, with the

lowered form of the fifth scale degree in the bass.

EXAMPLE 3.27: Dernova's analytical reduction of the Prelude, op. 74 no. I.7

First part Reprise

-.- -. .-.- IKX 33C
jeez
JF^i? K5~

F# D# C C A Fi

' This sketch is taken from Guenther, "Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia Skraibina"'(1979), 219, example 39.

153
 EXAMPLE 3.28: The opening gesture of op. 74 no. 1, with Dernova's analysis.

Score

Dernova's
analysis

EXAMPLE 3.29: Prelude, op. 74 no. 1, conclusion of the first A section, m.m. 2-4.

fE^EE^ ^r
Score
gyKT*'
}£L.
tz:
ffK«

Demcrva's *W
:::::
analysis ^i

V|

But as Example 3.29 shows, the chord that concludes the A section, measures 2-4, is

nearly identical in structure, spacing, and pitch content to the left-hand chord which began

the work: [Bjt Fft E] reappears as [C Ftf E Bb] in measure 3. In measure 4, the added pitch, Bb,

drops out. As we have seen, Dernova analyzes the first sonority as an F | chord, but the

second in measures 2-4 is a C dominant ninfh chord with lowered fifth. The similarity

between these two chords in pitch space makes Dernova's analysis implausible, despite the

154
attractive fundamental bass pattern progressing through a complete minor third cycle she

asserts in Example 6.27.

Dernova's tertian normalization procedures cause her to invert the conflict between

sectional bass centricity and global bass duality expressed by the actual bass line. As Example

3.27 shows, Dernova's fundamental bass is dual at the sectional level, and centric for the

piece as a whole, while the actual bass is centric at the sectional level and dual for the piece

as a whole (Example 3.13). However, Dernova acknowledges "it is frequently not known

which of the two notes of the compound bass the composer considers the root and which

the lowered fifth. As always, this uncertainty and ^determinancy are part of the composer's

intention." Indeed, in a later essay on the same piece, Dernova reversed her original

fundamental bass interpretation.78 Dernova's analytical inconsistency reveals a larger issue

regarding the essential ambivalence of Scriabin's music and the challenges it presents to

traditional modes of analytical thought.

Despite her innovations, Dernova (like Yavorsky) continued to insist that the tritone

link was a dual expression of the dominant, which still somehow referred to imaginary tonic

that was suppressed in the actual music. She wrote,

In establishing the tritone link as the basis of the polarity and rejecting the
concluding tonic, Skryabin in no way destroyed or obliterated tonic function. The
tonic continued to exist, and, if necessary, the composer could employ it, just as he
did in the conclusion of Prometheus. But in the great majority of cases, he preferred
the concept of a tonic in distant perspective, so to speak, rather than the actually
sounding tonic. .. .The relationship of the tonic and dominant functions in
Skryabin's work is changed radically; for the dominant actually appears and has
varied structure, while the tonic exists only as if in the imagination of the composer,
the performer, and the listener.79

77
Ibid., 377.

78
Varvara Dernova, IlocAeAHbie npeAK>AHH CKpaBiiHa [The last preludes of Scriabin] (Moscow; Izdatel'stvo
Muzyka, 1988), translated in Ewell, "Analytical Approaches" (2001), 189-196.

79
Guenther, "Varvara Dernova's Garmoniia Skraibina" (1979), 171.

155
 Dernova asserted that the concluding sonority of a work (whatever it was) became

by default the primary dominant, DA. Even in the very late works, where gestures of

functional tonality are completely absent, this concluding DA inevitably referred to some

stable tonic triad. For example, Dernova interpreted the Etude op. 65 no 3 (see Example

3.11) as in the key of C major, based on its tritone link Db-G.80

As easy as it is to criticize some of Dernova's theoretical assertions and her

inconsistent analytical application of them, her observations on the behavior of the tritone-

link uncannily match properties of "polarity" as the concept is used in Scriabin's esoteric

source literature. This is ironic, as Dernova was very careful to distance herself from the

"theosophic fantasies" surrounding Scriabin's music, a move that was perhaps necessary

given the political realities of her day. Dernova, while championing Scriabin's music,

believed that its occult and decadent associations had been generated by members of

Scriabin's circle rather than emanating from the composer himself. Dernova wrote that "the

pompous utterances of Sabaneev and Schloezer.. .did more than anything else to help create

a special aura around Skryabin, one which was unhealthy and far removed from the bright

spirit of his work."81

Yuri Kholopov, on the other hand, incorporated the theoretical ideas buried in

Sabaneev's text into his own system for conceptualizing Scriabin's harmonies. Drawing upon

Sabaneev's statement that Scriabin viewed his dominant-like harmonies as "consonances,"

Kholopov broke with Yavorsky and Dernova by viewing Scriabin's dominant-type

80
Ibid, 199.

81
Ibid, 67.

156
harmonies as performing a tonic function in Scriabin's phrase rhetoric.82 Kholopov

developed an extended system of harmonic functional relationships among scale degrees

based on Scriabin's account of replacing the tonic-dominant polarity with one based on the

diminished fifth.83 As Example 3.30 shows, Kholopov's "New Tonality" consists of tonic,

subdominant, and dominant functions, represented by the scale degrees 1, 4, and 5

respectively, to which he adds major and minor mediants, represented by scale degrees ±3

and +6. The other scale degrees, + 2, +4, +7, are construed as "doubles" of the scale degree

function a tritone away.

EXAMPLE 3.30: Kholopov's "New Tonality" in C (after Ewell).84

T © m M S X D M wt M $

T = tonic X = tonic double

dominant double D = dominant
W = major submediant double IM= major submediant
m
= minor mediant va — minor submediant
M ~ major mediant M = major mediant double
S = subdominant S> = subdominant double

Kholopov's labeling system for bass scale degrees neady captures the fused,

inversional relationships between Scriabin's tritone poles. Example 3.31 shows Kholopov's

82
Yuri Kholopov, "CKPH6HH H rapMOHH XX BeKa [Scriabin and the Harmony of the Twentieth Century]" in
YueHue mnucKU [Scholarly Writings] (Moscow: Izdel'skoe Ob'edinenie Kompozitor, 1993), 28-29, quoted by
Ewell, "Analytical Approaches" (2001), 200-201. See also Kholopov, TapMottua [Harmony] (Moscow: Muzyka,
1988), 418-24.

83
Kholopov, "Scriabin and the Harmony of the Twentieth Century," ibid.

84
Ewell, "Analytical Approaches," (2001), 202.

157
analysis of the Prelude, op. 74, no. 1. Like Dernova, Kholopov interprets the concluding

chord as the fundamental sonority of the work, but while Dernova labeled it the primary

dominant, or DA, Kholopov labels it tonic, or T. For Kholopov, the global tonality of the

piece is Fjt diminished, reflecting the F# final and the mmor-third-cycle construction of the

work's bass line. The work begins on B#, the "tonic double" of F# in Kholopov's system.

His labels reflect the polar nature of the relationship between Bjj and F# as posited by the

work's global harmonic motion. Kholopov interprets the tritone motion Ab-D in measures

5-6 as a brief modulation to a D diminished tonality.

EXAMPLE 3.31: Yuri Kholopov's analysis of the Prelude, op. 74, no. 1, after Ewell.85
Only outer voice framework and functional designations are shown.

F | dim. i

b !># k*4 f
f tS-tt fff if E-f i£f C-T.f f i f f Vf
l_ 3 _l 1 _ 3 .

3HK =§p 25C

Fjt dim- n X—ui

— T

>\ I.A Upltg f g £

g= £ M
L_£_J

>j f_

•^Si#'
M
ui T — «J T

85
Ewell, "Analytical Approaches," (2001), 204.

158
 Kholopov's analytical system best reflects the oppositional, yet fused quality of

Scriabin's tritonal bass organization as well as the concept of polarity itself.86 As we shall see

in the next three chapters, polarity was a central idea in Scriabin's overall conception of

Prometheus, op. 60. Nietzsche and Blavatsky both used polar language to describe Prometheus

as a mythic figure. "So the dual nature of Aeschylus's Prometheus, his nature which is at the

same time Dionysian and Apollonian, might be expressed thus in a conceptual formula: 'All

that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in bodi,'" wrote Nietzsche, referring to die

consequences following Prometheus's theft of fire.87 Blavatsky elaborated on Nietzsche's

interpretation when she wrote,

The Titan is more than a thief of die celestial fire. He is the representation of
humanity—active, industrious, intelligent, but at the same time ambitious, which
aims at equaling divine powers. Therefore it is humanity punished in die person of
Prometheus, but it is only with the Greeks. With the latter, Prometheus is not a
criminal, save in the eyes of the gods. In his relation with the Earth, he is, on the
contrary a god himself, a friend of mankind, which he has raised to civilization and
initiated into the knowledge of all the arts; a conception which found its most
poetical expounder in Aeschylus.88

However, for Blavatsky, the Prometheus figure's true polarity lies in the additional

layers of meaning she associates with the myth. In Blavatsky's cosmology, Prometheus is not

the bearer of fire, but rather of Fohat or Astral light, die essential divine substance which

unifies the cosmos and is the source for human enlightenment.

86
Kholopov's upside-down, right-side up labels are reminiscent of those found in Sigfrid Karg-Elert,
Polaristische Klang- und Tonalitatslehre [Precepts on the Polarity ofSound and Tonality} (Leipzig, F. E. C. Leuckart, 1931).
For a gloss on Karg-Elert's work, see Daniel Harrison, Harmonic Function in Chromatic Music: A Renewed Dualist
Theory and an Account of Its Precedents (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 313-322.

87
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy," in Basic Writings ofNietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann
(New York: The Modern Library, 2000), 72.

88
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 525-526.

159
 Behold! thou hast become the light, thou hast become the Sound.

—Helena Blavatsky1

CHAPTER FOUR
T H E ESOTERIC PROGRAM O F PROMETHEUS AND SCRIABFN'S
SYSTEM O F T O N E - C O L O R CORRESPONDENCE

Prometheus, op. 60 according to Sabaneev, Delville, and Newmarch

The Prometheus legend was one of the most stimulating pieces of Hellenic

mythology in nineteenth-century scholarship and aesthetics. While comparative philologists

used the Prometheus legend to fuel their speculations on early man's discovery of fire and its

sacred significance in prehistoric thought, allegorical interpretations of the myth abounded

in romantic literature.2 Prometheus's role as creator, his defiance of the gods, his lack of

repentance in the face of torture, his sacrifice for the sake of humanity, and his eventual

liberation appealed to many romantic artists. Although Scriabin's work on a Promethean

theme had many musical predecessors—including Beethoven's ballet Die Geschbpfe des

Prometheus, op. 43 (1801), Schubert's song "Prometheus," D. 674 (1819), Liszt's tone-poem

1
Helena Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence, Being Chosen Fragmentsfrom the "Book of the Golden Precepts" (Pasadena:
Theosophical University Press, 1992), 21-22.

2
Writers who produced work based on the Promedieus legend include Goethe, A.W. Schlegel, Byron, Percy
Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. See Paul A. Bertagnolli, Prometheus in Music: Representations of the Myth in the
Romantic Era (Burlington: Ashgate Press, 2007) and Raymond Trousson, Le theme de Prome'the'e dans la literature
europeene, two volumes (Geneva: Droz, 1964).

160
Prometheus (1850-55), Halevy's vocal work Promethee enchaine (1849), Hubert Parry's Scenesfrom

Prometheus Unbound (1880) for chorus and orchestra, and Gabriel Faure's lyric opera Promethee

(1900)—Scriabin's treatment, filtered through Blavatsky, pushes past an allegorical reading

toward the purely symbolic. Sabaneev described the resulting degree of abstraction in his

description of the tone poem's subject-matter, published four months before its March 1911

premiere.

It would be a fruitless effort on the part of listeners to search for some primitive,
musical illustration of the famous myth. Herein they will find neither the "theft of
fire" nor the torturing of Prometheus by the kites. A. N. Scriabin has approached the
subject matter from a more profound standpoint. For him, Prometheus'is the
personification of man's creative soul, the personification of ideas of boundless
creativity, self-contained in the absence of goals.3

Sabaneev identified the source of Scriabin's inspiration, writing that "for quite some

time already, that broad synthetic doctrine known as 'theosophical teaching' has completely

captivated the mind of our composer."4 Indeed, a network of Blavatskian symbolic ideas

constructed around the Prometheus legend emerge in three important documents associated

with op. 60: Sabaneev's program notes for the Moscow premiere on March 2,1911; Jean

Delville's cover design for the first edition of the score, published in 1911; and Rosa

Newmarch's program notes for the London premiere on February 1,1913, later printed in

The Musical Times. The first two documents were reportedly created at the request of the

composer according to his specifications;5 Newmarch's program appeared in the London

3
Leonid Sabaneev, 'TIpoMeTefi," Mu^yka 1/27 (November 10, 1910); translated by Don Louis Wetzel as
"Prometheus—A Preview," Journal of the Scriabin Society of America 5/1 (Winter 2000-2001), 99.

4
Ibid, 100.

5
Sabaneev, BocnoMUHanim o Cxpji6uHe [Memories of Scriabin] (Moscow: Classika-XXI, 2000), 94; Erinnerungen an
Alexander Skrjabin, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2005), 98.

161
premiere program booklet apparently with Scriabin's approval.6 Although these materials

lack the authority of an account of the musical action from the composer, their proximity to

Scriabin is close. Regardless of their legitimacy, these materials were instrumental in shaping

first audiences' perception of the music.

Sabaneev claimed that his 1911 program was dictated "word-for-word" to him by

Scriabin, during a long night of philosophical conversation about the significance of the

Prometheus myth.7 His program reads as follows:

Prometheus, Satanas [sic], and Lucifer all meet in ancient myth. They represent the
active energy of the universe, its creative principle. The fire is light, life, struggle,
increase, abundance, thought. At first, this powerful force manifests itself wearily, as
languid thirsting for life. Within this lassitude there appears the primordial polarity
between soul and matter. The creative upsurge or gust of feeling registers a protest
against this torpor. Later it does batde and conquers matter—of which it itself is a
mere atom—and it turns to the original quiet and tranquility, thus completing the
cycle.

Sabaneev's opening reference to "ancient myth" relates Scriabin's Prometheus to the

mythopoetical projects of Nietesche, Wagner, Ivanov, and Blavatsky. However, the

immediate source of Sabaneev's program is The Secret Doctrine. The first few sentences are, in

fact, a close paraphrase of the following passage from the second volume:

6
Rosa Newmarch, notes for the London premiere of Prometheus, Queen's Hall, February 1,1913, published as
'"Prometheus': The Poem of Fire," The Musical Times 55/854 (April 1,1914): 227-331. Newmarch wrote, "the
composer himself has taken no part in the preparation of these notes, but the fact diat he consented to their
being reprinted in toto for the concert of the Queen's Hall Orchestra on Saturday, March 14, may be taken as an
assurance that he is satisfied with them as can aid to the better understanding of his work, until the time comes
when he himself will give us a more complete revelation of his musical philosophy. This he will certainly do,
although he considers that die hour is not yet ripe," ibid., 228.

7
Sabaneev, BocnoMUHamm (2000), 94; Erinnerungen (2005), 98.

8
Sabaneev, program notes for Prometheus, Op. 60 (premiered Moscow, March 2,1911); translated by Faubion
Bowers, Scriabin: A Biography, second edition, revised (New York: Dover, 1996), 206-207.

9
See Chapter Two.

162
 Satan, or Lucifer, represents the active, or, as M. Jules Baissac calls it, the 'Centrifugal
Energy of the Universe' in a cosmic sense. He is Fire, Light, Life, Struggle, Effort,
Thought, Consciousness, Progress, Civilization, Liberty, Independence."10

This textual borrowing reveals the extent to which Blavatsky's writings informed the

network of ideas constructed around Prometheus, whether the program originated with the

unbeliever Sabaneev or was dictated to him by the composer himself. The parallels between

Prometheus, the fire-bringer, with Lucifer, whose Latin name literally means "light-bearer,"

was one of Blavatsky's main tropes. Prometheus was a semi-divine Titan, Lucifer was an

angel of God, and both were exiled from heaven. She writes, "The allegory of the fire of

Prometheus is another version of the rebellion of the proud Lucifer, who was hurled down to

the bottomlesspit, or simply unto our Earth, to live as man."11 For Blavatsky, the

Prometheus/Lucifer figure is no evil demon, but the personified symbol of Astral light.

Blavatsky refers to Astral light as Akasa, the vivifying essence described in the Vedas which

gives rise to all manifested reality.

Akasa—the astral light—can be denned in a few words; it is the universal Soul, the
Matrix of the Universe, the "Mysterium Magnum" from which all that exists is born
by separation or differentiation. It is the cause of existence; it fills all the infinite Space;
is Space itself.12

Akasa—like its product, Fohat-—embodies the Theosophical value of polarity, or the

inherent unity of opposing aspects. As Blavatsky explains below, Akasa or Astral light is a

unity of the polarities spirit/matter, male/female, and good/evil.

The Astral Light or A.nima Mundi is dual and bisexual. The (ideal) male part of it is
purely divine and spiritual, it is the Wisdom, it is Spirit or Purusha [i.e., the Vedic

10
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 245. Interestingly, the passage is a quotation from one of
Blavatsky's unnamed adherents who, according to her, fell away from the fold.

11
Ibid, 237, n. 462.

12
Ibid, 511-512.

163
 deity]; while the female portion (the Spiritus of the Nazarenes) is tainted, in one
sense, with matter, is indeed matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the life-
principle of every living creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the fluidic perispirit, to
men, animals, fowls of the air, and everything living.13

Lucifer, as the symbol of Akasa, also takes on a polar aspect. The figure embodies

light and darkness, goodness and evil, spirit and matter. Indeed, Blavatsky draws upon St.

John's description of Jesus as the "Light of die World" to claim that the Christian Savior is

yet another manifestation of the Prometheus/Lucifer archetype.14 In her discussion of

Lucifer, it becomes apparent that Theosophy views good and evil as relative, radier than

absolute values, and as reciprocal aspects of the same essence. On this point, she quotes a

motto from Kabbalah:

The Astral light may be God and Devil at once-—Demon est Deus inversus: that is to
say, though every point of Infinite Space thrill the magnetic and electrical currents of
animate Nature, the life-giving and death-giving waves, for death on earth becomes life
on another plane. Lucifer is divine and terrestrial light, the "Holy Ghost" and "Satan,"
at one and the same time, visible Space being truly manifested effects of the two who
are one, guided and attracted by ourselves, is the Karma of humanity, both a personal
and impersonal entity.15

There is no Devil, no Evil, outside mankind to produce a Devil. Evil is a necessity in, and one
of the supporters of the manifested universe. It is a necessity for progress and
evolution, as night is necessary for the production of Day, and Death for that of
Life—that man may live for ever. Satan represents metaphysically simply the reverse or the
polar opposite of everything in nature. He is the "adversary," allegorically, the
"murderer," and the great Enemy of all, because there is nothing in the whole
universe that has not two sides—the reverses of the same medal. But in that case,
light, goodness, beauty, etc., may be called Satan with as much propriety as the Devil,
since they are the adversaries of darkness, badness, and ugliness."16

13
Ibid., vol. 1,196.

14
John 13:14, King James Version. See Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), 468.

15
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 513.

16
Ibid., 389. Emphasis original.

164
 One of Sabaneev's descriptions of Scriabin's world-view closely echoed Blavatsky's

association of Lucifer with the cosmic creative force. Sabaneev wrote, "for [Scriabin], the

'creative spirit' brought everything into existence.. .and he called it a variety of names:

'Satan,' 'Lucifer,' 'Prometheus,' and the 'Spirit of Fire.'"17 Sabaneev's program for Prometheus

(subtitled Poem ofFire) also reflects the polar values embedded in Blavatsky's concept of

Akasa. It reads, "At first, this powerful force [the Promethean spirit] manifests itself wearily,

as languid thirsting for life. Within this lassitude there appears the primordial polarity

between soul and matter."18

In one of the quotations above, Blavatsky described Akasa "dual and bisexual,"19

taking on both the male and female characteristics of the Vedic deities Purusha and Prakriti,

associated with spirit and matter, respectively. As the symbol of Akasa, the

Prometheus/Lucifer figure also takes on a sexual polarity, being bisexual or androgynous.

This aspect of Scriabin's concept of Prometheus emerges strongly in another "document"

closely connected to op. 60: the cover for the first edition score (1911), designed by Jean

Delville (Example 4.1).

Unlike Sabaneev and Newmarch, Delville was an adherent of Blavatsky, and was

heavily involved with the Theosophical Society in Belgium, where he and Scriabin first met.2C

Sabaneev recalled that Delville created the cover design for the score of op. 60 according to

Scriabin's direction, including "particular mystical symbols, which would more broadly

17
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 150-151; BocnoMunaHux (2000), 141.

18
Sabaneev, quoted in Bowers, Scriabin (1996), 206-207.

19
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), 196.

20
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 81; BocnoMUHanttH (2000), 79. For a discussion of the relationship of Delville's
Theosophical beliefs to his aesthetics and artwork, see Brendan Cole, "Jean Delville's Esthetique Ide'a/iste: Art
Between Nature and the Absolute, 1887-1906," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 2000.

165
reflect the meaning of Prometheus." 1 Significantly, the figure of the Androgyne appears in the

center of the image.

EXAMPLE 4.1: Jean Delville's cover design for the first edition of Scriabin's Prometheus.

3_JU_,;.„^-.->.-

21
Sabaneev, Urinnerungen (2005), 81; BocnoMUHamw (2000), 79.
Scriabin described the design to Sabaneev, asking him,

"Do you see? How do you like it? These are all symbols—the Androgyne is at the
center. It is well known that the male and the female of each Race were fused together
and sexual separation was not complete. This is an ancient Luciferian symbol. And
his eyes, do you like them? .. .The eyes embody the Will. And this here is also the
'Theme of Will'" (he played it then on the piano), "which represents the stuff of die
cosmos, as well as the Ur-Chaos, from which the world-will of all life has awoken."22

As we have seen, Sabaneev's description of the Androgyne as an "ancient Luciferian

symbol" deeply resonates with the idea of polarity, sexual and otherwise, bound up in

Blavatsky's network of ideas surrounding the Prometheus/Lucifer figure.23 Yet Blavatsky's

creation narrative also includes literal Androgyne, semi-divine creatures who existed before

the full separation of genders during the Third Root Race. The semi-divine Androgyne

reproduced asexually through a spiritual process of emission, as the creator-gods did, but

after the division into male and female at the end of the Third Race, offspring were

begotten, not created.24

Other symbols in Delville's image serve as object lessons in the associative mentality

of Blavatskyian symbolics. The lotus located at the bottom of the design is a symbol of the

fire-god Agni, who was born from the lotus according to Vedic scripture. Accordingly, the

lotus's association with Agni/Prometheus/Lucifer makes it yet another manifestation of

polarity. Blavatsky writes that the lotus is "the emblem of productive powers of both

spiritual and physical nature,"25 and "the lotus is the two-fold type of the Divine and human

22
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 81; BocnoMUHctHux (2000), 79.

23
One source of this symbolism is the occult figure of Baphomet, associated in medieval times with the
Knights Templar. Baphomet is a goat-headed figure possessing both male and female sexual characteristics,
embodying polarity as the union of positive and negative energies. Blavatsky refers to Baphomet in The Secret
Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), 253.

24
Ibid, vol. 2,173.

25
Ibid, 379.

167
hermaphrodite, being of dual sex, so to say." Blavatsky also describes the lotus's organic

growth as representing the development of cosmic creation, "the Universe growing from the

central Sun, the POINT, the ever-concealed germ."27 Its opening petals signify the process of

universal becoming, which Blavatsky casts in Neo-platonic terms as universal knowing,

where ignorance is cast as Darkness and knowledge is cast as Light.28

The "World Lyre" enclosing the face of the Androgyne symbolizes human

knowledge.29 According to Blavatsky, Orpheus received the lyre, otphorminx, from his father

Apollo, the sun god, and its seven strings represent the "7-fold mystery of initiation."30 In

Delville's image, the lyre's seven strings are pegged to the sun, the symbol of enlightenment.

Paralleling the story of Prometheus's import of heavenly fire to earthly realm, Blavatsky

claimed that it was Orpheus who imported the secret knowledge of the Brahmanical

Mysteries from India to Greece.31 The nature of this occult wisdom is indicated by the tiny

symbol located on the lyre's base: two interlaced double triangles forming a six-sided star

around a "seventh" central point. This symbol was incorporated into the seal of the

Theosophical society (Example 4.2) which appeared on the cover for Le Lotus Bleu, a

Theosophical journal to which Scriabin is known to have subscribed.32

26
Ibid.

27
Ibid., vol. 1, 379. See Blavatsky's chapter, "The Lotus as a Universal Symbol," vol. 1, 379-386.

28
Ibid., 380.

29
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 81; BocnoMUHanm (2000), 79.

30
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 529.

31
Ibid., 530; Blavatsky and Annie Besant, Occultism of the Secret Doctrine (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 1993),
277-278.
32
Manfred Kelkel, Alexandre Scriabine: sa vie, I'esotericisme et le langage musicak dans son oeuvre, vol. 2, (Paris: Editions
Honore Champion, 1978), 54-57. Kelkel focuses on numerological relationships among the various rays and
nebulas bursting forth from the center of the diagram and identifies the central visage as that of Prometheus.

168
 EXAMPLE 4.2: Seal of the Theosophical Society.

The six-sided hexagram is a common symbol in a number of traditions from which

Blavatsky compiled her doctrine, including Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.33 For

Blavatsky, it refers to die sum total of occult lore contained in The Secret Doctrine?* As the

description below makes clear, it is a symbol of the polarity of astral light.

The soul of the ASTRAL LIGHT is divine, and its body (the light-waves on
the lower planes) infernal. This light is symbolized by the "Magic Head" in the
Zohar [i.e., a core text of the Kabbalah], the double Face on the double Pyramid: the
black pyramid rising against a pure white ground, with a white head and face within its
black triangle; the white pyramid, inverted—the reflection of the first in the dark
waters, showing the black reflection of the whiteface—
This is the "Astral Light," or DAEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS.35

While the Theosophical concept of polarity in all its different manifestations was a

prominent theme in both Sabaneev's program and Delville's design for the score, Rosa

Newmarch's later program written for the 1914 London premiere of Prometheus focused

33
The tiny svastika incorporated into the emblem for the Theosophical society also appears as a religious
symbol in a number of different cultures stretching back to antiquity. Blavatsky linked it to the seven holy
vowels described in the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia, as well as the Hindu "mystery of die seven fires" in The Secret
Doctrine vol. \ (1888), 411.

34
This symbol briefly appears in Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 36.

35
Ibid., vol. 1,423-424.

169
more closely on the Theosophical narrative of human evolution and the role of Prometheus

in Blavatsky's anthropogenesis. Like Sabaneev, Newmarch was an admirer of Scriabin but

not a Theosophist herself. She claimed that the notes were "founded partly on my own

deductions from the score and pardy from articles on Scriabin written (in Russian) by L.

Sabaneev."36 Like Sabaneev's early Mu^yka article on Prometheus quoted above, Newmarch

begins by disassociating the content of Scriabin's tone poem from exoteric versions of the

famous myth.

The legend of Prometheus as presented in this Symphony differs very widely

from the version with which we have been familiarized by Aeschylus and Shelley.
The Promethean myth is much older than even Hesiod, who relates it. It belongs,
indeed, to the dawn of human consciousness. The interesting design from the cover
of the score (reproduced in the programme) is by M. Jean Delville, the leader of the
theosophist cult in Belgium, and shows us no ordinary conception of the Titan,
'rock-riveted and chained in height and cold,' with the vulture perpetually gnawing at
his vitals, but one of that class of adepts symbolized at a much later date by the
Greeks under the name of Prometheus. These 'Sons of the Flame of Wisdom,' who
were closely allied with the purely spiritual side of man, were alone able to impart to
humanity that sacred spark which expands into the blossom of human intelligence
and self-consciousness.
According to the teaching of theosophy, the nascent races of mankind, not
yet illuminated by the Promethean spark, were physically incomplete, possessing only
the shadows of bodies; sinless, because devoid of conscious personality—in
theosophical terms, 'without Karma.' From this condition they were liberated by the
gift of Prometheus—the fire which awakened man's conscious creative power. But
among those shadowy entities some were already more prepared to receive the spark
than others. The more advanced understood the value of the gift, and used it on the
higher spiritual planes; they became the Arhats, or Sages, of succeeding generations.
The less highly organized turned it to gross material uses, involving suffering and
evil. Thus the Promethean gift assumed a dual aspect: on the one hand it proved a
boon, on the other a curse.
We have here the elements of a fairly definite and infinitely varied
psychological programme: the crepuscular, invertebrate state of the Karma-less
humanity; the awakening of the will to create, in both its aspects; the strange moods
of bliss and anguish which follow the acquisition of self-consciousness; probably also
the last, fierce rebellion of the lower self preceding the final ecstasy of union, when

36
Newmarch, "Prometheus," (1914), 227-331. Interestingly, Sabaneev claimed that he was author of the notes.
"At Scriabin's request, I authored a 'thematic analysis' of Prometheus and supplemented these with a short
representation of Scriabin's ideas as well as a summary of Prometheus. Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, a great admirer of
Scriabin, translated all of it into English." See Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 218; BocnoMumttux (2000), 198.

170
 the human mingles with the divine—with Agni, the fire which received into itself all
other sparks—in the ultimate phase of development.

Again, certain phrases in Newmarch's program have Blavatsky's stamp upon them.

As we have seen, Blavatsky associated the Vedic fire god Agni with Prometheus/Lucifer. It

was Blavatsky who hailed Prometheus as the "grandest of all myths" in the Secret Doctrine™

and described die Titan's gift as "that sacred spark which burns and expands into the flower

of human reason and self-consciousness.'"9

Chapter Two described Blavatsky's conception of cosmic time as progressing

through seven stages—or, as she terms them, Rounds. Within each Round, human souls

advance through seven microcosmic stages that Blavatsky calls Root Races. The seven Root

Races progress through a cycle of evolution and involution. In the evolutionary phase,

spanning Root Races I-IV, humans begin as pure spirit and gradually acquire material

embodiment. In the involutionary phase, Races IV-VII, this process is reversed as humans

lose their base material attributes and progress toward spiritual reunification with the Divine

cosmic essence.

According to Blavatsky, the Prometheus legend refers to a specific event that

occurred in the epoch of the Third Root Race. The early Races, despite their spirituality,

were intellectually deficient. As the Races descended into materialization, they became dumb

and bestial. During Root Race III, a select few acquired Manas, the defining human

characteristic, which Blavatsky saw as a microcosmic reflection of Akasa, the universal

37
Newmarch, "Prometheus" (1914), 228.

38
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, 525.

39
Ibid., 95.

171
light.40 The Prometheus legend became an allegory of this pivotal moment, which Aeschylus

echoed in his description of the Promethean gift as both fire and knowledge.

Yet, reflecting the duality inherent in Akasa and the figure of Prometheus/Lucifer

himself, the gift of Manas had both positive and negative consequences. On the positive

side, Manas allowed humanity to turn away from base materiality and begin its ascent toward

a heightened spirituality in Root Races IV-VII. Blavatsky writes,

Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the "Lord of Phosphorus" (brimstone was a
theological improvement), and Lucifer, or "Light-Bearer," is in us: it is our Mind—our
tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism.
Without this principle—the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine
principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine mind—we would
be surely no better than animals.41

In Blavatsky's septenary structure of the human, Manas is the vital principle that

links the four lower, material aspects with the higher, spiritual aspects of atma and Buddhi.42

Although Manas is a gateway, a necessary step toward the realization of these higher spiritual

aspects in Races VI and VII, for modern humans it binds the material to the spiritual,

causing shame, suffering, and perpetual internal conflict. Blavatsky describes this negative

aspect of Prometheus's gift as follows:

While saving man from mental darkness, [Prometheus] inflicted upon him the
tortures of the self-consciousness of his responsibility—the result of his free will—
besides every ill which mortal man and flesh are heir to. This torture Prometheus
accepted for himself, since the Host became henceforward blended with the
tabernacle prepared for them, which was still unachieved at that period of formation.
Spiritual evolution being incapable of keeping pace with the physical, once its
homogeneity was broken by admixture, the gift thus became the chief cause, if not
the sole origin of Evi/.4i

40
Ibid., 13.

41
Ibid., 513.

42
See Chapter Two for an overview of the Blavatskian septenary structure of man.

43
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, 421.

172
 This drama of the struggle of Prometheus with the Olympic tyrant and despot,
sensual Zeus, one sees enacted daily within our actual mankind: the lower passions
chain the higher aspirations to the rock of matter, to generate in many a case the
vulture of sorrow, pain and repentance.44

The dual consequences of the acquisition of Manas are yet another manifestation of

the idea of polarity, or duaHty-within-unity, which emerged as a central theme in these three

documents close to the composition of Prometheus. For Blavatsky, polarity was the

fundamental characteristic of die Astral light, Akasa, which was reflected microcosmically in

the Promethean gift of Manas. However, the idea that Akasa represents a unified duality, or

two-within-one, manifests itself in yet another way, which was hinted at in Delville's cover.

The lyre's strings pegged to the sun not only represent universal knowledge, but they also

reveal Akasa's fundamental essence. In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky describes Akasa as

unified vibrational force consisting of both light and sound.4S As we shall see, Scriabin's belief

in the fundamental correspondence between music and light had its origins in his esoteric

source readings.

Scriabin and synaesthesia

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Scriabin was not a "true" synaesthete in the

psychological sense we have come to adopt today. In the past century, psychologists have

come to sharply differentiate synaesthesia as a neurological condition and synaesthesia as a

cross-sensory association acquired via other means. This distinction is not necessarily present

44
Ibid, 422.

45
Ibid, vol. 1, 205; vol. 2, 511-512.

173
in the earliest literature on Scriabin.46 Modern clinical definitions of synaesthesia, such as that

developed by the neurologist Richard Cytowic, stress die involuntariness of the syndrome

and the stability of synaesthetic associations.47

We know from first-hand accounts of Scriabin's "synaesdiesia" that his tone-color

associations were not entirely spontaneous, nor did they possess die stability associated with

the modern clinical definition. Rather, the composer deliberately worked out his tone-color

mappings for their musical, logical, aesdietic, and mystical effects, and he modified his

conception over time. Sabaneev stressed the constructed nature of Scriabin's colored-hearing

in a 1927 article investigating the phenomenon of synaesdiesia in both its spontaneous and

acquired manifestations. He wrote,

I would bring to your notice, however, the extreme subdety and instability of the
whole of this domain: in it casual associations, to which die attention is furthermore
directed, may become customary and cling to the phenomenon, as it were, for ever.
The same fate may overtake associations intentionally evoked by the construction of
some preconceived dieory. To such I would refer Skryabin's idea of tone-vision...
Skryabin simplified die problem to die extreme, rationalizing it prematurely, and
possibly destroying thereby die vitality of the association, which for him became a
habitual one.48

There exists, again, die sphere of purely mystical correspondences between sounds
and colours, based on the ancient occult symbolism and the teachings which arose in
connection with the Egyptian temples concerning the associations of the planets and
the days of die week and the notes of die scale, of the zodiac and the mondis. I must
remark, for die sake of scientific accuracy, that the influences of diese mystical
associations were often encountered in my investigations, especially with Skryabin,
who, as we know, was a mystic and a theosophist in his form of thought, and whose
sound-color conceptions were partly conditioned by them.49

46
Kevin T. Dann provides a cultural history of these changing definitions in Bright Colors Falsely Seen: Synaesthesia
and the Search for Transcendental Knowledge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

47
Richard Cytowic, Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses, 2 nd edition (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), chapter 3.

48
Sabaneev, "The Relation Between Sound and Color," translated by S.W. Pring, Music and Letters 10/3 (July
1929): 273.

49
Sabaneev, "Sound and Color" (1929), 267n.

174
 Since the earliest literature on Prometheus, scholarly attention has focused on the

nature and status of Scriabin's colored hearing. Recendy, several authors have devoted

considerable space to arguing that Scriabin was not synaesthetic according to our modern

definition. Though interesting in its own right, the question of "was he or wasn't he?" has

the unfortunate potential to divert attention from questions concerning Scriabin's actual

musical use of color in Prometheus. The modern distinction between "true" (i.e., neurological

synaesthesia) and artistic or mystical synaesthesia should by no means diminish our view of

die validity of tone-color correspondences within Scriabin's personal reality. Scriabin's

synaesthesia was, for him, a matter of religious faith and profound artistic commitment. His

metaphysical belief in the fundamental identity between sound and light, informed by occult

theories, forms the aesthetic premise of Prometheus. As a constructed system, Scriabin's tone-

color correspondence scheme unveils interesting aspects of the work's structure and clarifies

analytical issues presented by the score or its sound-image alone.

Scriabin's "Chord of the Pleroma" and occult theories of sound-light correspondence

Examples 4.3A-B show the famous sonority which provides the pitch resources for

Prometheus,firstas a chord on C of stacked fourths of various qualities, and then arranged as

a gapped scale on C.51 As Maria Lobanova has shown, Scriabin's sketches for Prometheus

50
James Baker, "Prometheus and the Quest for Color-Music: The World Premiere of Scriabin's Poem ofFire with
Lights, New York, March 20, 1915," in Music and Modem Art, edited by James Leggio, (New York: Roudedge,
2002), 73-78; Bulat Makhmudovich Galeev and Irina Leonidovna Vanechkina, "Was Scriabin a Synesthete?"
Leonardo 34/4 (2001): 357-361. Christopher Dillon compared the evidence regarding Scriabin's synaesthesia
against Cytowic's clinical definition in "Scriabin's Synaesthesia and its Significance in Prometheus, Poem ofFire,
Op. 60, and in Other Selected Late Works" (DMA document, Peabody Conservatory of Music, 2002), 2-25.
Dillon reaches the same conclusion of these other authors, stating that Scriabin was not synaesthetic in a
clinical sense, but rather developed his color-tone scheme for artistic purposes.

51
My orthography follows that of Sabaneev, "TTpoMeTeH' CKpaGnHa [Scriabin's 'Prometheus']" MutQika 13
(February 26,1911), 289. This article and its famous presentation of the "mystic chord" as stacked fourths

175
reveal that he selected these pitches from the upper partials of the overtone series,

confirming Sabaneev's original pronouncement that "the scale itself, C D E F# A B\>, is

acoustically justified. These sounds are overtones of the so-called harmonic scale of

sounds.. .the aforementioned scale consists of the [harmonics] 8, 9, 10, 11-13, 14."53 Scriabin

constructed this sonority as a Chord of Nature.

EXAMPLE 4.3: The Pleroma sonority, according to Sabaneev.

A. Chord on C B. Scale on C

JCS: *i
=#~

>o_
S m

C. Acoustic series (for comparison).

.»• kg. $*. S:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

became available to western readers in "Prometheus von Skrjabin," published in DerBlaue Reiter (1912). See
"Scriabin's Prometheus," in The Blaue Reiter Almanac, edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Fanz Marc, translated
by Henning Falkenstein (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), 134. Scriabin's sketches for Prometheus reveal
him experimenting with the mystic chord sonority as a transpositional entity, arranged both in stacked fourths
and stacked thirds. In both of these arrangements, the root of die chord remains the same. See Gottfried
Eberle, Zwischen Tonalitat undAtonalitat: Studien %ur Harmonik Alexander Skrjabins (Miinchen: Musikverlag Emil
Katzbichler, 1978), 64. In American literature, the influence of set dieory has caused many analysts to identify
the mystic chord with set class 6-34: [013579]. Although diis representation highlights the chord's intervallic
content, normalization according to set theory obscures chord root identity, and dius makes the relationship
between the luce and the Pleroma chords opaque. See, for example, Baker, The Music of Alexander Scriabin (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 259.

52
Maria Lobanova, "Zahlen, Mystik, Magie: Neueste Erkentnisse zu Skrjabins Promethee," Das Orchester 50/1
(January 2002): 8.

53
Sabaneev, "Scriabin's Prometheus," (1974), 134. In a 1914 interview, Scriabin also told the British
psychologist Charles Myers that the Prometheus chord was based on the overtone series. See Myers, "Two
Cases of Synaesthesia, British Journal ofPsychology! (1914-1915): 114.

176
 In English literature, Scriabin's sonority has come to be known as the mystic chord,

but according to Igor Boelza, Scriabin called it the "Chord of the Pleroma."55 The word

Pleroma literally means fullness or plenitude (from the Greek n\y]Qou, "fills"), and in

Gnostic literature, it refers to various transcendent mystical realms created through divine

emanation. In The Secret Doctrine, Helena Blavatsky appropriated the word Pleroma to refer to

her own realm of astral light, the source of Akasa and the Promethean gift of Manas.56

Why would Scriabin use the overtone series to construct a chord he associates with

Blavatsky's luminous astral realm? As outlined in Chapter Two, Blavatsky follows an account

of universe creation through divine emanation, blending elements from Gnostic and

Brahmanical traditions.57 For Blavatsky, this primal emanation consists of a vibrational thrill,

activating the evolutionary process she described in the Stanzas of Dzyan.58 This primal

vibration is Akasa.

For Blavatsky, Akasa is "the synthesis of all forces in Nature," 59 having dual

properties of spirit and matter. But Blavatsky also pays homage to the fundamental character

of Akasa in its original Brahmanical context by speaking of it as a sound. In a quotation

Blavatsky attributes to the Vishnu Purina, she writes that "Sound is the characteristic of

54
This usage probably derives from A.E. Hull. See A. Great Russian Tone Poet: Scriabin, 2 nd edition (London:
Triibner and Co., Ltd., 1927; originally published 1916), 101-115.

55
Igor Boelza reported that during a rehearsal of Prometheus, Rachmaninov heard die opening chord and asked
Scriabin, "What are you using here?" Scriabin replied, "It is the chord of the pleroma." Quoted in Richard
Taruskin, "Scriabin and the Superhuman: A Millennial Essay," in Defining Russia Musically: Historical and
HermeneuticalEssays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 340-41.

56
See Blavatsky's gloss on the Gnostic mythic cosmology in The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1 (1888), 448-449. See also
her chapter entitled,"Is Pleroma Satan's Lair?" in vol. 2, 506-518.

57
See Blavatsky's chapter, "The Upanishads in Gnostic Literature," Secret Doctrine vol. 2, 563-572.

58
Blavatsky, "The Book of Dzyan," Stanza III, verses 1 -3, in The Secret Doctrine vol. 1, 28-29.

59
Blavasky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, 137.

177
Akasa (Ether): it generates air, the property of which is Touch; which (by friction) becomes

productive of Colour and Light."60

In reading Blavatsky, the metaphysical ramifications of Scriabin's conception of

Prometheus begin to emerge: a "symphony of sound" based on a chord constructed from

"natural" principles, united with a "symphony of light."61 Even the electricity powering the

primitive, clunky tastiera per lucewould have a metaphysical significance in Scriabin's overall

aesthetic, as an earthly manifestation of Fohat, the androgynous "electrical" force produced

by the combination of spirit and matter.

Blavatsky's notion of Akasa as a type of ether, transmitting auditory and luminous

vibrations, echoes the optical theories of Isaac Newton, whom she considered to be "one of

the most spiritual-minded and religious men of his day."62 In Newton's 1675 "Hypothesis

Explaining the Properties of Light," he proposed that color, like music, arose through

vibrations occurring in a mysterious universal substance called aether, or spiritus.63 Blavatsky

was much taken with Newton's theory of spiritus, although she felt that he misunderstood its

true nature as Akasa.64 In Opticks (1704), Newton argued that proportions among spectral

frequencies corresponded with string-length proportions of a musical scale.65 Example 4.4

60
Ibid., 205

61
Leonid Sabaneev, "Prometheus—A Preview," (2000-2001), 99.

62
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, 492.

63
Isaac Newton, "Hypothesis Explaining the Properties of Light," The History of the Royal Society 3 (1757): 247-
305. For more information on theories of aether and music, see Penelope Gouk, Music, Science, and Natural
Magic in Seventeenth Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), esp. Chapter 6. Blavatsky quotes
Newton on aedier in The Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), 13.

64
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, (1888), 13.

65
Newton, Opticks (London: Smith and Walford, 1704), Book I, Part 2, Proposition 3, Experiment 7. Despite
the enduring attractiveness of the sound-color correspondence, Newton erred in comparing the sine
progression of light refraction to the geometrical progression of the musical scale. See Niels Hutchison's

178
reproduces two of Newton's diagrams from Opticks, which show the proportional

relationship between seven spectral colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)

and the seven tones of a Dorian scale. In Example 4.4A, Newton demonstrated the

proportions on a linear graph. In Example 4.4B, Newton represented his color-scale as a

musical circle, beginning with the scalar keynote D on the left side of the diagram, matched

with the first spectral color, red. The remaining colors and scalar tones progress clockwise.

EXAMPLE 4.4: Newton's correspondence of spectral colors and scalar proportions.

A. Proportions of the color-spectrum, Opticks (1704), Book I, Paragraph 2, Table I, Fig. 4

7'tg 4
° ' ^...-,IT ?J.-JL.
i>: ;*•
-.<•„ U—*', k J£__£uzL^si
•'• * J 5
J 3 TTT

B. Newton's musical color-circle. Opticks (1704), Book I, Paragraph 2, Table III, Figure 11

fig. //,

4—K ^ >

Chapters in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine show Blavatsky's debt to Newton;

they contain scientific-looking proportional calculations that putatively demonstrate the

helpful gloss on Newton, "Music For Measure: On the 300 th Anniversary of Newton's Opticks,"
(http://home.vicnet.net.au/~colmusic/opticksl.htm. 2004; accessed 2/15/2009).

179
correlation between the colors of the spectrum and musical pitch. Like Newton, Blavatsky

mapped seven spectral colors onto the seven pitch classes of an ascending scale, but her

solfege reflects a major scale instead of Newton's original Dorian. Example 4.5 shows a

chart positing occult Theosophical correspondences between metals, planets, days of the

week, the seven aspects of man, colors, and musical tones. 67

Scriabin's Theosophical name for his Chord of Nature reflects Blavatsky's influence

regarding the fundamental unification of sound and light as a creative, generative force.

However, Scriabin did not appropriate Blavatsky's Newtonian tone-color mapping for his

own use. All the sources that contain information regarding Scriabin's tone-color schemes

agree that he correlated colors of an expanded spectrum with the circle of fifths, rather than

the seven pitch-classes of a scale as Newton and Blavatsky had done. The sources also

indicate that Scriabin's colors stood for tonalities, not pitch classes.68 In 1914, the British

psychologist Charles Myers interviewed Scriabin regarding his colored hearing. Myers

reported, "Scriabin's chromaesthesia refers to the tonality of the music [emphasis original]. As

the tonality changes in a piece, so the colour changes. Scriabin explains that 'the colour

underlies the tonality; it makes the tonality more evident.'"69 The correlation of the color red

66
Blavatsky and Besant, Occultism of the Secret Doctrine (1992), 533-535. It is not clear whether Scriabin had access
to this book, known as volume three of the Secret Doctrine. Still, Blavatsky's references to the color-sound
analogy are scattered diroughout the first two volumes Scriabin could also have been influenced by other
Theosophical publications on the sound-color analogy. A more pointed exploration of the correspondence
from a Theosophical viewpoint is contained in Thought-Forms, by Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater
(London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1905); see also Aleksandra Unkovskaia, "MeTOAa
rrBeTo-3ByKo-HHceA [The Method of Color-Sound-Numbers]," Vestnik Teosofu 1/3 (1909).

67
Blavatsky and Besant, Occultism of the Secret Doctrine (1992), 455. Atma is not included in this scheme, for it "is
no number, and corresponds to no visible Planet, for it proceeds from die Spiritual Sun: nor does it bear any
relation either to Sound, Colour, or the rest, for it includes them all."

68
Sabaneev, BocnoMUHanun (2000), 53; Erinnerungen (2005), 54.

69
Charles Myers, "Two Cases," (1914-1915): 113.

180
 EXAMPLE 4.5: Blavatsky/Besant's correspondence table.

ATMA.
NUMBERS METALS PLANETS THE HUMAN DAYS OF T H E COLOURS SOUND
PRINCIPLES WEEK MUSICAL SCALE
KAMA RUPA. Satisknt
1 AND 10 IRON. MARS. The vehicle or seat TUESDAY. l.RED Gamut Ifaimrt Gamut
Physical Man's Key-note The Pla.net of Generation. of the Animal Dies Martis, or Tin.
Instincts and SA. Do.
Passions.
THE SUN.
2 GOLD. The Giver of Life physically, PRANA OR JIVA. SUNDAY. 2. ORANGE Rl. RE.
Life. Spiritual and l i f e Physical. Spiritually, and Esotericalry Life. Dies Soils, or Sun
the substitute for the. inter-
Mercurial Planet, a sacred
and secret planet with the.
ancients.
3 MERCURY.
Because BUDDHI is (so to speak) Mixes with Sulphur, as MERCURY. BUDDHI. WEDNESDAY. 3. Y E L L O W GA. Ml.
between ATMA and MANAS, and BUDDHI is mixed with The Messenger and the. Spiritual Soul, or Dies Meratnt, or Wooden
forms with the seventh, or the Flame of Spirit (See Interpreter of the Gods. Atinic Ray, vehicle Day of Buddha in the
A U R I C E N V E L O P E , the Alchemical of Atma. South, and of Woden in
DEVACHANIC TRIAD. Definitions-) the North—Gods of
Wisdom.
4
The middle principle—between LEAD. SATURN. K A M A MANAS. SATURDAY 4. GREEN MA FA
the purely material and the. The Lower Mind, or Dies Saitmts, or Saturn.
purely spiritual triads. The Animal Soul
conscious part of !i«(Wmaa.

5 TIN. JUPITER. AURIC ENVELOPE, THURSDAY. 5. B L U E PA SOL.

Diss Jams, or Thor
MANAS
6 COPPER. VENUS. The Higher Mmd, or FRIDAY. 6. I N D I G O O R DA LA
Human Soul Dies Veneres,, OF Frige D A R K BLUE
LINGA SHARIKA
Contains in itself the reflection SILVER. THE MOON. The Astral Double. MONDAY. 7. V I O L E T NI. SI.
of Septenary Man. The. Parent of the Earth. of Man; the Parent Dies Ltwae, or Moon.
of the Physical Man
with C, for example, highlights that pitch-class as a key-note or fundamental for a larger

collection of pitches in Scriabin's system.

In an oft-repeated story, Scriabin "discovered" his own color hearing in a

conversation he had with Rimsky-Korsakov.70 Rimsky-Korsakov's influence may account for

Scriabin's adoption of a synaesthetic sense for major scales rather than for pitch classes as

suggested by his occult sources. In a musical composition, the association of colors with

slower-changing tonal areas has a distinct advantage over colors matched with individual

pitches, especially if the composer harbors hopes for the mechanical realization of these

colors in real time. One of the criticisms lodged against A. Wallace Rimington's color organ,

which correlated gradations of the spectrum with pitch classes of a chromatic scale, was that

the colors flashed by too quickly when music was played on it. * Scriabin may simply have

realized that the pitch-color associations of Newton, Blavatsky, and Rimington were

musically impractical.

Scriabin's system of color-tonality was logically worked out based on the

fundamental idea of a correspondence between tonal close-relation and spectral close-

relation. Sabaneev reported that Scriabin began with a strong tonal sense of the three

primary colors and later preserved these associations as he constructed the rest of his system,

mapping the circle of fifths onto an expanded color wheel.

70
Myers, "Two Cases," (1914-1915), 112.

71
A. Wallace Rimington, Colour Music: The Art ofMobile Colour (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1911), 128-130.
Secondary literature often repeats the rumor that Scriabin was inspired by Rimington's color organ for his
tasieraper luce. Sabaneev described Scriabin's considerable research into color-music correspondence for
Prometheus, mentioning that the composer read the book of an unnamed British author who had constructed a
color organ; this seems to be a reference to Rimington. See Sabaneev, BOCHOMUHOHUH (2000), 70; Erinnerungen
(2005), 72. But as the publication date attests, Rimington's book would not have been available to Scriabin at
the time he was finishing Prometheus in 1910. Sabaneev may be confusing Scriabin's later interest in Rimington's
work with his earlier color-music research.

182
 I know that originally [Scriabin] recognized clearly no more than three colors—red,
yellow, and blue, corresponding to C, D, and F-sharp respectively. The others he
deduced rationally, as it were, starting from the assumption that related keys
correspond to related colors; that in the realm of color the closest relationship
coincides with proximity in the spectrum; and that as regards tonalities it is
connected with the circle of fifths.72

Example 4.6 tabulates various selected sources for Scriabin's tonality-color

mappings. Collectively they show that Scriabin indeed correlated the colors of spectrum with

the circle of fifths, beginning on the sharp side and continuing clockwise. Scriabin often split

the color red into dark and plain hues between F and C, and he stretched his gradations of

the color blue over two or three key areas. Because there are roughly twice as many major

keys as there are named spectral hues, Scriabin had to improvise additional colors to fill in

the gaps on the circle of fifths.73 While the color associations for sharp-side keys are fairly

consistent, sources vary somewhat regarding the precise formulations for these extra-spectral

colors. Other flat-side tonalities may be described as moon-colored, lily-colored, glittering,

metallic, leaden, or steely.

My table in Example 4.6 separates the sources pertaining to Scriabin's "synaesthesia"

from those which represent the colors used in Prometheus, op. 60. In the latter category, I list

the color scheme printed in a 1911 Musyka article by Sabaneev,74 Scriabin's color table in the

1913 "Parisian score" of Prometheus held by the Bibliotheque Nationale, as well as the colors

used in the New York premiere of Prometheus with lights which occurred on March 15, 1915.

Contemporary newspaper accounts of the first functioning luce, Preston S. Millar's

Chromola, indicate that its colors were remarkably similar to versions of Scriabin's color

72
Sabaneev, "Sound and Color," (1929): 273.

73
Sabaneev, "O 3ByKO-iiBeTOBOM COOTBCTCTUH [On sound-color accordance]" Mu^yka 9 (Moscow: January 29,
1911): 196-200.

74
Ibid, 199.

183
scheme appearing in other places.75 Yet Sabaneev's 1911 report and the Parisian score should

still be considered the most authoritative sources, due to Scriabin's minimal involvement

with the 1915 New York production.76 Sabaneev's 1911 article, "On Tone-Color

Correspondence" appeared just two months before the Moscow premiere, and it is

reasonable to assume that the information contained in the article came out of direct

conversations with Scriabin regarding his desired colors for Prometheus. The Parisian score,

dated from 1913, contains a "table of colors" written in Scriabin's own hand.

The other two "synaesfhesic" sources are both slightly removed from the

composition of Prometheus itself. Charles Myers's 1914 interview does not discuss Prometheus

except in passing, and focuses on Scriabin's colored hearing for major keys.77 Sabaneev's

1929 article was written fourteen years after Scriabin's death, and does not discuss

Prometheus.18 However, both these articles contain important information regarding the

nature of Scriabin's conception of color-tonality correspondence.

75
The colors for Millar's Chromola listed in the table are a composite of the two schemes listed in '"Color
Music' Tried Here For the First Time," New York Times (March 28,1915), section 5, p. 15; and Charles W.
Person, "Seeing Music in Colors," Illustrated World 24/1 (September 1915), 45.

76
M. Luckiesh, "The Art of Mobile Color: And a Discussion of the Relationship of Color to Sound," Scientific
American Supplement 79 (June 26, 1915), 409. Apparently Millar had originally adopted Rimington's color scheme
based on chromatic pitch-classes before receiving die correct information.
77
Charles Myers, "Two Cases," 112-117.

78
Sabaneev, "Sound and Color," (1929): 276-277.

184
 EXAMPLE 4.6: Table of various sources for Scriabin's color-tonality associations.

"SYNAESTHESIC" SOURCES P R O M E T H E A N COLORS

"Tonality" Myers Sabaneev Sabaneev Parisian Score Millar,
(1914) (1929) (1911) (1913) Chromola
(1915)
C Red Red Red Plain red Red
Orange Orange-pink Orange (red-yellow), Orange
G Orange fiery

D Yellow Yellow Sunny yellow Yellow

Yellow
A Green Green Grass green Green
Green
E Azure Glittering dark blue Dark blue-greenish Pearl white
(light blue)
Blue
B Whitish-blue Dark blue with light Purple Blue
[Similar to E]
blueness (light blue)
Violet
Ftf/Gb Saturated Dark blue, bright Deep dark blue with Blue
Blue/Glittering a shade of violet
blue
C«/Db Dark brownish Violet Pure violet P]/Violet
"Extra-spectral," metallic violet
either "ultra-violet"
G«/Ab Indefinite Magenta-violet Lily colored Purple
or "infra-red"
metallic (reddish)
purple-violet
Djt/Eb Dark metallic Steely, Steely blue, metallic Steel/Pale
steel blue with a metallic shine Blue

B\> Dark metallic [Similar to Eb] Metallic leaden grey Violet/Steel

bluish-grey
"on the verge of
F red," with "a Red Dark red Dark red Deep red
metallic lustre"

Myers's article is especially interesting because of the explicit way Scriabin tried to

bring his account of color in line with scientific accounts of the natural spectrum. Myers's

own diagram of Scriabin's color associations is given in Example 4.7. According to Myers,

Scriabin described tonalities as occupying zones on a continuous spectrum instead of

associating them with discrete colors, as other sources indicate. Additionally, Scriabin

abandoned the miscellaneous assemblage of colors he usually assigned to black-key

tonalities, telling Myers that these keys were "extra-spectral—either ultra violet or infra-

185
red." During the interview Scriabin described sharp keys extending into the ultra-violet area

of the spectrum, beyond the violet key of F#, and flat keys as infra-red, as an extension of

the fifth-chain from the dark red F. Myers's account, as different as it is from the other

sources regarding the "black-key" tonalities, suggests the considerable research on the

spectrum and color Scriabin must have put into his theory of tonality-color

correspondence.

EXAMPLE 4.7: Scriabin's tonality-color scheme, according to Myers.81

Ked
_ _ _ Orange
_ Yellow _ Green _ _ _Blue
___ A?iolet
__

A glance at the similarities between "synaesthetic" sources and their Promethean

counterparts may initially suggest that it is not worth making a strong distinction between

them. However, there is an important difference in the musical object to which each group

of sources refers. In the "synaesthetic" sources, the tones stand for the keynote of a major

scale, while in the Promethean sources, the tones stand for the fundamental bass, or keynote,

of the Pleroma sonority.

Why would Scriabin use a color-tonality mapping scheme clearly premised on close-

relationship among major keys for Prometheus, a composition that does not use major keys as

a compositional resource? Scholars have often failed to distinguish between sources

79
Myers, "Two Cases," (1914-1915), 114.

80
Sabaneev describes Scriabin's fascination with the latest scientific theories in BocnoMunamm (2000), 133-135;
Erinnemngen (2005), 143-144.

81
Myers, "Two Cases," (1914-1915), 114.

186
pertaining to Scriabin's color scheme for major keys and those associated with the luce part

for Prometheus. This confusion may be traced to Sabaneev's writings, which switch fiuidly

back and forth between discussions of Scriabin's color sense of major keys and his

Promethean color scheme. For example, Sabaneev's 1911 article, the earliest source for colors

in Prometheus, begins by talking about Rimsky-Korsakov's sense of major keys, then switches

to a comparison of Scriabin's Promethean tonal associations, without specifically referencing

major keys as the musical object.82 Sabaneev's 1929 article, which has become an important

source for Scriabin's color schemes in English language literature, talks exclusively about

major keys.

Sabaneev's ambivalence has only been magnified in the secondary literature, resulting

in much subsequent confusion over the nature and function of the luce part. The foremost

example of this is the addition of L. Vanechkina and Bulat Galeev's "Musico-Chromo-Logo

Schema" (Example 4.8) to many modern editions of the score for Prometheus^ According to

the notes written by Faubion Bowers for the Dover edition, Galeev "computerized

everything Scriabin ever said about the relation of music, meaning and color, and reduced

the synthesis to the circle of fifths"85 represented in the diagram by major key signatures.

Unfortunately, the "Schema" is widely circulated in association with Prometheus in print and

on the internet, sometimes without attribution to Galeev. Its ubiquity often causes scholars

82
Sabaneev, "On sound-color accordance," (1911): 199.

83
Sabaneev, "Sound and Color," (1929): 273 and 276.

84
See for example, Alexander Scriabin, "Poem of Ecstasy" and "Prometheus: Poem ofFire" in Full Score, with notes by
Faubion Bowers (Mineola: Dover, 1995), 114; Promethee, lepoeme dufeu Op. 60 (London: Editions Eulenburg).

85
This diagram first appeared in L. Vanechkina, "On Scriabin's Colored Hearing," in Proceedings of the Third
light and Music' Conference (Kazan: KAI, 1975), 33 and B. Galeev, Light and Music: Emergence and Essence of the New
Art (Kazan: Tatknigoizdat, 1976), 111. Some of Vanechkina and Galeev's color designations seem to be a
muddle of associations found in primary sources, such as die description of E-flat as "Humanity: Flesh (Glint
of Steel)."

187
and musicians approaching the work for the first time to unreflectively assume that the

"Schema" originated with Scriabin himself.86 Musicians hoping to use the "Schema" or other

correspondence schemes based on major-keys to analyze Prometheus would immediately be

faced with the difficulty of relating the color code to the musical surface of the composition.

From a theoretical standpoint, the conflation of major keys, Pleroma chords, and even (in

some cases) pitch classes as the object of Scriabin's synaesthetic association has often

obscured the insights his approach to color could provide regarding his harmonic thinking in

Prometheus.

EXAMPLE 4.8: Vanechkina and Galeev's "Musico-Chromo-Logo Schema."

f Diversification of Will G Creative Play

Dap Bid Orange

I \

Bb Lufitor Passion D Joy

Hate (or Steel) Yellow

A Matter
ah Humanity Green
aV
PUsh (Glint of Steel)

Air Movement of Spirit E Dreams

into Matter SkyBIue
Violet or Ulac (Moonshine or Frost)

Dt
WflKofUwCreativeSntoH) rlh
Violet or Purple »»

CS

86
See, for example, Peter Sabbagh, The Development of Harmony in Scriabin's Works (Boca Raton: Universal
Publishers, 2003), 102-103.

188
 Scriabin evidently considered the Pleroma chords in Prometheus as functioning

analogously to diatonic scales. Sabaneev reported the following conversation:

"For every tone [3ByK] there is a corresponding color," [Scriabin] announced, as if

this was a widely-known axiom. "Actually, not for every tone, but for every tonality
[TOHaAbHocTb]. For example, I mix the tonalities A and Ffi at the beginning of
Prometheus."

Let us take a closer look at the theoretical fallout of Scriabin's analogies. We have

already seen how Scriabin related closely-related major keys on the circle of fifths and

closely-related colors on an expanded spectral color wheel. His second analogy between

Pleroma sonorities and "tonalities" places Pleroma tonalities on the circle of fifths, allowing

them to be matched with spectral colors. However, it is not immediately clear how the

original idea of tonal close-relationship plays into this new harmonic system based on

Pleroma chord transposition. In the major key system, one way to determine "close-

relationship" consists of calculating the degree of pitch-class invariance between

transpositions of the scale set. The circle of fifths provides this information at a glance.

Transposition by ic5—a move to the next station on the circle of fifths—results in the

retention of six out of seven pitch classes. Each successive move along the circle of fifths

results in a new pitch class introduced into the set. As new pitches accumulate, tonal distance

increases up to the key of the tritone, the furthest degree of tonal distance from the key of

origin, and the furthest degree of spatial distance on the circle of fifths.

Example 4.9 summarizes the information presented on the circle of fifths in tabular

form. It shows degrees of close relation for the major scale based on pitch class invariance at

various transposition levels. Each interval-class transpositional level has a unique degree of

tonal distance, resulting in six possible degrees in all.

87
Sabaneev, BOCHOMUHOHWI (2000), 53; Erinnerungen (2005), 54.

189
 EXAMPLE 4.9: Degrees of tonal distance for major scales,
based on pc invariance at various transposition levels.

Degree of tonal proximity 1° 2° 3° 4° 5° 6°

Transposition level T5 T2 T3 T4 Tl T6
Number of invariant pes/ 6/1 5/2 4/3 3/4 2/5 1/6
Number of variant pes

A similar table based on the Pleroma tonality, given in Example 4.10, reveals the

differences between the two systems. If we define tonal distance in terms of pitch-class

invariance, the Pleroma tonal system has only three degrees of proximity for all

transpositions. Transposition by ic2, 4, and 6 holds four out of the six pitch classes invariant,

resulting in scales with the closest degree of proximity to the original. At a second level of

tonal distance, transposition by ic3 and 5 holds just two pitch classes invariant, swapping out

the other four. Finally, the most distant scales are related by transposition by icl, an

operation that holds only one pitch class invariant.

EXAMPLE 4.10: Degrees of tonal distance for the Pleroma tonality,

based on pc invariance at various transposition levels.

Degree of tonal proximity: 1° 2° 3°

Transposition levels: T2, T4, T6 T3,T5 Tl
Number of invariant pes/ 4/6 2/4 1/5
number of variant pes

Clearly, the nature of close relationship based on pitch-class invariance in the

Pleroma tonal system is very different from that of major keys. So why would Scriabin apply

a color scheme that was based on spectral close relationship to a circle-of-fifths ordering of

190
Pleroma chords? The answer lies in the Pleroma chord's orthography.88 Example 4.11

provides a diagram of transpositions of the Pleroma around the circle of fifths, correlated

with Scriabin's color indications as given in the Parisian score.

EXAMPLE 4.11: Pleroma chords on the circle of fifths,

mapped onto the color-scheme given in the Parisian score.

88
The importance of orthography in Scriabin's late style has long been recognized. See Cheong Wai-Ling,
"Orthography in Scriabin's Late Works," Music Analysis 12/1 (March 1993): 47-69; George Perle, "Scriabin's
Self-Analyses," Music Analysis 3/2 (July 1984): 101-122.

89
The designation of Ff as "spiritual" and C as "material" will be discussed below.

191
 As Example 4.11 shows, the orthography of Pleroma tonalities on the circle of fifths

is loosely homomorphic to major keys regarding the number of accidentals in each Pleroma tonality.

This means that the colors Scriabin imagined in Prometheus were literally a manifestation of

their tonal color—i.e., their chromaticism. Proceeding counterclockwise, G Pleroma has a

single sharp, followed by D Pleroma with two sharps, and A Pleroma with three sharps. On

the flat side, F Pleroma has a single flat, Bb Pleroma has two flats, and so on.

There are three points of difference between the number of accidentals in major keys

and those contained in Pleroma chords on the circle-of-fifths. First, C Pleroma has mixed

accidentals, one flat and one sharp. Second, as the brackets indicate, two pairs of sonorities

share their number of accidentals with their closest neighbor on the circle of fifths. E

Pleroma and B Pleroma both have four sharps, and El> Pleroma and Bl> Pleroma both have

four flats.

The latter observation is the exception which proves the rule. Pleroma-chord

orthography on the circle of fifths provides insight into the odd duplications that Scriabin

makes in his color assignments in the sources closest to Prometheus, reviewed in Example

4.12. In Sabaneev's 1911 Mu^yka article, he indicated that B was "similar to E," and that

both Bb and El> were "steely, with a metallic shine." In the 1913 Parisian score, the colors of

fhese paired tonalities show greater differentiation, but diey still share similar color

designations. Pleroma tonalities on Bb and El» are both metallic colors, described as

"metallic leaden grey" and "steely blue, metallic," respectively. For the B / E pair, Scriabin

adds in parentheses the same color word "light-blue [roAy6oii]" to both tonalities to indicate

their similarity.

192
 EXAMPLE 4.12: Comparison of E / B and Eb/Bb color assignments.

Pleroma Sabaneev Parisian Score

fundamental (1911) (1913)

E Glittering dark blue Dark blue-greenish

(light blue)

B Dark blue with light

[Similar to E]
blueness (light blue)

E\> Steely, Steely blue, metallic

with a metallic shine

B\> [Similar to Eb] Metallic leaden grey

Scriabin's color assignments in Prometheus provide a means to specify degrees of

chromaticism among different transpositions of Pleroma sonorities. Yet, there is another

way Scriabin's colors arranged in a circle also would have revealed certain musical

relationships. As Example 4.13 shows, Scriabin used a circular arrangement of lights for the

original tastieraper luce, created by his associate Alexander Mozer.

EXAMPLE 4.13: Alexander Mozer's tastieraper luce (1911).90

'"Photograph reproduced from E.N. Rudakova, editor, Alexander Skriabin (Moscow: Muzyka, 1979), 198.

193
 In Prometheus, Scriabin tends to prefer Pleroma progressions that move by minor

third and tritone, avoiding fundamental bass motion by perfect fifth and major second.91

Scriabin's favored progressions, which include successive fundamental bass motion by minor

third, major third, major second, and tritone, not only yield vibrant color contrasts, but their

motions trace out symmetrical patterns on the luce's circular arrangement.92

This symmetrical use of non-adjacent colors resonates with the color theory of

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe saw color as arising out of a dynamic, polarized

opposition between light and darkness.94 This fundamental principle of polarity, which

underlies much of Goethe's scientific thought, extended also to the phenomena of the colors

themselves. His prismatic experiments and study of entopic after-images on the retina95

suggested that each primary color (red, yellow, and blue) had its secondary complement

(green, violet, and orange) which emerged in opposition to it.96 Example 4.14 shows

91
Peter Sabbagh provided a calculation of the frequency of the fundamental bass motions in Scriabin's
Prometheus in Development ofHarmony in Scriabin's Works (2001), 93.

92
This idea will be explored further in the next chapter.

93
Scriabin's familiarity with Goethe's color theory is unknown, but it is possible that he encountered it in the
writings of Rudolph Steiner, a former acolyte of Blavatsky. According to Sabaneev, Scriabin knew Steiner's
Anthroposophic writings, using diem as a reference for Prometheus (see BocnoMunanuH (2000), 70; Erinnerungen
(2005), 72). Unfortunately, Sabaneev provides no further information regarding specific Anthroposophic tides
that Scriabin may have read. Steiner's color theory was profoundly influenced by his work on the Kiirschner
edition of Goethe's complete works during the 1880s. Steiner's edited volume of Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre
appeared in 1891. Steiner wrote two books on Goethe, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception
(1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), which included information on color theory. Rudolph Steiner's
thoughts on color are collected in Color, translated by John Salter and Pauline Wehrle (East Sussex: Rudolph
Steiner Press, reprint edition, 2005.) Goethe's theories of color polarity, complementation, and mixture were
current among artists, and Scriabin also could have achieved a passing familiarity widi Goethe's theories
through his friendship with the Theosophist painter Jean Delville. For a study of Delville's spirituality and
aesdietics, see Cole, "Jean Delville's l'Esthetique idealiste," (2000).

94
Goethe, ZurFarbenkhre (Tubingen: J.G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung, 1810).

95
This refers to the images one "sees" when one looks at a bright light and closes one's eyes, or looks at a
bright color and immediately looks away to a white surface.

96
Rupert Matthaei, "The Derivation of the Color Wheel from Goethe's Prism Experiments" in Goethe's Color
Theory, translated by Herb Aach, edited by Rupert Matthaei (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company,
1971), 41-43.

194
Goethe's famous color wheel, which visually summarizes this theory; his description of it

appears below.

The colors are arranged here in a general way according to the natural order, and the
arrangement will be found to be direcdy applicable in the present case, for the colors
diametrically opposed to one another in this diagram are those which reciprocally
evoke each other in the eye. Thus, yellow demands purple; orange, blue; red, green;
and vice versa, thus again all intermediate gradations reciprocally evoke each other; the
simpler color demanding the compound, and vice versa.

Each diametrically opposed polar pair (red/green, orange/blue, yellow/violet)

consisted of a warm color (red, orange, and yellow) joined with a cool color (green, blue,

violet), creating a perfect harmony. The natural harmony of these color juxtapositions was

revealed by entopic images. Goethe wrote,

A single color excites, by a specific sensation, the tendency to universality. To

experience this completeness, to satisfy the eye itself, the eye seeks for a colorless
space next every hue in order to produce the complementary hue upon it. In this
resides the fundamental law of all harmony of colors.

EXAMPLE 4.14: Goethe's color wheel.98

97
Ibid., Paragraphs 805-807,174.

98
Reproduced from ibid., 41.

195
 For Goethe, the juxtaposition of colors located across from each other on the color

wheel formed the most aesthetically pleasing combinations. In ZurFarbenlehre, Goethe used

the wheel to describe various other color combinations in decreasing degrees of perfection.

"Characteristic" color combinations were located two steps away from one another, and fell

into two main groups: 1) red/yellow, blue/red, yellow/blue; 2) orange/violet, orange/green,

green/violet. Goethe wrote, "We call these combinations characteristic because they have all

a certain significancy and tend to excite a definite impression; an impression, however, which

does not altogether satisfy..."" Finally, Goethe described the juxtaposition of adjacent

colors on the color-circle "characterless," writing that they "are too nearly alike for their

impression to be significant. Yet most of these recommend themselves to a certain degree,

since they indicate a progressive state, though its relations can hardly be appreciable."100

Goethe's theory of harmony in color prioritizes combinations that are removed from

each other, rather than adjacent. By favoring progressions that move by ic3, 6, and 1,

Scriabin would have been adhering to the Goethe's general principle that more distant color

juxtapositions on the wheel were more aesthetically pleasing, and the resulting

"chromaticism" of the luce would have underscored the novelty of his harmonic design.

Yet, if this was the case, the question remains as to why Scriabin did not approach

color in a manner more closely aligned with Goethe's system. For example, he could have

expanded the six colors of Goethe's wheel into twelve by dividing each hue into light and

dark versions, and correlating this expanded color wheel with a circle of Pleroma chords

transposed by half-step. This would have allowed him to perfecdy align Goethe's

complementary colors, nuanced by the light/dark polarity, with polar transpositions of the

99
Ibid., Paragraph 817,177.

100
Ibid, Paragraph 827,178.

196
Pleroma chord by tritone, Scriabin's musical symbol of polarity as described in Chapter

Three. Adjacent colors on the wheel would have been aligned with Pleroma chords with

minimal invariance, so that the "characterless" color juxtapositions matched Pleroma chords

of the furthest tonal distance.

These "unsystematic" aspects of Scriabin's color-tonality scheme may be ultimately

attributed to his symbolic associations for certain colors. According to Sabaneev, F(t was

"blue, an intense darkness, somewhat festive and abundant, the color of reason"; D was

"golden, sunny, the color of broad daylight. F was the red, bloody color of hell."101 In 1914,

Charles Myers reported that for Scrkbin, "the (red) key of C relates to matter, and is

redolent with the odour of the soil, whereas the (violet) key of Fft is spiritual and ethereal."102

Scriabin's color symbolism described by Sabaneev and Myers is taken direcdy from

Blavatsky. In Example 4.5, above, she correlates the pitch D with the sun, describing it as

"The Giver of Life physically, Spiritually, and Esoterically, the substitute for the inter-

Mercurial Planet, a sacred and secret planet with the ancients." Her color-scale is correlated

with the seven aspects of man, organized into successive grades of spirituality and

materiality. "Kama Rupa (corresponding to Do in the musical scale), containing as it does all

the potentialities of Matter is necessarily the starting point on our plane..." she explains.

"The musical scale and colours, according to the number of vibrations, proceed from the

world of gross Matter to that of Spirit."103

Blavatsky's scheme places the most material aspect of man, Kama Rupa (=do, red)

and the most spiritual aspect, Linga Sharika (—si, violet) at opposite ends of the musical

101
Sabaneev, BocnoMunamm (2000), 237; Erinnerungen (2005), 262.

102
Myers, "Two Cases," (1914-1915), 115.

103
Blavatsky and Besant, Occultism of the Secret Doctrine (1993), 475-476.

197
scale. Blavatsky writes, "the student must also remember that these notes have to be

arranged in a circle, thus showing how Fa [Kama Manas=green] is the middle note of

nature."104 But Blavatsky's circular arrangement of scalar pitch classes, clearly inspired by that

of Newton, eliminates the idea of polarity between the spiritual and material aspects of man

by placing "spiritual" and "material" colors in adjacent musical positions, correlated with B

and C. The opposition Blavatsky wishes to emphasize between violet= spirit and red=matter

only works visually when the scale is presented as a single octave in a linear form.

Scriabin took the symbolic colors from the outer limits of Blavatsky's scale and

placed them at spatially distant locations on the Pleroma circle of fifths. He assigned the

material color red to C, as Blavatsky did, but moved the spiritual color violet to Cjf- All other

spectral hues are crowded along the sharp side of the circle of fifths, and Scriabin

improvised colors to fill in the rest of the system.

But Scriabin's discussion with Meyer reveals Scriabin's ambivalence about whether

Cjt or Fjt was die violet key. This ambivalence is reflected in the color indication for Fjj

described in the Parisian score, "dark blue with a shade of violet." Furthermore, Scriabin's

handwritten annotations in the Parisian score often mislabel Cjt as "lily-colored," rather than

Ab as it appears in the table, implying a shift of tonalities counterclockwise on the

continuous color wheel. Scriabin's labels for Fjt are almost as inconsistent, switching between

"violet" and "dark blue."

Additionally, passages in Sabaneev regarding Scriabin's color symbolism reflect

confusion as to whether violet (usually assigned to Cjt) or blue (usually assigned to Fjt) was

104
Ibid., 475.

198
the "spiritual" color. Together, these inconsistencies may be attributed to a more

fundamental, underlying conception: the association of the polar opposition of spirit-matter

with polar Pleroma chords a tritone removed from each other, located opposite each other

on the circle of fifths, a move associated with polar colors on Goethe's color wheel. Scriabin

simply made his color and symbolic designations fit this more fundamental idea.

This explanation is attractive from both a music-theoretical and philosophical

viewpoint. The musical relationship between Pleroma chords a tritone apart fits nicely with

Blavatsky and Goethe's notions of "polarity" as unified opposition, or a duality yoked

together in a relationship of close complementation. As we have seen, this concept was a

fundamental idea in the various programs associated with Prometheus itself. Goethe's idea of

polarity emerges in his description of color complementation:

[TJhese manifestations [of color], like light and dark, are in general polarized
contrasts. They can be eliminated, neutralized, so that both seem to disappear. But
this can also be reversed, a reversal that with each polarity is in general the most
fragile thing in the world. Plus can be turned into minus, minus into plus at the
slightest condition. The same is also true of entopic appearances. The white cross is
turned into the black cross, the black into the white, at the slightest change, and the
accompanying colors are similarly reversed into their complement.106

Scriabin apparendy discussed this polar aspect of his color wheel with Sabaneev, in

the same conversation in which he mentioned that chords separated by tritone embodied the

new harmonic "polarity," replacing the tonic-dominant relationship in Classical tonality.

"In Prometheus, I have a wholly new system. Polarity no longer lies between tonic and
dominant, but rather between chords separated by diminished fifth... And see here,"
[Scriabin] interjected, "the same happens with the light effects. Let's take, for
example, C-major, with its red light, and we have at the augmented fourth F#, thus
blue light, and they are complementary colors in optics!"

This remark was not quite right, but I let it be, in order not to disappoint him.

105
Sabaneev, BocnoMumHusi (2000), 262; Erinnerungen (2005), 291.

106
Goethe, Goethe's Color Theory (1971), 126.

199
 "Following the path of improvisation would never get anyone to this point. Here,
one must use logic! Art, in the end, is nothing other than logic in its highest
expression!"107

Scriabin insisted to Sabaneev that his foregoing color-tonality scheme was universal,

not merely the result of arbitrary individual impressions.108 His impulse to universality drove

him to incorporate principles from various diverse sources into his grand plan, which, as the

forgoing discussion indicates, sit uneasily with or contradict one another. Yet the idea of

polarity was a powerful governing idea. On Scriabin's Pleroma circle-of-fifths arrangement,

polar tonalities a tritone apart are both the most distant spatially, yet they have one of the

closest relationships in terms of pitch class invariance. Change two pitch classes, and

suddenly one becomes the other. As we shall see in the following two chapters, this collapse

between notions of close proximity and diametric opposition has significance for the

harmonic structure of Prometheus, its large-scale organization, and its dramatic narrative.

107
Sabaneev, BocnoMUHOHm (2000), 260-261, Erinnerungen (2005), 289.

108
Sabaneev, BocnoMumtiiw (2000), 55-56, Erinnerungen (2005), 56.

200
 From one light, seven lights.

—Helena Blavatsky1

CHAPTER FIVE
THE MUSICAL FUNCTIONS OF THE TASTIERA PER LUCE

Drama and Color

Blavatsky believed that Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound had been the central drama in

the ancient Sabasian Mysteries, a ritual re-enactment of the esoteric spiritual evolution of

mankind through the seven Races as she described in her Secret Doctrine} The Prometheus

myth allegorized a pivotal event in the history of mankind: the acquisition of Manas, the light

of intellect, the microcosmic reflection of Akasa, the cosmic Astral light. Scriabin's Prometheus

is a musical revival of this ancient ritual. His intention to combine a "symphony of sound"

with a "symphony of light" not only reflected his interest in the theurgic effects of multi-

sensory stimulation, which he hoped to maximalize in the "omni-art" of the Mysterium, but it

also reflected Blavatsky's basic definition of Akasa as both a light and a sound.3

This background encourages us to imagine the composition taking place on multiple

interlinked temporal trajectories. First, Prometheus is an abstract, musical representation of a

1
Helena Blavatsky, "Book of Dzyan," Stanza V, verse 6, in The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and
Philosophy, vol. 2 (London: The Theosophical Publishing Company, Ltd., 1888), vol. 1 (1888), 32.

2
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 419.

3
Chapter Four discussed the concept of Akasa as it related to three documents closely associated with the
composition of Prometheus: two programs written by Sabaneev and Newmarch, Delville's cover for die
published score, as well as its status as both a sound and a light, which underlies die basic premise of Scriabin's
belief in tone-color correspondence.

201
ritual taking place in real time. Certain sonic events support this interpretation: the opening

horns like a call to worship, bells marking liturgical timepoints, the gradual acceleration of

momentum leading up to the piano's final vertiginous Dionysian dance, and the entrance of

the chorus symbolizing universal sobornost'.4 At a second level, the represented ritual itself

consists of a reenactment of human spiritual evolution in seven stages. And, in fact,

Sabaneev recalled a conversation with Scriabin in which the composer indicated that the

slower moving light-part in Prometheus delineated Blavatsky's Racial stages.5

Like the Mysterium, Scriabin's Prometheus possesses an ontological ambivalence

regarding its status as an actual ritual and an artistic representation of a ritual.6 It shares this

ambivalence with Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which famously premiered in 1913.7

However, unlike Stravinsky's Rite, Scriabin's Prometheus has no on-stage action to coordinate

musical events with the unfolding ritual drama. Instead, Prometheus is all but stripped of

specific narrative content, a dramatic work "elevated" to the abstraction of absolute music.

(Interestingly, Stravinstky's Rite came to share this aspect of Prometheus after the music was

* This word refers to the unity felt among a community of worshipers. See Chapter Two.

5
Leonid Sabaneev, BocnoMUHanu/t o CKpjt6uue [Memories ofScriabin] (Moscow: Classika-XXI, 2000), 262;
Erinnerungen an Alexander Skrjabin, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2005), 291.

6
Simon Morrison articulates this aesthetic and its artistic consequences for Scriabin's unfinished Mysterium in
"Skryabin and the Impossible," Journal of the American Musicological Society 51/2 (Summer, 1998): 283-330.

7
Nicholas Roerich, the co-librettist and designer for the Rite of Spring, believed that engagement with ancient
ways of life through art could bring about modern spiritual renewal. Roerich was an amateur archeologist and
Orientalist, a former Theosophist who went on to found his own similar sect, die Agni Yoga Society. Like
Blavatsky, he later spent extensive time in India on a spiritual quest. For discussions on the The Rite ofSpring as
ritual and/or representation, see Marilyn Meyer Hoogen, "Igor Stravinsky, Nikolai Roerich, and the Healing
Power of Paganism: The Rite of Spring as Ecstatic Ritual of Renewal for the Twentieth Century," (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Washington, 1997), Gabriele Brandstetter, "Ritual as Scene and Discourse: Art and
Science Around 1900 as Exemplified by Le Sam du printemps," The World ofMusic 40/1 (1998): 37-59; Martin
Zenck, "Ritual or Imaginary Ethnography in Stravinsky's he Sacre du Printemps?" The World ofMusic 40/1 (1998):
61-78.

202
disassociated from the ballet and became a mainstay of the orchestral concert repertoire.)

According to Ivanov's formulation of the power of the symbol, this degree of abstraction

would allow Scriabin's Prometheus to acquire a greater depth of signification because the

listener was not bound by the specificities of libretto or on-stage action. Instead, the musical

symbolism of Prometheus could activate layered associations of meaning in the mental

network of ideas the listener brought to the work. In this way, Prometheus could fulfill the

Symbolist's ideal of art as a collaboration between creator and receiver.9

In this scheme, the part for colored lights becomes a para-libretto, acting as mental

frame for the receiver, guiding his or her perception of musical events. The potential of

lights to shape and transform the perception of ritual or dramatic action had been explored

in several other works contemporary to the composition of Prometheus. In August of 1910,

just four months before the premiere of Scriabin's op. 60, Rudolph Steiner's

Anthroposophic mystery play, The Portal ofInitiation, was performed in Munich. Like

Prometheus, Steiner's drama concerns a symbolic presentation of human spiritual evolution

and transfiguration, parsed into acts via changes in colored lights.10 During the years 1910-

1913, Arnold Schoenberg composed Die Gluckliche Hand, op. 18, which did not premiere

until 1924. In Schoenberg's "drama with music," changes in colored lights and light intensity

underscore the work's symbolism and the psychological states of the protagonists.

8
See Richard Taruskin, "A Myth of the Twentieth Century: The Rite of Spring, the Tradition of the New, and
the Myth Itself," Modernism/Modernity 2/1 (1995): 1-26.

9
Ivanov's theories of symbolic art, its similarities with music, and the participatory ideal are discussed in
Chapter Two.

10
Rudolph Steiner, The Portal of Initiation: A Rosicrucian Mystery, translated by Adam Bittleston (Englewood:
Rudolph Steiner Publications, Inc., 1961), 14. Steiner was a former Blavatskian acolyte, who, in Promethean
fashion, broke away from the Theosophical Society to form Anthroposophy, his own splinter movement in
Germany.

203
 It has been suggested that Schoenberg drew inspiration for his use of colored lights

in Die Gliickliche Hand from Gustav Mahler and Alfred Roller's revolutionary productions of

Wagner's music dramas at the Vienna Opera during the years 1903-1907. In Tristan und

Isolde, the first Mahler/Roller collaboration, Roller, the scenic designer, used tibree different

colors (garish orange, deep violet, and grey) to depict the dramatic and metaphysical

symbolism of the opera's three acts. Roller's lighting design also featured crescendos and

decrescendos in light intensity that paralleled changes in the characters' emotional states.12 It

is plausible that Roller's innovations for Tristan (1903) and later Das Rheingold (1905),

Lohengrin (1906), and Die Walkiire (1907) influenced both Schoenberg and Steiner—and

perhaps Scriabin. The use of light symbolism in Wagnerian opera productions was certainly

known in Russia. In 1907, the St. Petersburg designer Nicholas Roerich—who later

collaborated on the Rite of Spring—began a series of extensive plans for Die Walkiire which

would feature the symbolic use of colored lights. Roerich wrote,

I feel a particular bond with the music, and just like a composer writing an overture,
who chooses a certain tonality, I pick a particular scale—a scale of colors, or rather a
leitmotif of colors, on which I base my whole system. When I designed Die Walkiire,
for example, I felt the first act in black and yellow tones[.]"13

It is not clear whether Scriabin knew of the Mahler /Roller productions, but the

attention Scriabin and his symbolist associates lavished upon Wagner as the prototypical

symbolic composer implies that it is quite plausible that he did.14 Scriabin's use of dramatic

colored lighting in Prometheus suggests just such a relationship.

11
Alan Lessem, Music and Text in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg: The Critical Years 1908-1922 (Ann Arbor: UMI
Research Press, 1979), 101.

12
See Patrick Camegy, Wagner and the Art of the Theater (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 165-166.

13
Translated and quoted in Bartlert, Wagner in Russia, 68. The quotation is taken from David Burlyuk, Pepux:
xu3Hb u meopnecmeo [Roerich: Life and Creative Work] (New York: Marii Nikiforovny Burlyuk, 1930), 24.

14
See Chapter Two.

204
 As we shall see in this chapter and the next, the luce part in the printed score of

"Prometheus has two functions: one is to parse ritual time into stages or acts, and the other is to

underscore harmonic relationships. Colors on the local transpositional level often create

interesting cross-temporal associations with color progressions on the larger scale, which

together interact with thematic entrances to create a complex web of relationships.

Furthermore, the spectacular effects and dynamicism called for by the Parisian score not

only add a layer of spectacle, but the brightening and dimming also articulate musical

divisions at the level of the phrase and section. The luce thus serves both an analytical and

dramatic function, providing visual information that clarifies or interprets the musical events

of the piece and adds a depth of experience not available in performances of the music

alone.

The fast luce and Scriabin's harmony

Example 5.1 shows the first twenty-six measures of the luce part, up to rehearsal

number 1. The luce part is comprised of two distinct light "voices" which move at different

rates of speed. In the example provided, the F(t (downward stem) is sustained like a cantus

firmus, and will continue to "sound" until measure 86. The other voice (upward stems)

moves in various shorter rhythmic values against it. In the passage shown, the faster voice

begins on A and moves to pitches related on a minor-third cycle: Ei>, C, A, F#.

205
 EXAMPLE 5.1: Luce part, measures 1-26.

Lento. Brumeux. MM. J= 60. piu lento

w ft ifi Lf*l lf£ lf£ \Jfi Lfc If.

10 a tempo avec mystere

S ^ faj

According to Sabaneev, Scriabin described the function of the faster light part as

follows:

"It is but very simple. You see, I have two lines of color flowing throughout the
whole Poem. The first [faster-moving line] corresponds to the music, the harmonies,
and therefore often the harmonic bass."15

During this time period, Scriabin's musical language transcended common practice

tonality while still maintaining certain conceptual ties to it.16 In Chapter Four, we saw how

Scriabin correlated Pleroma chord fundamentals on the circle of fifths with the colors of an

expanded spectrum. This arrangement was based on a correspondence between the number

of accidentals in major keys and the number of accidentals in Pleroma sonorities. The fast

luce part confirms the analogy between major scales and Pleroma chords by indicating that

Scriabin's harmonic language in Prometheus is based entirely on Pleroma chord

15
Sabaneev, BocnoMUHanuR (2000), 262; Erinnerungen (2005), 291.

16
See Chapter Three.

206
transpositions.1 In this way, a move from C Pleroma to G Pleroma parallels a modulation

from C major to G major, conceptualized as a transposition of a scale set. However, as

Sabaneev's quotation indicates, the Pleroma sonority has an ontological ambivalence

between a scale or a harmony. Sometimes the entire collection is deployed as a simultaneity,

as in the very beginning of Prometheus, and sometimes it is deployed analogously to a scale,

where only a subset of the collection is utilized at a given time-point.

Example 5.2 illustrates Scriabin's Pleroma gamut. Pleroma sonorities are laid out as

scales according to Sabaneev's original orthography, arranged so that the keynote of each

scale corresponds to the fundamental of the same collection arranged as a series of stacked

fourths. In each diagonal column, Pleroma scales are transposed on a whole-tone cycle. Each

successive transposition by whole tone keeps four pitches invariant, as shown by the grey

lines. Moving between fundamentals in the two columns in a zig-zag fashion yields Pleroma

transpositions on the circle of fifths: beginning with the top right, the keynote is Gx, moving

diagonally to the left, the keynote is Cx, diagonally to the right is Fx, and so on. As we have

seen, the perfect fifth cycle tracks the number of accidentals in each Pleroma chord.

While Scriabin's actual Pleroma chords are transposed through portions of the fully-

chromatic gamut above (see, for example, the Fb in bar 453), Scriabin's color assignments

classify enharmonically-equivalent fundamentals with distinct orthographies under the same

hue. In other words, the part written for fast luce is conceptualized as existing in pitch space,

while the colors projected by the luce itself collapse pitches into pitch classes.

17
Christopher Dillon performed a detailed fundamental bass analysis of Prometheus, op. 60, concluding that the
fast luce part matched the fundamental bass of the Pleroma chord widi few exceptions, and nearly all those
exceptions could be interpreted as errors, see Christopher Dillon, "Scriabin's Synaesthesia and its Significance
in Prometheus, Poem ofFire, Op. 60, and in Other Selected hate Works (DMA document, Peabody Conservator)' of
Music, 2002), 29-74.

207
 EXAMPLE 5.2: Scriabin's gamut of Pleroma chord transpositions.

Both aspects of the luce part are equally important analytically. Because the pitches in

the fast luce part indicate the Pleroma fundamental, they also provide valuable information

regarding the Pleroma's orthography. This in turn, can help the analyst make segmentation

decisions when performing a harmonic analysis, as Example 5.4 shows. But the original luce's

circular arrangement of twelve lights, correlated with the circle of fifths, performs an

additional analytical function. In performance, die lights trace die symmetrical patterns of

Scriabin's Pleroma transpositions in real time.18 In Example 5.4, the fundamental bass moves

by minor third, which divides the circular space of the luce as shown in Example 5.3.

18
Part of the credit for this insight regarding this aspect of the original luce deserves to go to lighting designer
Justin Townsend. In 2009-2010, he and I worked together to design a fully-lighted production of Prometheus

208
 While Pleroma chords and their transpositions may be fairly easy to identify through

score-based analysis, they are remarkably resistant to aural recognition, particularly when

inverted. Sabaneev described a visit during which Scriabin sat at the piano and asked

Sabaneev to guess the pitch content of the mystic chord, and was quite pleased by his

friend's inability to do so.19 Scriabin's game, together with his statement to Charles Myers

that "the color underlies the tonality; it makes the tonality more evident"20 seems to indicate

that he was fully aware of the Pleroma sonority's aural obscurity and that he believed that

fast luce part performed an important function by clarifying chordal identity. To summarize,

then, the function of the faster-moving luce part is to help a listener understand chordal root

and thus pitch content, perceive the harmonic rhythm, and track harmonic distance in real

time on the luce's circular arrangement of colors.

EXAMPLE 5.3: The symmetrical pattern traced by the fast luce in measures 13-21. The
circle of fifths ordering corresponds to Scriabin's color-layout.

based on this research. In the process, we had to make many practical decisions regarding colors and
arrangements of the lights, which deepened my understanding of Scriabin's overall conception.

19
Sabaneev, BocnoMunaHUH (2000), 50; Erinnerungen (2005), 50.

20
Scriabin quoted by Charles Myers, "Two Cases of Synaesthesia," British Journal of Psychology 7 (1914-1915):
113.

209
 EXAMPLE 5.4: Reduced score o£ Prometheus, op. 60, mm. 13-21. The fast luce voice outlines a minor-third cycle in the
fundamental bass.

gloomy somewhat brighter light

leaden shades green-violet
somewhat purer leaden plus anime

Luce

to
©

Orch.

Mystic
chord
The slow luce and dramatic form

According to Sabaneev, Scriabin explained that the movement of the slow luce part

segments Prometheus into seven stages, representing Blavatsky's narrative of human evolution

through Root Races.

"The second [sustained line] corresponds to the whole-tone scale, beginning on F#

and going by whole steps again to F|. The second line corresponds to the involution
and evolution of the Races. At the beginning is the Spiritual, the color blue, then it
goes over the other colors to the color red—which is the Material, and returns again
to Blue."21

EXAMPLE 5.5: Overview of slow luce part.

Roman numerals refer to Blavatsky's seven "Root Races."22

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.

1-86 87-110 111-183* 183-304* 309-408 409-459 460-606

#5=
n ^ O «
Dark blue- Lily-colored Leaden grey Red Yellow Light blue- Dark blue-
violet greenish violet

*These stages contain interruptions, to be discussed below.

Example 5.5 provides an overview of the slow luce part as it is written in the score.

The drop from Bl» to C between stages III and IV is due to the luce's limited range, which

consists of little more than an octave. However, the leap down would have appealed to

Scriabin as symbolic augenmusik, as C represents the full descent into matter of Blavatsky's

Root Race Four. Perceptually, however, the progression of the slow luce part would have

slowly moved around the ring of lights, as shown in Example 5.6.

21
Sabaneev, BocnoMUHanm (2000), 262; Erinnerungen (2005), 291.

22
The published score contains an error in the slow luce part: the interpolation of an Ejt in measure 459,
between color Stages VI and VII. In the Parisian score, Scriabin crosses out the sharp, indicating that the E
from the previous measure should be sustained through measure 459.

211
 EXAMPLE 5.6: The progression of the slow luce part.

dark blue-violet
blue r ft violet
Ctf

blue-green pj A L lily-color

green A J7[j steel blue

yellow lead grey

orange dark red

The sustained colors of the slow luce create a link between the musical action and

Blavatsky's Theosophical narrative, imposing a dramatic grouping structure on the music.

However, the relationship of the lights to the work's form expressed in musical terms has

not always been well understood, and all too often analysts have dismissed the light part as a

curious encumbrance to the music. For example, Nicholas Cook wrote that the slow luce

part "has no readily discernible relationship to the musical structure."23 Cook does not

elaborate further, so it is necessary to investigate what type of large-scale structure Prometheus

actually has in order to determine whether or not the slow luce part can be related to it.

Most analysts have viewed the temporal trajectory of Prometheus in terms of the

formal conceits of the symphonic sonata or piano concerto.24 Certainly, Prometheus exhibits

sonata and concerto-like elements, but generic classification according to classical models

23
Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 38.

24
See, for example, Clemens-Christoph Johannes von Gleich, Die Sinfonischen Werke von Alexander Skrjabin
(Bilthoven: A. B. Creyghton, 1963), 70-72; James Baker, The Music ofAlexander Scriabin (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986), 258-267.

212
engenders certain analytical expectations, and, as Anthony Pople has argued, too narrow a

conception of the work's identity can inhibit full understanding of its complex large-scale

design.25 Pople is right—trying to make the musical events of Prometheusfita narrow

generic/formal mold is a recipe for analytical frustration. There are simply too many musical

gestures which are developed and transformed throughout the work, reappearing in

unexpected locations and novel juxtapositions. This clearly suggests a closer musical

relationship to Wagnerian leitmotivic technique than to classical architectonics, a view

supported by Yuri Engel's 1909 hearing of The Poem ofEcstasy?6 The proliferation of labels

encrusting the thematic-repetition diagrams of the more conscientious analysts reveals both

the complexity of Scriabin's design and the ultimately unilluminating results of such an

analytic tactic.27

The problem of relating the slow luce to large-scale form lies not with the seemingly

arbitrary groupings of the color stages, but rather with the equally arbitrary groupings of the

sonata-form interpreters. These analysts largely focus on thematic recurrence and texture in

their interpretations of Prometheus as a sonata. Yet, while Prometheu/s main thematic profiles

are distinctive, and the recurrence of these themes is fairly easy to track by ear, a higher-level

formal organization of themes into a sonata plan is far from obvious. Pople recognized this,

and went so far as to write that a sonata form reading actually "hinders understanding of the

large-scale structure," continuing,

The sonata-form model has perhaps unthinkingly been transferred by some writers
from the legitimate context of the symphonies into discussion of the one-movement

25
Anthony Pople, Skryabin and Stravinsky 1908-1914: Studies in Theory and Analysis (New York: Garland, 1989),
215.

26
See Chapter Two.

27
See von Gleich, Die Sinfonischen Werke (1963), 72-79, especially his Bildpartitur, Baker, The Music ofAlexander
Scriabin (1986), 240-244; Pople, Skryabin and Stravinsky (1989), 235-242.

213
 works: it certainly fits uneasily over the contours of Prometheus, accounts of which fail
to agree even as to the locations of the principal turning points in the proposed
28
sonata structure.

Example 5.7 provides a table listing the large-scale formal divisions for Prometheus

proposed by several analysts. It reveals disagreement as to whether or not the first 26-30

measures should be classified as introductory, as well as a lack of consensus regarding the

point at which the development section begins.

EXAMPLE 5.7: Various sonata-form readings.

Introduction
Exposition Development Recapitulation Coda
29
Von Gleich 1-162 163-369 371-511 512-606
30
Delson 1-26 27-130 131-370 371-511 512-606
31
*Kelkel 1-30 31-162 163-374 375-511 512-606
Baker32 1-26 27-192 192-370 370-514 514-606
33
*Horst-Lederer 1-211 211-374 375-572 572-606
*These authors try to make the proportions of Prometheus conform to golden section.

Even for points of relative agreement—such as the beginning of the recapitulation

and coda areas—a deeper investigation reveals oddities difficult to explain away. For

example, the analysts listed in Example 5.7 agree that the recapitulation in their sonata

readings begins in the vicinity of measures 370-375. There, Scriabin brings back the music of

the piano's first entrance from mm. 27ff. This indeed triggers a strong sense of formal

28
Pople, Skryabin and Stravinsky (1989), 215.

29
von Gleich, Die Sinfonischen Werke (1963), 72-79.

30
Viktor Delson, Osherki Zhi^ni i tvorchestva (Moscow: 1971), 138-143, 402f.

31
Manfred Kelkel, Alexandre Scriabine: sa vie, I'esoterisme, et le langage musical dans son oeuvre (Paris: Editions Honore
Champion, 1978) volume III, 157.

32
Baker, The Music of Alexander Scriabin (1986), 240-44.

33
Joseph Horst-Lederer, "Die Funktion der Luce-Stimme in Skrjabins op. 60," in Alexander S'krfabin, edited by
Otto Kolleritch (Graz: Universal Edition), 138. Pople discusses Lederer's formal errors in Skryabin and
Stravinsky (1989), 231-232.

214
articulation, although the material is transposed down a major third from its original

appearance. But this "recapitulation" is short lived. After measure 408, a mere thirty-three

measures after the piano's re-entrance, die music no longer parallels material presented in

the exposition.

Additionally, locating the recapitulation around measure 370 fails to account for the

important return of "expositional" material from measures 115-130 in measures 309-326,

nearly sixty measures before the recapitulation begins in most interpretations. Like the

piano's recapitulatory re-entrance at m. 375ff, this material is transposed, but this time up a

major third. It may be argued that the piano's flashy entrance is a more salient signifier of

formal return than the orchestral music of measures 309ff., but in both cases the promise of

large-scale formal return is denied as the music charts a new course through substantial

sections of new material and transformations of previously-heard music, which come back in

fresh sequential ordering. These difficulties suggest that even when a point of formal

articulation is relatively clear, fitting the musical events of Prometheus into a coherent narrative

based on sonata-form rhetoric is a bit of a stretch.

This is partly due to the limited amount of thematic material that actually returns

untransformed. Prometheus contains much reworking of thematic material, but very little

literal repetition on a larger scale. Pople identified only four "larger" sections that repeat: i)

measures 26-46; ii) measures 67-82; iii) measures 115-130; and iv) measures 130-145. The

longest of these sections is only twenty measures, still a relatively small segment of a

composition over six-hundred measures long. Furthermore, these few segments which do

return do not come back in the order in which they were presented. In the latter half of the

215
piece, the third segment (iii) returns first at measures 309-324, followed by segment (i) at

370-390, then (ii) and (iv) at measures 391-406 and 467-507 respectively.34

One might legitimately question, as Pople did, the effectiveness of applying sonata-

form expectations to the work in the first place. The formal anomalies of Prometheus are such

mat this strategy seems to yield few convincing insights into the piece's dramatic trajectory.

Yet Pople's refusal to make any kind of assertion regarding higher-level groupings of

thematic occurrences is also not helpful. The challenge of Prometheus is to interpret its

prolific, varied thematic recurrences within a larger narrative, one that makes both musical

and dramatic sense.

Given the ambiguity of the formal design, the slow luce part performs a necessary

musical function by automatically imposing a high-level grouping scheme upon the unruly

texture. In a way, the slow luce may be seen as freeing Scriabin from the demands of tightly-

knit formal architectonics, allowing him greater flexibility in thematic alteration and the

introduction of new material. The slowly-changing background colors provide a sense of

stability for each section on the large scale, unifying the thematic diversity of the musical

surface within each sustained color stage.

Example 5.8 illustrates the progression of the slow luce part in roughly temporal

proportion, using timings derived from a recording of Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the

London Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra (Decca, 1989).35 (The interruptions of the

whole-tone progression in Color Stage III and between Color Stages IV and V will be

discussed in detail below.) The real-time perspective draws Stages I, III-V, and VII into

34
Pople, Sktyabin and Stravinsky (1989), 234-243.

35
This recording was used to provide a general sense of the work's real-time proportions. Kelkel and Horst-
Lederer interpret the slow changes of the lights and/or other formal features in terms of golden section
proportions, using the bar as a unit of measurement. But such a strategy often results in a distorted image of
the overall temporal sweep of the piece, due to Scriabin's tempo and meter changes in Prometheus.

216
 EXAMPLE 5.8: Dramatic-temporal overview of the slow luce part.

11 III IV V

Ah m 1 m c

3* 56" 40" 3' 38" 3' 46" 4' 07" r 05" X 45"

Origin -* Conflict Transcendence

Materialization De-materialization
roughly approximate proportion, falling within a range of 2' 45" and 4' 07". Stages II and VI

are much shorter, 40" and 1' 05" respectively. This proportional patterning encourages us to

view die color change spans as falling into something similar to an arch form, which then

may be grouped into larger sections based on their dramatic function.

According to Sabaneev's memoir quoted above, Scriabin described the slow luce as

representing a progression from the "spiritual" color blue-violet (F#) to the "material" color

red (C), and back again to blue-violet. The first three stages, Ftt-At-Bb (in the proportion

long-short-long) represent the emergence of beings from pure spirituality and their descent

towards material embodiment and spiritual degradation in Scriabin's musical interpretation

of Blavatsky's evolutionary narrative. The red Stage IV (long) is a period of conflict, which

Scriabin illustrates with textures reminiscent of a development section and musical tropes of

"struggle" borrowed from the concerto genre. The final three stages, D-E-Fjt (long-short-

long), represent demateriali2ation and the re-ascendance of spirit, a reversal of the process in

Stages I-III.

Sabaneev's program for the 1911 premiere described just such a narrative trajectory,

but at a high degree of abstraction.36 Beginning with a unitary "creative force," polarities

emerge, giving rise to differentiation and conflict followed by triumph and a return to the

original unity. This not only outlines the rough contour of Blavatsky's story of human

spiritual evolution, but it also just as easily describes a generalized nineteenth-century "plot"

of a sonata form.37 Indeed, Sabaneev wrote that Prometheus is written in a form close to the

36
Sabaneev, program notes for Prometheus, Op. 60 (premiered Moscow, March 2, 1911); translated by Faubion
Bowers, Scriabin: A Biography, second edition, revised (New York: Dover, 1996), 206-207. See Chapter Four for
a discussion of the program.

37
See Scott Burnham, "The Second Nature of Sonata Form," in Music Theory and the Natural Order, edited by
Alexander Rending and Susanna Clarke, 111-141 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

218
sonata, although considerably expanded" in an early preview of the work published in

1910.38

Viewed this way, the dramatic function of three main sections may be loosely re-

aligned with a very abstract sonata narrative: like an exposition, Color Stages I-III present

the main themes of the work, which may be broadly classified according to their "active"

and "languid" affects (the "polarity" mentioned in Sabaneev's program); in Color Stage IV,

these contrasting thematic groups come into conflict, resulting in some of the most

dramatic, development-like writing in the work; finally, Color Stage V revisits material drawn

from Color Stages I-III. This is precisely where Blavatsky's creation story in the Book of

Dzyan ends and Scriabin turns to the Dionysian ideal of Nietzsche and Ivanov. The final

two stages are dominated by magisterial choral entrances and a lengthy ecstatic dance for the

piano soloist. The musical representation of a ritual becomes a ritual.

Cyclic aspects of the slow luce

Sabaneev's program notes suggested that cyclic return was a main feature of work's

dramatic trajectory. He wrote, "later [the creative upsurge] does batde and conquers

matter—of which it itself is a mere atom—and it returns to the original quiet and tranquility,

thus completing the cycle."3 This might have led some members of the audience of the

Moscow premiere to expect Prometheus to end in darkly shimmeringpianissmo tremolos,

similar to the beginning. Instead, the final measures of the work consist of a full fortissimo

orchestral onslaught accompanied by blazing cataclysmic projections in the luce. This

38
Sabaneev, "Prometheus—A Preview," translated by Don Luis Wetzel, Journalofthe Scriabin Society of America
5/1 (Winter 2000-2001): 103.

39
Sabaneev quoted by Bowers, Scriabin: A. Biography (1996), 206-207.

219
discrepancy caused James Baker to write, "This program is hardly an accurate description of

the course of events in the music itself—especially with regard to the cyclical return of the

original languid state, which happens in die piano sonatas, but certainly not here."40 The

conflict Baker sees between Sabaneev's description and how the work actually ends reveals

something fundamental about the composition's dramatic plan.

Blavatsky's narratives of cosmic and human evolution uneasily straddle cyclic and

teleological temporal trajectories. She wants the cosmic Rounds to begin and end in -apralaja,

a state of ultimate non-being, yet each successive Round must represent a new state of

progress within the entire manvantara. Blavatsky reconciled these conflicting desires in her

spiral diagram of the Root Races, shown in Example 5.9A. Interestingly, Blavatsky's

dilemma is reminiscent of a similar problem facing composers of sonata or sonata-like forms

in the nineteenth century, wherein the recapitulation must function both as return and

transcendence of what has come before.

Sabaneev's memoir reveals just how closely Scriabin engaged with Blavatsky's ideas,

and how deliberately he chose die whole-tone scale to represent her evolutionary scheme. In

the following passage, Sabaneev presented Scriabin with two alternatives for the slow luce

progression: the circle of fifths, which would have aligned die slow luce with Scriabin's color

wheel, and the acoustic series, which would have reflected the fundamental origin of his

pitch materials.

"Why then do these colors of yours not follow the circle of fifths?" I asked
him...

He said, "See, I must reflect Racial evolution in this light melody. The Races
must indeed be seven in all. When I follow the circle of fifths, I obtain twelve colors.

40
James Baker, "Prometheus and the Quest for Color-Music: The World Premiere of Scriabin's Poem of Fire
with Lights, New York, March 20,1915," in Music and Modern Art, edited by James Leggio (New York:
Routledge, 2002), 66.

220
 Which of t h e m corresponds to the spiritual Racial types? I selected the whole-tone
scale from Ffl to Fjt, which places the material color of red here, right in the middle,
between the two spiritual colors: it fits the fourth stage, just as it ought. With that, I
solve an algebraic problem, so to speak. It is necessary, to find a closed system, which
goes from a spiritual color to the same color, circling around to the material color in
the middle and comprising seven parts in total. The whole-tone scale is just such a
system." 41

EXAMPLE 5.9: Comparison of Blavatsky and Scriabin's progressive cycles.

A. Blavatsky's spiral of human evolution (progressing counterclockwise). 42

EVOLUTION OF ROOT RACES IN T H E FOURTH ROUND.

| VII ROOT RACE -g g

a° .
-=^r
^^v^
*s
5*
•3 **• ^v -3 "2
s ;g _ X 6?, a «
IJ \ i*
«I i —1st R.RaceX YI-&R «^1
1 B
5 - s --- -\5t ia
o o -/ l*>* o 8w
111
OO.C II RV
i ; YR-R g|-
y s c •-

§£•3 /4* <° 1

g "g HI R.\R / IY R J l S~ 8
o ^3 _ \ - •Z-l . _/C SB'S

§ -"^ fijg
MERIDIAN OF RACES.

41
Sabaneev, BocnoMUHanm (2000), 262; Erinnerungen (2005), 291.
42
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 300.

221
 EXAMPLE 5.9, continued.
B. Scriabin's interpretation/adaption of Blavatsky in Prometheus.
Transcendence
VII: F8

o
N
• S3
«

a
Q

IV: C
Conflict

Sabaneev then tried to suggest to Scriabin that the slow luce part could have stepped

through the first seven overtones of an F# fundamental, which would have tied the slow luce

"background" closer to die Pleroma chords in the musical foreground. Sabaneev reported

that even though "the idea pleased [Scriabin]," the composer protested that '"then there is

no manvantara. The cycle doesn't close itself, and instead of a return to the point of departure

there is a boundless striving into the distance.'"43

Scriabin's concern with the cyclic aspect of the luce emerges from these anecdotes.

This feature of his chosen whole-tone scale, mapped onto the teleological dramatic

crescendo enacted by the music, neady captures both the cyclic and progressive aspects of

Blavatsky's evolutionary narrative. But it seems as if Scriabin's musical interpretation of

Blavatsky, which I have rendered in Example 5.9B above, differs a bit from the original,

43
Ibid.

222
shown in Example 5.9A. Because Scriabin associated the color red with matter, I have placed

his red Color Stage IV at the bottom of the spiral, representing the point of lowest material

descent. In Blavatsky's diagram, she places Root Race IV on the ascending arc. However, the

low point of her diagram is marked "3 Vz," corresponding to her location of the first Fall of

man halfway through the third Root Race.44 But Blavatsky's confusing mix of cardinal and

ordinal numbers in the diagram could be interpreted as referring not to "halfway through the

Third Race," but literally "three and a half races"—that is, halfway through the Fourth Race,

the true symmetrical midpoint of the seven divisions. Blavatsky's text actually supports the

latter reading, in contradiction to her placement of the Fourth Race on the ascending arc in

Example 5.9A.

Evolution proceeds in cycles. The Manvantaric cycle of Seven Rounds, beginning in

the First Round with mineral, vegetable and animal, brings its evolutionary work on
the descending arc to a dead stop in the middle of the Fourth Race, at the close of the
first half of the Fourth Round. It is on our Earth, then, (the Fourth sphere and the
lowest) and in the present Round, that this middle point has been reached.45

Scriabin's interpretation, as I have rendered it, corrects Blavatsky's inconsistency. It

also clarifies Blavatsky's conception by representing the symmetrical, cyclic properties of her

system with a truly symmetrical musical cycle. As discussed in Chapter Four, Blavatsky's

correspondence between colors and pitches was fundamentally linear: she mapped the seven

spectral hues to the seven pitches of major scale starting on C. She then located the poles of

red=matter and violet=spirit on the outer pitches of her gamut, C and B respectively. But

this analogy between the spirit-matter "polarity" and scale degrees 1 and 7 only works when

the seven pitches are arranged in linear pitch space. If a scale is arranged in a cycle based on

44
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 185.

45
Ibid., 180. See Chapter Two for an explanation of Blavatsky's recursive cosmological hierarchies.

223
octave equivalence, scale degrees 1 and 7 are placed direcdy next to each other, neutralizing

the expression of polarity as spatial distance. Scriabin translated Blavatsky's spirit-matter

polarity into a real musical polarity, the tritone Fjt-C, and filled in die gaps evenly widi

whole-steps to complete the seven-stage cycle.46

Scriabin's whole-tone cycle not only reconciles Blavatsky's contradictions, but it

effectively presents one solution to the recapitulation problem faced by teleology-obsessed

composers: how can progress be conveyed through die formal demands of repetition? In

Prometheus, Scriabin addresses this issue by separating his musical return from die return to

F | and the color of blue violet in the slow luce. What litde thematic recapitulation there is in

Prometheus occurs in Color Stage V, but it is transposed from its original appearances. This

ensures diat the music is heard against a different color in both fast and slow luce parts,

providing a fresh experience of the repeated music. When the deep blue-violet F | of Color

Stage I returns in Color Stage VII, the music consists largely of transformed themes and new

material.

Yet, there is a way in which the music does contribute to a sense of cyclic return

coinciding with the return of the dark violet-blue color stage. The main theme of the work,

first stated by the horns in measures 5-12, is sung by the chorus in measures 467ff., shordy

after the return of F# in die slow luce in in measure 460. Example 5.10 shows both instances

of the dieme, die second of which is considerably transformed through transposition,

rhythmic augmentation, melodic elision, and truncation of the final descending segment.

46
As discussed in Chapter Four, Scriabin's symbolic associations with colors very nearly preserve those of
Blavatsky's. He retains the assignment of material red on C, but moves the spiritual violet color to F # , one
color step away from B on his circle-of-fifths color wheel.

224
 EXAMPLE 5.10: Comparison of first horn theme and second choral entrance.

First blue stage: H o r n theme, m.m. 5-12

-^ -k
ffffi ^ £2=
m^
WM W-
j^E^

Final blue stage: choral entrance, m.m. 467-478

**?£
/ E ho ho

Scriabin's colors trace a trajectory from the spiritual dark blue of the opening,

through the material dark red, and back to the spiritual blue. T h e dramatic return to a divine

state of cosmic oneness is n o t only indicated by the thematic return shown above, but also

by the text the chorus sings in measures 467-503: " E a o h o a o h o , eaohoaoho, eaoho." Analysts

have often misunderstood this text as nonsense sounds, or they have tried to relate it to

Arthur Rimbaud's symbolist, synaesthetic p o e m "Vowells." 47 However, Maria Lobanova

identifies the choir's text with the word " O e a o h o o " found in Blavatsky's "Stanzas of

Dzyan," Stanza III, verse 5.48 In the Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky explains that " O e a o h o o "

signifies "'Father-Mother of the G o d s ' . . .the septenary root from which all proceeds," and

that it

.. .refers to the Non-Separateness of all that lives and has its being, whether in active
or passive state. In one sense, O e a o h o o is the "Rootiess Root of All"; hence, one
with Parabrahmam; in another sense it is a name for the manifested one life, the
Eternal living Unity. 49

47
Baker, "Prometheus and the Quest for Color-Music," 69.

48
Marina Lobanova, Mystiker, Magier, Theosoph, Theurg: Alexander Scriabin und seine Zeit (Hamburg: Bockel Verlag,
2004), 292-294.

49
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), 68.

225
 For Blavatsky, "Oeaohoo" is a mantra, which opens the human mind to higher

realities and makes them present.50 Most strikingly, its form is not fixed, but die word can be

shortened or lengthened, and its syllables rotated. Blavatsky writes that "all depends upon

die accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced as one, difee, or even

seven syllables[.]"51 Elsewhere in die "Stanzas of Dzyan," she renders it as "Oi-Ha-Hou (the

permutation of'Oeaohoo)."52 Scriabin's chorus sings a new version, "Eaohoaoho," which he

significandy breaks into seven syllables in a microcosmic resonance with die seven-stage plan

of the slow luce.

The preceding discussion suggests a closer relationship between musical structures,

the luce part, and Theosophic narrative than analysts have heretofore assumed. Strikingly,

Scriabin's slow luce part presents solutions to theological and compositional problems,

reconciling Blavatsky's schematic contradictions and providing a default means of large-scale

formal organization within which he could build a complex musical structure.

Scriabin's part for luce articulates a three-level temporal hierarchy for the work in

visual terms. At the largest, formal level, die slow luce segments Prometheus into seven stages

related to a dramatic narrative. Additionally, Scriabin's handwritten annotations in the

Parisian score indicate crescendos and diminuendos for the luce part. This brightening and

dimming of the lights articulates a middle-level temporal scheme for the music at the phrase

50
Ibid., 93-94.

51
Ibid., 68. Emphasis original.

52
Ibid., vol. 1, 93. Lobanova briefly discusses the considerable interest in mantras among several of Scriabin's
Russian symbolist contemporaries, including Andrei Bely and Nikolai Gumilev. See Mystiker, Magier, Theosoph,
Theutg (2004), 298-299.

226
or section, often corresponding to musical crescendos of volume and/or texture.53 On a

more local level, the faster voice articulates the harmonic rhythm, which usually moves with

the conductor's baton, on the bar or on the beat. These harmonic color changes sometimes

coincide with changes of texture and melody, but sometimes they cut across rhythmically

complex or syncopated melodic profiles, providing a visual counterpoint of metric regularity.

Interestingly, the stream of fast luce colors and the sustained colors of die slow luce

sometimes reverse their hierarchical positions, as discussed in the next section. This intimate

relationship between fast and slow luce adds an additional dimension to the luce part: the

creation of cross-temporal color associations between sections.

Interaction between the two luce voices

While the two light voices have two distinct analytical functions, one pertaining to

surface Pleroma chord progressions, and the other providing a formal grouping mechanism

for the work, the two voices interact with each other in a number of ways. First, the slower-

moving "background" voice can take over the faster luce's "foreground" function, and vice-

versa. (Here I am using the terms "background" and "foreground" in a visual sense, as in a

painting.) In Example 5.3 above, the fast luce rests in measure 19. The pitches of that

measure are drawn from an FjJ Pleroma sonority, suggesting that in that measure the two

voices merge, and the sustained luce part takes over the foreground-articulating role of the

faster luce. Similar instances of this may be found throughout die work.

53
Since the Parisian score has come to light in 1978, a few western authors have referred to it in their
descriptions of Prometheus, but as far as I am aware, no one has thoroughly investigated its implications for
establishing thematic grouping schemes in any detail. See Lobanova, Mystiker, Magier, Theosoph, Theurg (2004),
269-283; Dillon, "Scriabin's Synaesthesia," (2002), 9; Horst-Lederer, "Die Funktion der Luce-Stimme," (1980),
128-141.

54
Josef Horst-Lederer discusses this aspect of the luce, ibid., 131.

227
 EXAMPLE 5.11: The tricolor interruption, measures 305-308.

going out,
complex pale lily-color, greenish
_30j pink, with ripples and streams

Luce

to
00
Orch.

8w-
Jfc_
^ T^p m ^
^ HP s ^
Piano < #>
fc* 5E
^ ^ i "r r_j t_^
 Additionally, there are moments where the foreground voice breaks through the

background, interrupting the progress of the whole-tone cycle. This occurs in two places:

during the third stage, in which the leaden-grey background of Bl> is briefly relieved by

pitches B-natural (medium blue) and C (red); and between Stages IV and V (measures SOS-

SOS), in which the luce part breaks into three colors, Db-F-A, which articulate roots of

Pleroma sonorities occurring on the surface of the music. In both cases, these foreground

interruptions of the background may be explained by their dramatic function in the narrative

articulated by the slow face.55

The later interruption, located in measures 305-309 in the score, may serve as a kind

of marker, indicating the shift from the period of struggle in Stage IV to the process of

dematerialization in Stages V-VII. Musically, this passage is also something an anomaly

(Example 5.11). The piano, silent since bar 249, renters with pianissimo bell-like staccato

broken chords, the only appearance of this material in the entire piece, although it is

reminiscent of music previously heard in piccolo and celesta. Together, the brief shift to

three colors in the luce and the abrupt change of texture mark the work's major dramatic

turning point.

The interruptions in Color Stage III are not as easily accounted for. Example 5.12

details the movements of the luce, which slithers among the pitches Bb, B-natural, and C.

55
In contrast, Pople sought a structural interpretation for these interruptions, interpreting them as "passing" or
"neighboring" colors within the general whole-tone progression of the slow luce. See Sktyabin and Stravinsky
(1989), 244-247.

229
 EXAMPLE 5.12: L » « movements in Color Stage III. T h e C in parentheses in
measures 155-156 corrects the B-natural written in the score.

111-149 149-154 155-156 157-160 161-162 163-164 165-166 167-168 169-183

Because the color-stage begins and ends on Bl>, touching on it again briefly in

measures 165-166, some analysts have interpreted the extra pitches as signifying "passing"

and "neighboring" colors, somehow embellishing the more fundamental color of grey.56 But

a more intriguing notion is that these color changes relate to specific ideas connected with

Blavatsky's Third Root Race, which she described as "most mysterious of all the hitherto

developed five Races." 57

In Blavatsky's evolutionary scheme, the Third Race embodies a transition from the

sexless, disembodied progenitors of the first two Races and the full materialization and

complete separation of sexes which characterizes the Fourth Race. According to Blavatsky,

the Third Race has three sub-stages of reproductive development: the "'Sweat-born,' the

'Egg-bearing,' and the Androgyne.'" 5 8

Almost sexless, in its early beginnings, [Third Root-Race] became bisexual or

androgynous; very gradually of course. T h e passage from the former to the latter
transformation required numberless generations, during which the simple cell that
issued from the earliest parent (the two in one), first developed into a bisexual being;
and then the cell, becoming a regular egg, gave forth a unisexual creature." 59

56
Pople, Skyrabin and Stravinsky (1989), 244-247. See also Dillon, "Scriabin's Synesthesia," (2002), 68-69.

57
Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 197. The Third Race is discussed at length in the same volume, 161-
190.

58
Ibid, 197.

59
Ibid.

230
 A prominent concern with doubleness emerges in Blavatsky's discussion of the

Third Race, embodied by the Androgyne, a recurring motif in Blavatsky's esoteric writings as

well as the various literary emissions of the Russian Symbolists.60 As we have already seen,

Scriabin's own interest in the Androgyne as a symbol is reflected in his decision to include its

image in Jean Delville's cover illustration for the first edition of Prometheus. It seems that the

prominent alternation between Bb and B-natural in Stage HI of the slow luce is a musical

manifestation of the doubleness that Blavatsky associates with the Third Root Race. But why

would Scriabin use B\> and B-natural to represent this duality? As we have seen in Chapters

Three and Four, the concept of polarity, or unity-in-duality, was represented by the tritone in

other contexts.

The answer may lie in Scriabin's compositional source materials. Example 5.13

reproduces several lines from Scriabin's Prometheus sketch notebooks, revealing the

composer's preoccupation with the overtone series and the acoustic collection.

EXAMPLE 5.13: Scriabin's sketches for pitch materials in Prometheus.61

A. The overtone series, with numbered partials.

11
ftp o -e- ^ k
k> «»
*

60
See Olga Matich, Erotic Utopia: The Decadent Imagination in Russia's Fin de Stick (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 2005).

61
I have reproduced these transcriptions of Scriabin's sketches from the reproductions in Lobanova, "Zahlen,
Mystik, Magie: Neueste Erkentnisse zu Skxjabins Promethee," Das Ore/tester 50/'1 (January 2002): 7-8; Gottfried
Eberle, Zwichen Tonalitat und Atonalitat: Studien %ur Harmonik Alexander Skrjabins (Salzburg: Katzbichler, 1978),
64.

231
 EXAMPLE 5.13, continued.

B. Partials 8-16, transposed down an octave.

• o <>
n 1>0 (t]0)= ~rr~

C. Array of an acoustic collection in stacked thirds rooted on pitches of the scale in

B, above.
(pa-

e » b
§ iS ^§ ft ft

m ^m s^
D. Array of an acoustic collection in stacked fourths, rooted on pitches of the scale
in B, above.

ItS: ftS:
i r TT"
"TT"
-#rr- 33C O- TIT JCC
11 -&-
IF P* "XT"

-Q. JJO,
Si TT"
T V
O
3£
,THT
•n-
>£L_

Examples 5.13A-B show how Scrkbin derived a collection from partials 8-16,

consisting of an acoustic scale on C with a variable scale degree Bb/B-natural—the only two

pitches which share the same letter name. Scriabin's sensitivity to orthography may have

inspired him to use this dual inflection of a single letter name to represent doubleness in the

Third Color Stage. Examples 5.13C-D illustrate how Scriabin used this scale as the

horizontal foundation for experimental arrays of pitch materials. In Example 5.13A, Scriabin

232
stacks an acoustic collection partitioned into two tertian chords on each of the pitches of the

scale in 5.13B. Example 5.13D follows a similar procedure, but now each vertical acoustic

collection is presented as a series of stacked fourths. In the last two examples, Scriabin treats

the chordal basses Bi?/B-natural as a chromatic inflection of the same scale degree. When the

bass moves between the two inflections, the collectional pitches stacked above it remain the

same.

Analysts have long acknowledged the close relationships among Scriabin's favored

collections.62 Example 5.14 lists the scale derived from partials 8-16. The acoustic, Pleroma,

and whole-tone scales may be derived from it either by simply omitting pitches or altering

them by half-step.

EXAMPLE 5.14: Scriabin's scalar resources.

. Partials 8-16

'rf ^ E
\
Acoustic scale

£
Pleroma scale

£
Whole-tone scale

J \>P
m

62
See especially Clifton Callendar, "Voice-Leading Parsimony in the Music of Alexander Scriabin," Journal of
Music Theory 42/2 (Autumn, 1998): 219-233. A similar example to mine appears on his page 220.

233
 The oscillation between Bl> and B-natural in Stage III of the slow luce, then, may be

rooted in Scriabin's desire to base his scalar resources for Prometheus on the harmonic series.

The presence of Bb and B-natural in the foundational scales in Scriabin's sketches points to

such an origin. Sabaneev reported that, despite Scriabin's interest in the acoustic series, he

was committed to using the whole-tone scale to represent Blavatsky's stages of humankind

because of its cyclic properties. The B-natural interruptions in Stage III were a kind of

compromise, maintaining the cyclic whole-tone nature of the luce progression on the large

scale and preserving a small reminder of its relationship to the acoustic collection, while

serving the Theosophical idea of doubleness inherent in Blavatsky's Third Root Race.

Scriabin foreshadows the Bt/B-natural duality of Color Stage III early in the work.

Example 5.15 shows the opening theme, sounded by the horns in measures 5-12.

EXAMPLE 5.15: Opening theme, measures 5-12.

In Example 5.15, melody notes are drawn from the accompanying A Pleroma

harmony, normalized in fourths below the staff. The theme climaxes on the chord tone B-

natural, indicated by the box, and slides down a half-step to Bi>, the first non-chord tone of

the work. This moment prefigures the alternation between Bl> and B-natural in Color Stage

III, a "promissory" figure which first manifests itself as a small harmonic irregularity, but

234
eventually has consequences for the work on a more global scale.63 Interestingly, the status

of the two pitches reverses between the two passages. In the opening theme, B-natural is

part of the supporting A Pleroma harmony and Bl> is the anomaly; in Color Stage III, Bt> fits

into the slow luce's whole-tone progression and B-natural is the outlier.

The other extraneous pitch within Color Stage III, the red C, briefly foreshadows the

sustained C in the slow luce during Color Stage IV. This reflects a narrative link between

Blavatsky's Third and Fourth Root Races. Blavatsky's Book of Dzyan suggest that humans

first received the first dull glimmerings of human Manas during the Third Root Race,

although universal enlightenment did not occur until the Fourth:

The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night, ready for rebirth, came down... Some
projected the spark. Some deferred till the Fourth. From their own Rupa they filled
the Kama. .. .Those who received but a spark, remained destitute of knowledge; the
spark burned low. The third remained mindless.64

Scriabin's Stage III includes a very explicit foreshadowing of the beginning of Color

Stage IV, shown in Examples 5.16A-B. Here, the music, harmony, color and luce projections

work together to create a connection between the two episodes. In Example 5.16a, marked

limpide—sourd, mena$ant [limpid—muted, menacing], harp, flute, and piccolo sound three bell-

like warning peals in measure 145, and the trumpets follow with an ominous perfect-fourth

ascending call. Scriabin's handwritten annotations for the passage indicate a "pale, reddish,

watery, trembling" light for the bell peals, which darkens suddenly during the horn call. The

same music, accompanied by strikingly similar handwritten indications for the light part,

63
Edward T. Cone defined his concept of a promissory note for tonal music as follows: "Normally, in music of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, promissory status is demanded, or at least requested by a note.. .that
has been blocked from proceeding to an indicated resolution, and whose thwarted condition is underlined both
by rhythmic emphasis and by relative isolation. Rhythmic emphasis, of course, results from the stressed
position of the [note] within (or outside of) a phrase, from a special agogic or dynamic inflecton, or from a
combination of those. Isolation is effected not only by the motivic detachment diat often separates such a
chord from its surroundings, but also by harmonic novelty." "Schubert's Promissory Note: An Exercise in
Musical Hermeneutics," Nineteenth Century Music 5/'3 (Spring 1982): 236.

64
Blavatsky, "Stanzas of Dzyan," Stanza VII, verse 24, in Secret Doctrinevol. 2 (1888), 18.

235
returns at the very beginning of Color Stage IV, measures 183-186. In b o t h locations, the

sustained fast luce harmony consists of a C Pleroma chord, associated with the color red.

EXAMPLE 5.16: Foreshadowing of the red Color Stage IV in Color Stage III.

A. Color Stage III, measures 145-146.

pate
reddish,
watery, immediately
trembling dark
W iimpide sourd, raetvacant

Luce "—"3"
r
?fe
|R, Up.]
I i_
z^pz^£;
ript.)

PP L mf

Orchestra ~ » \ T i l I^T~*~-
T J
Pi>
i

\fa TTJL
J2.
Pleroma c h o r d

236
 EXAMPLE 5.16, CONTINUED.

B. Color Stage IV, measures 183-186.

red-violet, simile [rcd-violer,

watery darkness water)'] darkness
183

Luce
^ ^
f- T-
[Pic., Fi., HpJ |Pic,FI,Hp.)

to lTpr.'| |Tpt-J
~y"
4
=9=
-»-—
PP PP

Orchestra

£L
Pleroma c h o r d ^
 The red intrusion of C in the slow luce color during Stage III, measures 161-162, has

a similar foreshadowing function, but one not quite as obvious as the limpide—-sourd, menagant

figure. While the surface harmony does switch to C Pleroma and the luce flashes the color

red, the music has no thematic relationship to material in the coming Color Stage IV.

However, similar to the limpide—sourd, menafant figure, measures 161-162 (shown in Example

5.17) create a sudden break in the prevailing texture, halting the momentum of the previous

section with static chords in the strings and harp arpeggios, which together contribute to an

atmosphere of mystery. Scriabin's hand-written notations read, "pale red, translucent, the

finest stream of light." The textural and dynamic change, as well as the sudden shift in the

background color from a light blue to red, mark this gesture as anomalous.

EXAMPLE 5.17: Red interruption in Stage III, measures 161-162.

pale red
translucent
the finest stttiim of light
161

H
fi I'lpl (Hp.|

Musically, measures 161-162 actually hearken back to measures 155-156, the end of

the piano solo marked etrange charme [strangely enchanted], shown in Example 5.18. The B in

238
the notated slow luce part, then, is probably an error, as it does not match the C fundamental

of the underlying C Pleroma chord. Scriabin's 1913 annotation for the passage beginning in

measure 153, corrects this 1910 mistake. His indication, "very red," would suggest a C in the

luce part, which matches the harmony, and which would strengthen the musical association

between 155-156 and 161-162.

EXAMPLE 5.18: Piano solo, measures 155-156 (B in the luce part is probably an error).

| very red (m. 153)]

We have seen two types of foreshadowing used in Stage III: the first using both

color and music (measures 145-146, foreshadowing measures 183-187), and the second using

the color red alone (measures 155-156 and 161-162). Both indicate the symbolic potential of

color in Scriabin's design within the piece. In Prometheus, particular colors become associated

with specific moments in the form, and then may take on a leitmotivic role. As we have seen,

certain colors or color combinations may foreshadow a dramatic event in the future, but

they may also recall musical events in the past. Additionally, the luce can contribute to a new,

239
different experience of a frequently-repeated theme by presenting it with a new color on

subsequent appearances. These "light motives" can work in parallel or in counterpoint to the

associations created by musical leitmotivs, creating a vast multi-sensory network of

associations for the listener dirough their dramatic functions of foreshadowing,

reminiscence, and transformation. These relationships will be explored in greater depth in

the following chapter.

240
 "Reveal to us the Mysteries ofLight!

—Helena Blavatsky'

CHAPTER SIX
POEM OF FIRE

Creation ex nihilio

The last vibration of the seventh eternity thrills though infinitude. The mother swells, expanding
from within like the bud of the lotus}

Prometheus begins with a musical evocation of Akasa, the primal creative force of the

universe: a unified vibration comprised of sound and light. In a "mysterious half-light,

greenish-violet, flickering," the orchestra emits zpianissmo tremolo in the strings, played surla

touche and doubled by flute, clarinet, and bassoon. The flickering of the luce parallels the

strings in tremolo, a visual manifestation of the quality of sound. The first four bars of

Prometheus represent sound; not music, yet—for music requires rhythm, and no discernible

pulse disturbs this pure harmonic vibration, which evokes the timelessness before human

time began.

This First Sound represents the primal unity from which the entire work proceeds by

means of a gradual differentiation. Even the sustained dark blue-violet of the first color stage

1
Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy vol. 2 (London: The
Theosophical Publishing Company, Ltd., 1888), 505.

2
Blavatsky, "Book of Dzyan," Stanza III, Verse 1, in The Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), 28.

241
and the green of the A Pleroma harmony merge in a single primordial hue, "blue-greenish."

As Example 6.1 shows, this sound is a complete Pleroma chord on A, but inverted to

obscure its aural identity.3 When Sabaneev heard this sonority for the first time during a visit

to the composer, he recalled that it "sounded in our ears like the voice from the chaos

before the creation of the world."

EXAMPLE 6.1: Prometheus, measures 1-4.

Mysterious half-light
greenish violet, flickering

Lento. Brumeux. M.M. J = 6 0

In a microcosmic replication of the creation of the universe from a single vibration,

the human creators emitted the earliest beings as a breath. "Mankind, collectively and

individually, is, with all manifested nature, the vehicle of the breath of One Universal

3
Leonid Sabaneev described Scriabin's glee at the inverted Pleroma chord's inscrutability in BocnoMunanwi o
CKpn6uHe [Memories ofScriabin] (Moscow: Classika-XXI, 2000), 50-51; Erinnerungen an Alexander Skrjabin,
translated by Emst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2005), 50-51.

4
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 50; BocnoMuuaHUM (2000), 50. Elsewhere, Sabaneev seems to indicate that
Scriabin himself referred to the beginning of Prometheus as the primal chaos. See Erinnerungen (2005), 69;
BocnoMUHanum (2000), 60.

242
Principle, in its primal differentiation,"5 wrote Blavatsky. In measure five, a new sound

crystallizes in the inchoate chaos, produced by a literal emission of breath.

EXAMPLE 6.2: Theme of Ideation, measures 5-12.

Part y. descent

This First Breath, the F# played by the horns, is an aural manifestation of the

sustained F(t in the slow luce part. Blavatsky writes, "the great Breath assumes the character

of precosmic Ideation. It is the fons et origo of force and of all the individual consciousnesses,

and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution."6 Accordingly,

Scriabin called the theme which unfurls from the primal F(t the Theme of Ideation [pa3yMa].

The Book of Dzyan describes the early process of human evolution:

When the one becomes two, the threefold appears, and the three are one; and it is
our thread, oh Lanoo, the heart of the man-plant called Saptasarma.8

Scriabin's Theme of Ideation develops from the single breath in three segments,

shown in Example 6.2. The first unfolds from the initial Ffl in a serpentine fashion, dipping

down to the D | before leaping up to the G, and finally descending by step to the initial F#,

5
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 492.

6
Ibid., vol. 2,15.

7
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 69; BocnoMUHaHuwi (2000), 66. This is a Blavatskian translation: pa3yMa is literally
reason or mind.

8
Blavatsky, "Book of Dzyan," Stanza VII, Verse 3, in The Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), 34.

243
using only three pitches of the underlying A Pleroma sonority. The second segment ascends

through D(t-F}t-G, reaching beyond them to add high climactic B. The final segment

descends through the same B-D# span, but adds the new pitch Bb—a pitch outside the A

Pleroma collection. This pitch functions as a chromatic promissory note, a harbinger of the

future alternations between lead-grey (Bl») and blue (B-natural) in the slow luce during Color

Stage III.9

This process of gradual musical differentiation in bars 1-12 continues throughout the

work. The three basic gestures of the Theme of Ideation, labeled "circle," "ascent," and

"descent" in Example 6.2, become musical progenitors, populating the entire work with

their descendants. Each gesture has its own dramatic role in the piece. The circle fragment,

as incipit, always triggers a reference back to the Theme of Ideation, whether the other

fragments are present or not. Its subsequent thematic transformations are minimal. In

contrast, the ascent and descent fragments both take on rich lives through their

transformation and reinterpretation throughout the work. They are musical symbols, or

leitmotivs. Over the course of the work they become polarized into contrasting themes,

which come into conflict, only to reunite.

In measures 13-20, marked avec mystere, the ascent motive breaks free and moves

imitatively through various woodwind solos. In Russian, the term for wind instruments,

"AyxoBwe HHcrpyMeHTM," contains the word "Ayx," which by itself carries a double meaning.

It may be translated as breath or air, but in philosophical or religious contexts "Ayx" refers to

9
Anthony Pople discusses this Bb as a lower neighbor, noting that the flattening of the B results in an octatonic
subset belonging to set class [013479] in Skryabin and Stravinsky 1908-1914: Studies in Theory and Analysis (New
York and London: Garland, 1989), 219-220. Richard Taruskin eschews a Pleroma chord analysis of the passage
altogether, preferring to hear the B-natural as an appoggiatura to the Bb, a member of the underlying octatonic
collection. See The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 218-219.1
discuss the alternation between Bb and B-natural in the slow luce in Chapter Five.

244
spirit or mind. The harmony progresses in Pleroma-chord root motion related through a

minor third cycle: Eb, C, A, and F#. This establishes a color palette limited to steely blue

(which Scriabin marks as leaden grey in the Parisian score) red, green, and the spiritual hue

of the first Color Stage: dark blue-violet.

Scriabin's exclusive use of Pleroma sonorities related to the home color of F# by

minor third cycle establishes a limited harmonic and color palette in the first 46 measures of

Color Stage I. F | Pleroma, the harmony corresponding to the dark blue violet Color Stage, is

the global tonic for the work, but A Pleroma also possess a secondary tonic function,

sounding at both the opening and closing of the first thematic group, measures 1 -26. In

successive Color Stages, Scriabin uses both F# (dark blue violet) and A (green) to trigger a

recollection of the beginning of the piece.

The Pleroma sonorities of Eb and C, on the other hand, are used more sparingly in

these first few passages. They are the polar harmonies of A and F(t, respectively, as Example

6.3 shows.10 Scriabin associated the members of the primary F(t-C tritone pole with spirit and

matter, and, aside from the "red gleam" in bar 15 (the passing product of cyclic m3

transposition), he withholds extensive use of this red material harmony until measure 41.

10
See Chapter Three for a discussion of polarity and Chapter Four for an examination of Scriabin's polar color
symbolism.

245
 EXAMPLE 6.3: Contextual relationships in Color Stage I.

Primary tonic:
dark blue-violet

Secondary tonic: •rj L Secondary pole:

green steel blue

The Emergence of the Will

Sabaneev characterized the opening of the work as a "weary" manifestation of a

powerful force, a "languid thirsting for life," continuing, "within this lassitude there appears

the primordial polarity between soul and matter. The creative upsurge or gust of feeling

registers a protest against this torpor."11

The gust of feeling occurs as soon as measure 21, marked plus animi. A muted

trumpet fanfare interrupts the lazy iterations of the ascent motive, accompanied by a

"somewhat brighter light." The trumpets' call, shown in Example 6.4, consists of two quartal

chords related by tritone, derived from the secondary polarity of Eb and A Pleroma. In

11
Sabaneev, program notes for Prometheus, Op. 60 (premiered Moscow, March 2, 1911); translated by Faubion
Bowers, Scriabin: A Biography, second edition, revised (New York: Dover, 1996), 206-207.

246
measure 22, a penetrating ray of blue-violet light interrupts the gloom as a trumpet solo,

marked itnperieux, disrupts the prevailing musical atmosphere.

EXAMPLE 6.4: Derivation of trumpet fanfare, measure 21.

Trumpet fanfare Pleroma chord derivation

Eb A

EXAMPLE 6.5: Motivic derivation of Theme of Will from the ascent fragment of the Theme
of Ideation. Numbers below refer to intervals measured in half-steps.

3E 3 ^ &3EE|EEE|E
u WW ^=*=
i
^JJJIJ^^P
mf
Reduction Reduction

As shown in Example 6.5, the trumpet's ascending melody is a transformation of the

ascent fragment from the Theme of Ideation. Sabaneev identified this theme as the "the will

of the creative spirit."12 Scriabin played this theme to Sabaneev as he explained the meaning

behind Delville's cover design for the printed score. Referring to the Androgyne in the

center, Scriabin asked,

"And his eyes, do you like them? .. .The eyes embody the Will. And this here is also
the 'Theme of Will'" (he played it then on the piano), "which represents the stuff of
the cosmos, as well as the Ur-Chaos, from which the world-will of all life has
awoken."13

12
Sabaneev, "Scriabin's 'Prometheus,'" translated by Henry Falkenstein, in The Blaue Reiter Almanac, edited by
Klaus Lankheit (New York: Viking, 1974), 137.

13
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 81; BomoMumHUHH (2000), 79.

247
 In Scriabin's reading of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, he would have read that the

powerful force that lay behind the superficial world of appearances was primal Will, and that

music was the direct expression of the Will. The opening passages of Scriabin's Prometheus

represent the coming of the world into being; music as Will is representing its own agency in

the world.

According to Sabaneev, many of Scriabin's major compositions feature a melody he

called the Theme of Will, which derives from a single model: the Sword motive in Wagner's

Ring cycle. The Sword motive, shown in Example 6.6, comes from the climactic fourth

scene of Wagner's Das Rheingold, and, like Scriabin's Theme of Will in Prometheus, is played by

the trumpet.

Example 6.6: Sword motive from Das Rheingold, Scene 4: £CWotan's plan."

Trumpet

jiJir JJ^IJ- pr i

Both Wagner's melody and the Theme of Will in Prometheus share a strident,

ascending profile, though Scriabin's melody is a pure ascent with symbolic significance. In

Ivanov's essay "The Symbolics of Aesthetic Principles" collected in By the Stars, he defined

the symbolics of ascent:

The "sublime" in aesthetics, insofar as it is represented by ascent, is an essentially

religious phenomenon that thereby transcends the bounds of aesthetics. Concealed
within it is the symbolics of a theurgic mystery and a musical antinomy, whose holy
formula and mysterious hieroglyph is "he who bears God batdes with God."

14
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 169.

15
Viacheslav Ivanov, "The Symbolics of Aesthetic Principles," (1905) in Selected Essays, translated by Robert
Bird (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2001), 6.

248
 Ivanov's phrase, "he who bears God battles with God" reflects the essence of

Prometheus, the Titan, the bearer of divine light who batded Zeus. Scriabin's ascending

Theme of Will embodies the willful spirit emanating from the eyes of the Androgyne, the

"imperious" Promethean spirit itself.

The trumpet's muted dieme in measure 22 is merely a harbinger of the coming

drama. In measures 23-26, the music sinks back into lassitude as die harmony returns to the

inverted A Pleroma sonority of the beginning, while strings repeat a chromatic ascending

figure emphasizing Ff. The luce contributes to this sense of a return to the original state,

mixing dark blue and green "as in die beginning," accompanied by a dimming of die lights

over measures 24-25.

In measure 26-30, die lights brighten again, but the general affect of languor

continues as a new dieme appears. This ascending dieme, marked contemplatif, is a taming of

die Theme of Will tiirough a reduction of its characteristic intervals. The striving major third

and tritone in the earlier dieme are now reduced to an augmented second and perfect fourdi,

as Example 6.7 shows.

EXAMPLE 6.7: Loose motivic connection between Theme of Will and Contemplatif"Theme,
mm. 26ff. Numerals refer to the number of half-steps within each interval.

Theme of Will Contemplatif Theme 3__

g± -fr 7 f f •
pap f^i5&
Reduction

S^tk H'vV
1 4 6

16
Many sonata-form interpreters consider the first twenty-six measures as introductory, and diis t h e m e die
beginning of die exposition. See Chapter Four.

249
 Scriabin's use of color and Pleroma chords strengthens the connection between

these two moments. In measures 27-28, the luce moves F(t (violet blue)—A (green)—F#

(violet blue). The use of these two tonic colors ties the Contemplatij"Theme to the first

appearance of the Theme of Will in measures 16-18, and ultimately back to the first

appearance of ascent motive itself. Scriabin's handwritten indication of "bright blue, green

flare," also creates a visual reference to the penetrating ray that heralded that first

presentation of the Theme of Will.

As the ContemplatijrVnsxas. concludes in measures 29-30, Scriabin writes a lighting

decrescendo, indicating that the hall should be "washed in gloom," a return to the dark

beginnings of the work as the harmony setdes on a root-position F# Pleroma sonority. The

solo piano enters suddenly, struggling against the darkness with a fully harmonized version

of the Theme of Will which, like its predecessor, is marked imperieux.

Scriabin wrote the virtuoso piano part for himself; he performed it at the March 2,

1911 Moscow premiere, conducted by Serge Koussevitzsky. Just as in Scriabin's early opera

and his unfinished Mysterium, he cast himself in the role of Promethean artist-hero. And,

similar to the opera, the hero is destined to become a holy sacrifice. Ivanov linked the idea of

sacrifice to the symbolic properties of ascent:

Ascent is the symbol of the tragic element that appears when one of the participants
in the Dionysian chorus is separated from the dithyrambic throng. The impersonal
element of the orgiastic dithyramb gives rise to the sublime image of the tragic hero,
who is revealed as an individual personality and is condemned to death precisely
because for being separated and exposed. For the dithyramb was originally a
sacrificial service, and he who stepped into the middle of the circle was the sacrificial
victim.17

It is significant, then, that Scriabin gives the Theme of Will, based on the ascent

motive from the Theme of Ideation, to the solo instruments of trumpet and piano. Scriabin's

17
Ivanov, "The Symbolics of Aesthetic Principles," in Essays (2001), 7.

250
use of the first instrument connects the Theme of Will to Wotan's spear motive; his use of

the second inserts himself into the drama. These solo instruments represent the individual

will in conflict with the communal mass of the orchestra, Wagner's ideal dramatic chorus.

Sabaneev wrote that, in Prometheus, "the 'obbligato' [part] for piano embodies the microcosm

of the individual juxtaposed against the macrocosm of the orchestra, the embodiment of the

cosmic idea of the universe."18 The central narrative drama of Scriabin's Prometheus rests on

the reunification of the solo with the ensemble, the poet with the crowd.19 The table below

summarizes the developments leading up to measure 26.

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE I, SECTION 1, MEASURES 1-26.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST LUCE

STAGE COLOR
1-4 L^ento. Brumeux.
Representation of beginnings of life A Green
Fit as pure vibration
Violet- 1 5-12 Theme of Ideation: circle, ascent,
blue descent
13-21 Ascent fragment transposed around a EI>,C,A,F8 Steely blue,
m3 cycle. red, green,
violet blue
21 Quartal chords in trumpets A Green
22-23 Theme of Will in trumpet Ftt Violet blue
23-26 Closing; quartal chords A Green

The Emergence of Polarities

Sabaneev referred to the appearance of "the primordial polarity between soul and

matter"20 in his program notes. On Scriabin's musical color wheel, spirit and matter were

18
Sabaneev, "Prometheus—A Preview," translated by Don Luis Wetzel in journal ofthe Scriabin Society of America
5/1 (Winter 2000-2001): 103.

19
See Ivanov's essay 'TToeT H ^epHb, ["The Poet and the crowd"] in Flo 3eedidaMb [By the Stars], 33-42 (St.
Petersburg: Ory, 1909).

20
Sabaneev, quoted in Bowers, Sriabin (1996), 206-207.

251
correlated with the blue-violet F# and the red C. Red makes a brief appearance in bar 15,

but is otherwise missing from the harmonic color palette. In bars 27-45, shown in Example

6.8, the Contemplatijtheme alternates with the Theme of Will in the piano as they progress

through a sequence of descending minor-third transpositions. The piano's three emphatic

entrances on forte octaves in the left hand trace out the journey from F# (m. 30) to E!> (m. 37)

and finally C (m. 42). Each entrance is marked by a tritone bass leap from the Pleroma

fundamental. The large-scale tritone transversal results in a polar flip between the first and

last gestures: Ffl-C in measures 30-31 becomes C-Fjf in measure 42-43.12

The piano's final entrance in measures 42-44 contains the first prolonged instance of

C Pleroma and the color red. Measures 45-46 summarize the larger-scale motion from F# to

C accomplished by the piano with in a quick F#-C Pleroma progression in measures 45-46

accompanying two statements of the Theme of Will in trumpets and horns.

Along with the polarity between spirit and matter, Sabaneev's program alludes to a

polarity of affect: the upsurge and protest of the trumpet and piano are contrasted against a

prevailing lassitude and torpor expressed by music played by the orchestra.23 After the second

entrance of the Contemplatijtheme in measures 35-38, the Theme of Will dominates in piano

and brass until measure 46. This shift toward the more active side of the dramatic polarity is

underscored with the luce, which becomes more active. Lightning flashes accompany the

piano's entrance at measure 39, and the arrival on the red C Pleroma harmony is "fiery" with

lightning flashes marking the two statements of the Theme of Will in measures 45 and 46.

21
Charles Myers, "Two Cases of Synaesthesia," British journal of Psychology 7 (1914-1915), 115.

22
See Chapter Three for more examples of this procedure in the late piano works.

23
Sabaneev, quoted in Bowers, Scriahin (1996), 206-207.

252
 SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE I, SECTION 2, MEASURES 26-47.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLORS
26-30 ContemplatijTheme: loosely related to F»,A Bright blue 1
ascent fragment with a green
Ftt flare |
Violet- 2 31-34 Piano entrance 1, based on Theme of F»,EI> Blue, leaden
Blue Will gleam |
35-38 ContemplatijTheme Eb Various bluish
hues; leaden |
39-42 Piano entrance 2, Theme of Will EI»,C Leaden, red
43-45 Piano entrance 3, as above but C Red
truncated
46-47 Theme of Will in trumpet and horns. Ftt.C Blue, red

253
 EXAMPLE 6.8: Measures 26-46.

washed in gloom
completely dark, gloom
bright blue less light
dark blue leaden gleam
[Tj green flare

contemplatif. M.M. J=80. peu a peu anime M.M. q=96.

 EXAMPLE 6.8, Continued.

o n a generally dark r blue background:

intensifying lead U u e dk blue leaden-metalli<gloom
leadblue
steel blue L, becoming dark the same, waning red, fiery crimson
green-blue intensifying
J lightning
con temp latif A.M. J=96.
 EXAMPLE 6.8, Continued.

-3 ' ' 3-

*fi# £G' Qi^m

A «t.
^ ^
=rr f£=^ •iffe > t :=¥P?^
Ww to ^
Joy and languor

Rosa Newmarch referred to "the strange moods of bliss and anguish which follow

the acquisition of self-consciousness.. ."24 A dramatic change of affect occurs in measures

47-50, marked Plm anime, Joyeux [more animated, joyous]. The piano plays dancing scherzo-

like material, and the colors grow softer. The pitches in these four measures are drawn from

the Pleroma sonorities F# and D, which Scriabin describes as "blue, caressing," and "soft

yellow" (Example 6.9).

EXAMPLE 6.9: Joyeux piano episode, measures 47-50.

Piano

Pletoma

The shift to D Pleroma (yellow) in measure 49 is the first instance of a harmony not

related to F# by minor third cycle. With the exception of Fjt, the harmonies in measures 47-

66 consistendy avoid the "home" Ff-A-C-Eb constellation, instead dwelling on Pleroma

sonorities D, E, and Cf, organized into an eight-measure progression first heard in measures

47-55 and repeated in 55-62 with a small extension. Although this progression departs from

the previous harmonies and colors encountered in the work, Scriabin maintains a consistent

24
Rosa Newmarch, "'Prometheus': The Poem of Fire," The Musical Times 55/854 (April 1,1914): 228.

257
Ffl pedal point in the sounding bass throughout the entire subsection, a musical connection

to the sustained blue-violet F# of the slow luce.

The repeating harmonic progression underlies three thematic ideas, summarized in

the table below: the Joyeux piano episode, measures 47-50 (which is varied through

diminution in its parallel restatement in measures 55-56); the CotitemplaftfTheme, embellished

with lavish piano arpeggiation in measures 50-53 (returning in 58-61); and finally, a new two-

measure piano gesture based on the "ascent" motive. This third gesture, shown in Example

6.10, forms a closing tag to the eight-bar unit in measures 53-54 and 61-62. After its second

statement, this piano tag is repeated and extended in measures 63-66, devolving into a piano

solo marked delicat, cristallin which virtually stops all orchestral momentum. The luce

counteracts this effect with a lighting crescendo in measures 65-66, preparing the more

active passage which immediately follows.

EXAMPLE 6.10: Piano tag, measures 53-54. Numbers refer to intervallic half-steps, which
relate the piano tag's ascending figure to the ascent fragment in the Theme of Ideation.

258
 SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE I, SECTION 3, MEASURES 47-66.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
47-50 Plus anime, Jqyeux: Piano episode 1 Ftt,D "blue,
caressing,
"soft
yellow"

50-53 Contemplatijtheme, w/piano Ct(,E "moon-

Ftt colored,"
Violet- 3 "lily-
Blue colored"
53-54 Piano tag Cjt "lily-
colored"
55-58 Piano variation on measures 47-50 Fjj-D "pure blue,"
"yellow-gold
hues"
58-61 Contemplatij, simile C»-E "moon-
colored,"
"lily-
colored"
61-63 Piano tag "Ely-
63-66 Piano tag turns into solo, delicat, cristallin
a colored"

Scriabin's handwritten annotations suggest that the colors in subsection three are

softer and brighter than in previous sections, in keeping with the general impression that this

third subsection creates a dramatic contrast from the dark colors and the serious affect of

the rest of the first F# color-stage. Scriabin's notes go so far as to indicate departures in the

luce part from his original color assignments. Instead of the blue-greenish color correlated

with E, Scriabin now writes that the E in measure 50 is "blue moon-colored," and that the

Cjf which follows in measure 51 is a "pale moon-color," a contrast from the color-wheel

designation of C# as "pure violet." In measure 52, he makes another departure, labeling C#

as "lily-colored," the color of A\> in the table of lights, as if the labeling system has shifted

one position toward the sharp side on Scriabin's circle of fifths.25

It is not apparent whether these instances of mislabeling arise through creative choice or inattention.
Whatever the cause of these inconsistencies, however, it seems clear that Scriabin wants a general softening and

259
The piano's dance

In measures 67-85 the piano's activity intensifies with the new dance material marked

Tres anime, etincelant [very animated, sparkling]. Example 6.11 shows measures 69-71, the

incipit of the new piano episode. According to Sabaneev, Scriabin called this the "Theme of

Motion [ABnaceirafl]," recalling that Scriabin remarked that "all the ideas of the whole lie in

this leap of a ninth [E-D|]. The theme, therefore, represents the ideas [associated with the

descending leap]. Nothing is by accident. And so, likewise, there is nothing vague about the

ninth itself: it relates to the idea of materialization, with the 'fall of the spirit into matter.'"26

EXAMPLE 6.11: Theme of Motion, etincelant, measures 69-71.

Scriabin's association of the downward leap with the process of materialization is a

microcosm of the metaphysics of Color Stages I-IV as a whole. They represent the

movement from the spiritual blue-violet of the opening (F#) to the central, red period of

materialization and conflict (C). The Pleroma sonorities and colors of this piano episode

contrast these two colors, microcosmically tracing the movement between F# and C which

occurs on the large scale. The pitches of the Theme of Motion are drawn from the blue-

brightening of the colors in this third subsection to parallel the change of musical mood and the introduction

of new harmonies.

26
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 284; BocnoMUHauum (2000), 256.

260
violet F# Pleroma sonority, which is sustained from measure 69 to measure 73. In measures

74-81, motivic fragments from the theme continue to sound while Pleroma sonorities

oscillate between the blue F(t and red C, a harmonic and visual juxtaposition of the primary

polarity of the work.

The contrast between spirit and matter as expressed by the harmony also relates to

the polar function of the piano's etincelant dance episode in the work as a whole. In the first

color stage, it continues the cheerful, joyous mood of the scherzo material at measure 41,

which seems to fit uneasily with its role as the agent of materialization. However, in the

work's final Color Stages, the Theme of Motion returns and takes on a more sinister

character as it is transformed into an ecstatic frenzied sacrificial dance. There, its original

agency is reversed as it hastens the work toward its final climax in dematerialization.

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE I, SECTION 4, MEASURES 67-86.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
67-69 Explicit return to "home" minor third Ftt-A-C-Eb Blue-violet,
cycle, "tres anime, etincelant" green, red,
steely-blue
Ftt 4 69-73 Theme of Motion F» Dark blue
74-79 Theme of Motion, cont'd. Ftt-C Blue and
Dark oscillation red
blue- 80-81 Piano tag Blue and
F#-C
violet red
81-82 Reprise of m3 cycle, 67-69 [see above] [see above]
83-85 Reprise of Theme of Motion, 69-73
86 Backwards reference to m. 53, 61, 6 3 — D Yellow
linking function to next section

261
Desire and mystery: Color stage II

Scriabin's expressive score markings suggest the sensual character of the music in

Color Stage II, a vibrant lily-color, or red-violet. In measures 87-98, marked Voluptueux,

presque avec doukur [Voluptuous, almost with grief]," a two-measure piano gesture alternates

with a fluttering figure in the woodwinds, Examples 6.12-13.

EXAMPLE 6.12: Piano's voluptueux figure, measures 87-89.

Piano

Pleroma

EXAMPLE 6.13: Fluttering theme in woodwinds, measures 89-91.

p molto express.
X [Via]

Otch. ^"^~f~^ ^????????JW?

p dolciss. p dim.
[Vc]

i [Hn.]
_$Jr
m
• ^

-~&z

Pleroma
i
wsz
2

Like the etincelant piano episode, the voluptueuxfigurealso contains a prominent leap

of a descending minor ninth, symbolizing the continued descent into materialization.

262
Blavatsky provided only a vague and fairly cursory description of die Second Root Race in

The Secret Doctrine?1 The beings of die Second Root Race were created through a process of

budding and expansion, and served as a transition to the more advanced members of the

Third Root Race. Likewise, Color Stage II is transition area within the composition between

the spiritual blue-violet of Color Stage I and the lead-grey of Color Stage III. The lily-colored

stage is literally an admixture of violet with red, a step toward full materiali2ation in Color

Stage IV. As we saw in Chapter Five, the Third Color Stage also points ahead to the central

red Color Stage.

The warm, muted hues of the luce generally support the sensual character of the

music indicated by Scriabin's expressive markings. Scriabin's handwritten annotations here

suggest that the luce part does more than mechanically analyze Pleroma sonorities. On the

contrary, it actively supports the character of the music and the overarching dramatic

narrative. Scriabin limits the actual colors deployed, rather than having the luce portray the

wealth of varied Pleroma root motions.28 Instead, the luce mosdy projects the warm colors of

red (both C and F) and orange (G) against the sustained lily-color of the slow luce. The

whitish/moon-color of B serves as a pale contrast against all this warmth, as does the brief

"bluish" color of E. The F is a "pale" or "subdued" red, the C# lily-color is also "pale," as is

27
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 117-121.

28
Scriabin's handwritten annotations mislabel the colors as follows: In measures 88, 90, 91, and 110, B Pleroma
is a "moon color," rather than medium blue, and, similarly, in measure 105 it is "whitish"; in measures 94-96
the Cjt is not violet but "lily colored, pale," a conflation widi its close neighbor on die circle of fifths, die home
key of Ab; in measure 98 and 100, Eb is now "moon colored" rather dian steely, and in measure 101, E is
"bluish," rather than blue-green. Additionally, the pitches in the fast luce part do not always match the
fundamental of the Pleroma harmony: on the downbeats of measures 88 and 92, the luce should indicate B
Pleroma instead of a sustained F; measure 90 should be A Pleroma instead of B; the downbeat of measure 96
should be G Pleroma, not sustained Cfl.

263
the "moon-color" in measure 90. Sabaneev reported that Scriabin's deviations from the

notated luce part "depend only on the intensity of feeling."29

Harmonically, the progressions consistently avoid any reference to the home

Pleroma sonority of F# or its minor-third-related chords. The greater variety of root motions

contributes to a sense of harmonic instability. Thematically, the music tends to avoid

reference to melodies previously introduced, with the exception of an allusion to the circle

motive from the Theme of Ideation in measures 99-106. Marked avec delice.. .avec un interne

desir [with delight.. .with an intense desire], the fragment appears in the violins obscured by

new instrumentation, pianissimo dynamics, motivic fragmentation and rhythmic diminution.

In measures 107-110, the fluttering woodwind gesture from measure 89 sounds against a

chromatic, upwardly-striving melody in the violins which propels the music forward into the

Color Stage of Bb.

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE II: MEASURES 87-110.

[" C O L O R SECTIO MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE N COLOR
1 87-90 Voluptueux, presque avec doukur. piano + F,B Red, "pale
II fluttering w.w. moon colored"
91-94 Restatement of 87-90 F,Cjt "pale red,"
Ab "pale lily
colored"
Lily- 95-96 Voluptueux piano + fluttering w.w., now C(t, G, Eb "pale lily
colored transposed and fragmented colored,"
orange, moon-
color
2 99-103 Avec delice: Theme of Ideation, circle C, Ab, Eb, Red, Lily,
E steely, "bluish"
103-106 Theme of Ideation, circle fragment Eb, B, F Steely,
avec un intence desir. "whitish,"
"subdued red"
3 107-110 Un animant violin striving melody against Ab, F, B Lily, "reddish,"
fluttering w.w. fragment "moon-
colored"

29
Sabaneev, "Scriabin's 'Prometheus," in The Blaue Reiter Almanac, edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz
Marc, translated by Henning Falkenstein (New York: Viking, 1974), 131.

264
Will and Rapture

The third Color Stage, a metallic leaden grey, begins in measure 111 with a sudden

orchestral sfor^ando on the downbeat and trumpet blast of the Theme of Will. Here, fast and

slow luce coincide to emphasize the beginning of new stage, marked "leaden, terrible."

The imperious ascending Theme of Will is immediately answered in bar 115 by a

new orchestral episode marked avec emotion et ravissement [widi emotion and rapture].

Significandy, the Rapture material is constructed from the descent fragment from the

opening Theme of Ideation (Example 6.14A-B):

EXAMPLE 6.14A: Incipit of Rapture episode, measures 115-116.

[F!.,Eng,Hn.l

Orch,

Pleroma
&ZT

265
 EXAMPLE 6.14B: The Rapture motive's derivation from the
Descent fragment from the Theme of Ideation.

Descent motive,
Theme of Ideation Rapture motive

Reduction Reduction

-• 3»*~ - .^ifup^pv^w™ '"•"*"—

:sw:
$

1 3 13 1 3 13

According to Ivanov,

Descent is the symbol of a gift. He who bears the gift of heavenly moisture is
beautiful when he descends from the heights: the bearded Dionysus appears in such
a guise in some ancient marbles.. .Dionysus is the god of moisture, fertilizing and
enlivening the earth with ambrosial intoxication, enrapturing with wine the hearts of
people.30

The Rapture episode is the opposing pole of the Theme of Will. Together, they form

melodic contrasts of ascent and descent, the affective contrasts of strident and languorous

moods, and, in terms of instrumentation, they pit the individualism of the solo performer

against the collective chorus of the orchestra. Both themes emerged from the first Theme of

Ideation, and together they embody Prometheus's aspirations toward godliness and his

descent from heaven.

In Chapter Five, I discussed how the fluctuations in the slow luce part between Bl>

and B-natural reflect the inherent doubleness of Blavatsky's Third Root Race, populated by

beings of dual sex. This Bb/B-natural duality emerges as early as the second iteration of the

descending Rapture motive. In measures 119-122, Scriabin repeats the thematic material and

1
Ivanov, "The Symbolics of Aesthetic Principles," in Essays (2001), 8.

266
Pleroma root progression from measures 115-118, but transposed up a half-step from Bb to

B-natural. Interestingly, Scriabin's handwritten color annotations for the luce part serve to

bring the two colors closer together. In measures 115 and 117, Scriabin notes that the Bb

Pleroma color should be "moon-colored, leaden." In the same bars of the parallel segment,

measures 119 and 121, the B-natural is now "moon-colored." Scriabin's annotations

strengthen the connection between Bi>/B-natural and Blavatsky's androgynous concept of

the two-in-one. Not only are they based on roots consisting of two different inflections of

the same scale degree or pitch letter name in Scriabin's system, but similar "moon-color"

hues in the luce unify the two Pleroma sonorities, which otherwise are quite far removed

from each other on the circle-of-fifths color wheel.

The Rapture episode ends in measures 123-126 with reiterations of the varied

descent motive, accompanied by a heterophonous statement of the motive in the harp,

forming a long, continuous descent in pitch space, as shown in Example 6.15.

In the passage above, the Pleroma harmonies oscillate between F and B, although B

Pleroma is not represented by the luce part. Instead, the luce sustains an F color, marked "pale

red, terrifying," which gradually darkens with a long decrescendo. The combined effect of

the continuous red luce color, the dimming of the lights, and the descending musical figure

create a musical representation of die Fall of humanity into the matter, symbolized by the

color red. Although the Pleroma sonority of C properly represents matter in Scriabin's

musical symbolism, it shares the color of red wiui its fifth-related neighbor F on Scriabin's

color wheel. Scriabin described F to Sabaneev as "bloody" and "hellish," relating the

sonority both to embodiment and the Satanic side of Prometheus.31

31
Sabaneev, Erinnemngen (2005), 262.

267
 EXAMPLE 6.15: Rapture episode's long descent, measures 123-126.

darkening
Pale red
terrifying

Luce
|M., V.n^TE] [Ob., Bsn.)
|Bsn.|
jl'ny,. I In. |

9-W
to |Hp.,Vln.|
00 tr |llp^Vlll.]
PP ~ |IIp..Ma., .
tr-
ft PP
Orch.
1 SS23^=$:£ ±»z ^3=0^
g
f-—f-
$J*: flU*
«fe=f
X $$3^

f ^r
zz
J
Plcroma £/.•. a s .J2a..
s- it
X?
 SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE III, SECTION 1, MEASURES 111-130.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
111-114 Theme of Will in trumpet Bb,Db "leaden,"
III 1 "lily-
Bb colored"
Metallic 115-118 avec emotion et ravissement Rapture theme Bb, Db, G "moon-
leaden based on descent motive colored
grey leaden,"
"lily-
colored,"
orange
119-122 Same as above, but up a half-step B, D , Ab "moon-
colored,"
yellow, lily-
colored
123-126 Reiteration of Rapture motives from F,B* "Pale red,
above, accompanied by long harp descent terrifying"
127-130 Violin solo over Rapture motive F,Ab Red, lily-
colored
* This harmonic change is not represented by die luce part.

Theme large majestueux

Earlier in the work, the piano was associated with the trumpet in Promethean

individualism; later, it relaxed in glittering dancelike episodes. In measures 131-138, an

extended solo for piano stating the circle and ascent motives from the Theme of Ideation

ennobles the piano's character. The piano's reentrance coincides with a dramatic brightening

of the lights and intensification of colors. Scriabin's annotations read "regal, yellow, bright,"

"ceremonial, lily-colored," and "orange, fiery magenta."

269
 *sW

mm

11'<
m- I ii!

TlV

iii
! I!

ik*
! i *

#" I Hi
i Iii
I '•'
'jl
|!
I'ffr^
S>*1
..Mi
g
3

270
 The piano's triumphant thematic statement, accompanied by majestic bright colors

and dazzling displays in the luce, shows die heroic side of Promedieus, characterized by his

theft of fire and his gift of it to mankind. As die passage continues, die lights intensify,

making a lighting crescendo into bar 138, die final beat of which is marked "nearly white,

glaring." Scriabin told Sabaneev that white light was, according to optical theory, a unity of

all the colors as it was comprised of all the colors of the spectrum.32 In Prometheus, Scriabin

uses white light it to underscore musical moments of great intensity. Here, the white light

prepares die entrance of the full orchestra in measures 139-142, marked avec enthousiasme and

accompanied by "blue, bright, dazzling" color in the fast luce, complete with lightning flashes

coordinated with woodwind runs in measures 129-142. This triumphant orchestral passage

marks the first return to the Fft Pleroma sonority in since bar 85, the end of Color Stage I.

The lights continue to crescendo through the passage.

Blavatsky viewed Prometheus's gift of fire as the first spark of human Manas, the

intellect which links the lower passions to the higher self. However, not all members of the

Third Root race were ready for the Promethean gift. The Book of Dzyan reads, "some [Sons

of Wisdom] projected the spark. Some deferred till the Fourth.. .Those [humans] who

received but a spark remained destitute of knowledge; their spark burned low. The third

remained mind-less."33 In measure 143, the lights dim abrupdy, similar to a dynamic subito

piano. The piano reenters, its character much subdued, with the melody shown in Example

6.17, marked dolce. The sudden contrast between the dolce piano entrance in measure 143 and

the avec enthousiasme orchestral passage which preceded it is underscored by the abrupt shift

of harmony from Fft to F Pleroma sonorities, which share only one common tone. The

32
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 57; BocnoMUHanuwi (2000), 55-56.

33
Blavatsky, "Stanzas of Dzyan," Book II, Stanza VII, verse 24 in The Secret Doctrine (1888), 18.

271
tonality of F is one color step removed on the circle of fifths from C, the material polar key

of Fjf. Scriabin associates F, like C, with the material color of red, and, as we have seen

during the Rapture passage, he occasionally uses one to stand in for the other.

EXAMPLE 6.17: Piano's dolce reentrance, measures 143-145.

The dolce piano passage in measures 143-145 leads immediately into a pair of gestures

marked limpide—sourd, mena^ant [limpid—muted, menacing] in measures 145-146 (Example

6.18). Here, the harmony really does shift to C Pleroma, marked "pale, reddish, watery,

trembing." As discussed in Chapter Five, these two measures exacdy foreshadow the

material at the beginning of Color Stage IV. In measure 145, limpide, the harp and flute pick

up the repeated Ds from die end of the piano's dolce passage in measures 144-145. In

measure 146, marked sourd, menafant, the lights go "immediately dark" with a violent sfor^ando

on the downbeat, followed by an ascending perfect-fourdi horn call in the trumpets. This

foreshadowing of Color Stage IV within Color Stage III reflects the manner in which events

34
This usage will be discussed further below.

272
of Blavatsky's Third epoch lay the groundwork for the struggle between spirit and matter

during the Fourth Root Race. While the Promethean gift of Manas opens padiways to the

higher, spiritual aspects of man, it simultaneously binds these higher faculties to the lower,

leading to violent conflict between material and spiritual impulses widiin human beings. The

troubled limpide—sourd, menafant figure is prophetic of the coming struggle.

Example 6.18: Orchestral foreshadowing of the Fourth Color Stage:

limpide—sourd, menafant, measures 145-146.

pale
reddish,
vvaferv, immediately
trembling dark
[ill
limpide sourd, mcnacatit
EgE
Luce

{II., Up.)
i =4
pptj

PP L mf

Orchestra
5£
^f* T
M>

-m •Hyrj—- rrp. im
t
JP

2JTU \>
3 .1
a.
Pleroma chord

"-si-

Measures 147-150 immediately return to the soft, languid affect which preceded the

limpide—sourd, menafant interruption, as if nothing had transpired. The orchestra repeats the

piano's dolce melody of 143-144, now performed by the orchestra and solo violin, transposed

by tritone from its original appearance. The luce reflects this change of affect, with a "tender,

273
complex, moon colored" hue accompanied by "bright ripple, various sparkles." Here, the

"moon-color" refers to B Pleroma, and which becomes more prominent as the steady leaden

grey B\> light drops out in measures 149-160.

The future reconciliation between the piano solo and the orchestra is prefigured in

measures 151-156. In measure 151, the B Pleroma in the luce turns a pure "moon-colored,

bluish, translucent," unaccompanied by the grey light which marks the Color Stage as a

whole. The luce's "strange flickering" creates a mysterious mood for the delicate piano solo

in measures 151-156, marked etrange charme [strangely enchanted]—a reference to the manner

in which the piano falls under the spell of the Rapture episode. As Example 6.19 shows, the

solo incorporates a fragment from the episode in an inner voice.

The conflict between the sustained B in the luce part and Scriabin's annotation of

"very red" in bar 153 reflects the ambivalence between B and C Pleroma in the passage as a

whole. Unlike the discrete block-like changes of harmony encountered earlier in the work,

the two sonorities are deployed simultaneously, roughly divided between right and left hands

in measures 153-154. In the following two measures, 155-156, C Pleroma takes over, but the

B-Pleroma chord tones D# and G% are still used as chromatic embellishments. Pleroma

chords separated by half-step are maximally differentiated from each other in terms of pitch

content, and their juxtaposition or superposition is a recurring technique in Color Stage III.

The Rapture episode near the beginning of the stage juxtaposed transpositions at Bb and B

natural, a premonition in both light and sound of the fluctuations of the slow luce in the

Color Stage as a whole. As a double inflection of the same scale degree, I related the Bi>-B

oscillation in the slow luce to the doubleness of Blavatsky's Third Root race, the semi-divine

Androgynes.

274
 EXAMPLE 6.19: Piano solo, etrange charme, measures 151-156.
Boxes delineate use of the Rapture motive, shown below for reference.
moon-colored, bluish
translucent
strange flickering

Piano

Kg [r.h. only)

Rapture Theme, m. 115-116

tediSS
f=f=^^==m

The music of the piano's etrange charme solo continues in the following section,

measures 157-160, as solo oboe takes over the melody while Rapture motives continue in

solo flute. The dreamy, otherworldly character of the music is reflected by the luce, which

projects "sparkles, stars," and "ripples."

In measures 161-162, the luce suddenly shifts to red, as the music reprises a gesture

from the end of the piano's etrange charme solo, measures 155-156. But as Example 6.20

shows, the strings now plane the vertical quartal harmonies drawn from B and C Pleroma

275
harmonies against a delicate harp figure. Again, the effect is mysterious and otherworldly,

marked "pale red, translucent, the finest stream of light."

EXAMPLE 6.20: Re-instrumentation of the end of piano's etrange charme solo,

measures 161-162.
pale rai
translucent
the finest stream of light
16)

P |Hp.l ' (Up.)

Ondulewc and Contemplatif

A mood of enchantment and mystery continues in measures 163-172 with an

orchestral episode marked Ondukux [undulating], shown in Example 6.21. The thematic

content is new, although the woodwind melody of the passage, shimmering violin figures,

and prominent harp are reminiscent of the texture and orchestration of the Rapture episode

which began the color stage. The luce projects a "fantastic ripple, stream of light, various light

figures, twinkling," and later, at measure 167, "sparkles over ripples." The harmonies of the

Ondukux episode literally undulate between B and C, a remembrance of the harmonic

contrast which concluded the etrange charme episode. The Third Color Stage closes in

measures 172-180 with a thematic reference back to the Contemplatif'material heard in Color

276
Stage I, measures 50ff, followed by another orchestral variant of the etrange charme solo from

measures 157-158.

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE III, SECTIONS 2-3, MEASURES 131-182.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
131-134 Theme large majesteux. Piano episode 3, D , Ab, F "Regal, yellow,
based on circle and ascent motives from bright," lily-
III Theme of Ideation colored, red
135-138 Same as 131-134, transposed by T5 G, Db, Bb "Orange fiery
B!> 2 magenta,"
Metallic violet, lily-
leaden color, "nearly
grey white, glaring"
139-142 Avec enthousiasmr. orchestral climax + piano Ftt "blue, bright,
dazzling"
143-144 Piano, dolce F,D* "reddish, dim"
145-146 Umpide—sourd, menapnt C Red
harp + trumpet—foreshadows 183-186
147-150 Like m. 143-144, T6, but now in Vln. B,G»,B "moon-
colored," lily-
colored
151-156 etrange charme: Piano episode 4 B, F)t*, C* "moon-
colored,"
"very red"
157-162 Same as above, orchestral instrumentation B, Ftt*, C "simile,"
"reddish"
163-170 Onduleux—descending motive, P4 gesture B,C Blue, red
in horn
170-171 Continuation of above C "reddish"
3 172-175 Contemplatif theme in piano, like 50-53 D,B Yellow, blue
175-179 Piano tag, repeated like 61-65 B Blue
179-180 New instrumentation of 157-158 B Blue
181-182 Piano dolce, like m. 143-144 F,D "reddish
moon-color",
yellow
*These changes of harmony are not represented by the luce part.

277
 EXAMPLE 6.21: Onduleux episode incipit, measures 163-166.

fantastic tipple
stream of light
various light figutes
twinkling teddish
M>i flT] moon-colored

Luce

00

Orch.

Plerotna
Half-step Undulations and Tritone Poles

Why this emphasis on B and C Pleroma in Color Stage III? In terms of color, the

blue B Pleroma harmonies form a quasi-polar contrast with the red C Pleroma in the fast

luce. As Example 6.22 shows, the sonority of B Pleroma is only one color-step away from C

Pleroma's true pole, F(t, which together represent the polarity of matter and spirit

fundamental to the work's dramatic narrative. Similarly, we have seen the blue-red color

polarity represented by another half-step relationship previously in Color Stage III. In

measures 142-142, the climactic blue-violet F# attained by the orchestra avec enthousiasme sunk

down into a pale red in the dolce piano interlude which followed. Both the B/C and F#/F are

color contrasts between the spiritual blue and the material red, like the true tritone poles

F#/C and B/F. However, while harmonies related by a true tritone polarity are maximally

invariant, the half-step relationship is maximally differentiated in terms of pitch content. In

this way, Scriabin can preserve the symbolic juxtaposition of blue and red, but can represent

the increasing multiplicity of the universe in Blavatsky's narrative through radical shifts in

pitch-class content.

279
 EXAMPLE 6.22: Half-step root relations Ffl-F and B-C as substitute for polar tritone
relations, FjJ-C and B-F.

d«*Vco*«

********

The Transition to Color Stage IV

As we have seen, Color Stage III presents a diversity of new episodes and thematic

gestures, interlaced with the reprise of old material. This diversity is reflected by the

fluctuations in the slow luce. Rather than maintaining a steady grey light to unify the thematic

contrast under a single color, the slow luce part sometimes takes on the harmonic role of the

fast luce, alternating between Bb, B-natural, and C.

In contrast, the red Color Stage IV begins with remarkable homogeneity of color and

harmony. The transition from Color Stage III to IV is accomplished through a reprise of

two gestures in the piano heard previously in Color Stage III. In measures 142-144, the

triumphant orchestral climax on F | Pleroma gives way to a quiet, two-measure piano solo,

colored by the red F harmony (refer to Example 6.17). This piano solo returns in a precise

restatement at measures 181-182, interrupted by the limpide—sourd, menagant gesture which

shifts to C Pleroma. Here, the limpide—sourd, menagant gesture heralds the beginning of the

Fourth Color Stage (Example 6.23).

280
 EXAMPLE 6.23: The beginning of Color Stage IV, measures 183-186.

red-violet simile [red-violet,

watery darkness watery] darkness

Luce

Orchestra

Pleroma chord
The Materialization of Spirit: Colot Stage IV

The central red Color Stage IV, which began in measure 183, continues in measure

187 with the return of the circle motive from Theme of Ideation. At the opening of

Prometheus, the Theme of Ideation represented the first crystallization of differentiation in the

void of spiritual unity. Here, against the deep red of the slow luce, it represents the complete

materialization of spirit (Example 6.24).

EXAMPLE 6.24: Theme of Ideation, measures 187-190.

total darkness
ripple in the darkness
plunged into darkness fully dark
187

-f- -f< r- •f^- ^

[Ha] [Hn.]
[Tpt
•J&.
3t
g^PP ^ ^
m
pp. mfz==~pp
ppi

^m fl* &

zm
fw

Sabaneev's program referred to embattled polarities of spirit and matter,35 and

indeed, Blavatsky's epoch of the Fourth Race is a period of struggle, in both historical and

metaphorical terms. In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky draws upon the many accounts of epic

35
Sabaneev, quoted in Bowers, Scriabin (1996), 206-207.

282
battles between gods and demi-gods in world myth, claiming that they reflect a pivotal

moment in her own account of the true history. One of the most prominent of these is the

revolt of the Titans against Zeus, connected with the myth of Prometheus. Blavatsky writes,

"the war of the Titans is but a legendary and deified copy of the real war that took place in the

Himalayan Kai/asa (heaven).. .It is the record of the terrible strife between the 'Sons of God,'

and the 'Sons of Shadow' of the Fourth and Fifth Races."36

According to Blavatsky, the Sons of Shadow are the Prometheans, the class of

creators who endowed developing humans with Manas, or the light of knowledge, while die

Sons of God created mindless men.37 Yet, the gift of Manas, which became universally

bestowed during the Fourth Root Race, was both a blessing and a curse for humanity.

Blavatsky writes, "This drama of the struggle of Prometiheus widi die Olympic tyrant and

despot, sensual Zeus, one sees enacted daily within our actual mankind: the lower passions

chain the higher aspirations to the rock of matter, to generate in many a case the vulture of

sorrow, pain, and repentance."38 The batde between creator-gods is microcosmically

reflected as an internal tension widiin die human soul.

Musically, Scriabin enacts this batde by pitting solo piano against orchestra. The

piano enters in measure 193 widi what will become a series of violent outbursts,

accompanied by spectacular effects in the luce: "red flames blazing up from the gloom,

infernal, dark red," "terrifying, like an approaching storm of bloody lightning," "cascade of

violent sparks." Melodic fragments sounded by die horn "burst into flame like lightning."

Beginning in measure 192, die piano begins a long ascent to measure 197, where it spits out

36
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2 (1888), 500.

37
Ibid, 422.

38
Ibid.

283
slurred quartal-chords similar to die trumpet blasts of measures 23-25; this musical action is

accompanied by flares in the luce (Example 6.25). In "a cascade of violent sparks," the piano

concatenates this figure in a descending pattern of quartal chords related by tritone, C and Fft

Pleroma. Although the sustained luce color, red, only relates to the material harmony of C,

the piano's quick alternation between the main polar Pleroma sonorities represents the

internal conflict between spiritual and material aspects of man.

During the piano outburst, the horns play expanding fragments of the Theme of

Will. The fragments begin as a two-note incipit in measures 194-196; the incipit is

lengthened in measures 197-198, and the theme emerges in full in measures 201-202. The

small bursts of musical material evoke the kindling fire, beginning with small sparks until the

"violent flame blazes up" in the luce with the trumpet's full statement of the Theme of Will.

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE IV, SECTION 1, MEASURES 183-214.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
183-186 Bridge to new section: limpide—sourd, C Red
menafant]ike mm. 145-146
IV: 187-190 Theme of Ideation in horns, wave motive C

C 1
191-192 P4 in horns, like m. 186 c
193-200 Piano outburst, "struggle" C, Fjt* Red
201-202 Theme of Will, horns, with quartal chords C, Ab*
(red)
in trumpet
203-210 Piano outburst 2, like m.m. 193-200 A\>, E * Lily-colored
(bright
pink)
211-214 Theme of Will, with quartal chords in F Red
trumpet

284
 EXAMPLE 6.25: Piano and trumpet, measures 192-196

red flames bla2ing up bursting into flame

from the gloom like lightning everything is near the lighting
infernal - dark red lightning terrifying, like an approaching storm
flashing of bloody lightning
m
-r<~ -r<- ^ [Ha.]
^ -f^ -f<-

00
flare
tns accentue .—g -
n*t* T* *
¥—wg
^ ^ ^m 'flfrff yflfri #fi#
rFE
J> tffi
[Pf]
Poco
s_
.r*
tlL^l I ? !p-L-i.
P^ii ^pp
V. V. b; P^P*
b3
rT~~.'?rrT
 EXAMPLE 6.25: Piano solo, measures 197-202

red flames blazing up bursting into flame

from the gloom like lightning everything is near the lighting
infernal - dark red lightning terrifying, like an approaching storm
192 flashing of bloody lightning
m
-f<- ^ [Hn] T- T- ^

H ^tfp ? * 3= • j #*

1 flare
/rej attentat j — 3 —j 1 — 5 —in
—•- r,?M ^f ***
P H as—H? •flfrF >flj £ ^tf <f v i « t §
[pf-i poco poco
con sord.
1 s 1
9M-^-^ ^
=gIP^P "c ]73k > > l i f e
i ^P ^ —a:*—'-* —
14
Rapture and Will

In measure 215, the piano's outbursts and the ascending, strident Theme of Will give

way to a reprise of the Rapture episode, just as in Color Stage III. These two forces will

become the two protagonists of the battle, and their interaction will yield the first major

orchestral climax of the work. Although the Rapture episode in measures 215-222 is marked

"very gentle and joyful," beginning with soft gold, red, and blue, the colors turn dark and

menacing when the phrase is repeated, transposed by half-step in measures 219-222.

Scriabin's color annotations read "becoming gloomy," "blue-black, threatening," "steely,

bloody."

Scriabin shows the materialization and disunity of the world in measures 223-260

with fragmented textures and thematic treatment reminiscent of an orchestral sonata

development. He chooses themes and motives from Color Stage I and freely combines them

in a heterogeneous mixture: the Theme of Will, the circle motive from the Theme of

Ideation, the incipit from the Theme of Motion, and the piano's ascending cadential tag, first

heard at measure 53. Scriabin's lighting indications contribute to an atmosphere of violence.

His annotations consistendy allude to blood, death, and terror: "bloody flames," "reddish,

pale, deathly, terrifying," "light in terrifying motion on the bloody background," "metallic

gleams like glints of steel," and "cascades of deathly pale fire."

The ascending Theme of Will in the trumpet becomes increasingly associated with

crescendos and rising fire imagery, reflecting its Promethean essence. In measures 259-260,

the Theme of Will is accompanied by lightning and blazes of fire. Significantly, the harmony

moves to a G\> Pleroma sonority—the enharmonic equivalent of Fjt, the spiritual blue-violet

of the Theme of Will's original appearance. The return of blue is both a reflection on the

past, but also a harbinger of the future ascent to the final Color Stage VII.

287
 SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE IV, SECTIONS 2-3, MEASURES 215-260.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
215-218 Soudain tiis doux etjoyeux. reprise of m.m. D,F,B Soft colors:
IV: 115ff. golden,
reddish,
C 2 bluish
219-222 Same, but up T l Eb, Gb,A Dark colors:
(red) "blue-
black,"
"steely,
bloody"
223-225 Theme of Will A,F& Green,
Violet
225-227 Theme of Ideation, circle fragment F|t,A Violet,
green
227-229 Theme of Will A,F Green, red
229-231 Piano tag F Red
3
231-233 avec un effroi contenur. Theme of Ideation, F,B Red, Blue
circle fragment
233-235 Piano tag F Red
236-240 avec defi, belliqueux, orageux. Theme of F, B, Ab Red, blue,
Ideation, circle and ascent fragments, avec un lily-colored
spkndide eclat
241-242 plus anime: Theme of Will Db Violet
243-244 Theme of Motion in piano from m. 69 Bb "Lead-grey
darkness"
245-247 Theme of Will Db "Lily-
colored"
247-249 Piano tag Bb "Lead-grey
darkness"
249-251 Theme of Ideation, circle fragment Bb,E "Pale and
gloomy,"
"light-blue,"
"leaden"
251-252 Theme of Motion, now in orchestra Bb*
253-254 Rapture motive, like m.m. 115ff Leaden
Bb*

255-258 Orageux: Theme of Ideation, circle and Bb, E, Db, "Red-Blue,"

ascent, against Rapture fragment "Blue,"
"Lily-
colored"
259-260 Plus anime: Theme of Will Gb "Becoming
bluer"
*This harmony is not represented in the luce part.

288
 The conflicting drives of ascent and descent are pitted against each other in measures

261-274, where the Theme of Will alternates with a descending motive from the Rapture

episode. Despite the energetic rising profile of the Theme of Will in 263, a dolcissimo marking

saps its momentum as it nears its concluding melodic apex and as the lights fade. The

Theme of Will's climax pitch overlaps with the entrance of the Rapture motive on Bt> in

measure 264, marked subitement tres doux, "a pale half-light." In measures 267-272, the

alternation between themes becomes more compressed as the tempo quickens. From

measure 267, the two thematic snippets are internally locked in a descending minor-third

root relationship, but each successive restatement of the pair is sequentially transposed up a

half-step from its predecessor, as if the Theme of Will was forcibly wrenching itself and its

rival upwards in pitch space, despite the Rapture motive's squelching effect. At the end of

the passage, measure 272-274, the Rapture motive expels the potential energy acquired

through its forced ascent, tumbling down twice in immediate succession as the lights

suddenly dim.

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE IV, SECTION 4, MEASURES 261-274.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
261-262 Dechirant, comme un err. bass melody A "almost white,
IV: sharp"
263-264 Theme of Will Eb Metallic
C 264 subitement tres doux: Rapture motive "a pale half-
Bb
4 light"
(red)
265-266 Like 261-262, T2 Bb "lily, blue,
red"
267-268 Theme of Will E Green-blue
268 tres doux: rapture motive Db "lily-colored"
269-270 deplus en plus anime: Theme of Will F Red,
"flaming"
270 Rapture motive D "yellowish"
271-272 Theme of Will Gb "bright
saturated
blue"
272-274 Rapture motive Eb, Gb "metallic,
bluish"

289
Triumph and Failure

According to the journalist Ellen von Tidebohl, Scriabin adored die sound of bells,

telling her that he found '"something of a concord and unity of the world in their bright and

harmonious sounds."' 39 In measures 275-276, bells suddenly enter, breaking the pattern of

thematic alternation of the previous section. Here and in the remainder of the work, the use

of bells signals a transformation or dramatic turning point.

The bells herald the advent of the first major orchestral climax of the work, featuring

a magisterial Theme of Will in rhythmic augmentation, stated three times. Each time the

theme sounds, the flame image returns in the luce, blazing brighter and stronger,

accompanied by a lighting crescendo while the luce projects "lightning and cascades of fire

like fireworks," "lightning," and "flares and splinters of flame," throughout the section,

culminating in "the most brilliant brightness" in measure 297. The harmony moves through

the flaming orange of G (measures 277-282) through the dark-blue green of E (measures

285-289) finally reaching a bright green A Pleroma at the climax (measures 297-301). Despite

the Theme of Will's triumph over the Rapture motive, it fails to reach F#, the spiritual goal

of the work, landing instead on its secondary tonic, A.

Indeed, the Theme of Will's dominance is short-lived. In measures 298-300, Scriabin

writes a lighting decrescendo with the annotation "going out quickly," accompanying the

diminuendo of the orchestra and gently falling melodic lines of the post-climactic

39
See Tidebohl's "Memories of Scriabin's Volga Tour (1910)," The Monthly Musical Record 56/5 & 6 (May &
June 1926): 168-169. In the same article, Tidebohl recounts the following episode which occurred in the crypt
of the Church of St. Demetrios of the Blood, Uglich. "We went down to the church crypts carrying wax
candles. All kinds of relics, god gowns and royal embroideries, were seen—even die toys of the Tsarevitch
Dimitry. In die middle of the chief hall a tremendous bell stands on a kind of scaffold. ... One of the company
gave it a slight tap, and a very beautiful note issued. "Wonderful," whispered Scriabin to me; "a divine voice
whispers to us of the eternal union of mankind. There is no space, no time in the immense work of the
universe; everything rolls on towards infinity." 138. See also Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 168-169, on
Scriabin's use of bell-like sounds in his other compositions, notably the Seventh Piano Sonata.

290
denouement. With the expressive marking, avec unjoie eteinte (Tike a joy extinguished]," the

harmony changes to a red F, recollecting the piano's lead-in to the Fourth Color Stage in

measures 181-182. The texture is reduced in measures 183-185 to a simple harp chords and

celeste doubled by flute, "sparkling like sheet lightning."

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE IV, SECTION 5, MEASURES 275-301,

AND TRANSITION TO NEXT COLOR STAGE, MEASURES 301-308.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
275-276 Bells Gb-Eb Blue-violet,
steely
IV: 277-282 Theme of Will G,E "firey
orange,
C 5 ceremonial,"
"dark blue-
(red) green"
281-284 Melodic consequent, bells "dark blue-
285-289 Theme of Will E green"
290-293 Melodic consequent
293-297 Theme of Will A "Bright
297-301 Melodic consequent green"
301-308 avec unjoie eteinte: harp and celesta F,Db Dark red,
"lily-
Transition to colored"
ascendlng phase 305-308 Piano, with bell-like melody F "complex
pale lily-
color,
greenish,
pink

291
The Turning Point

The slow luce part is remarkably stable in Color Stage IV, sustaining the material red

throughout its 120 bars. In measures 305-308, the slow luce shifts to the augmented trichord

Db-F-A (Example 6.28), which Scriabin describes as "complex, pale lily-color with ripples

and streams." During this passage, the piano takes up a twinkling pattern in imitation of the

bells which announced the Theme of Will's triumph (Example 6.29). These four measures

signal the end of the descent into matter in Color Stages I-IV the beginning of the ascent

toward dematerialization and die reunification in spirit.

EXAMPLE 6.28: The slow luce's Db-F-A trichord.

dark blue-violet

violet
pure blue

blue-green -p lily-colored

green JH,|? steel blue

yellow lead grey

dark red

292
 EXAMPLE 6.29: The tricolor interruption, measures 305-308.

going out,
complex pale lily-color, greenish
_?05 pink, with ripples and streams

Luce

to

Orch.

Piano
Past and Present: Color Stage V

The Secret Doctrine identifies the Fifth Root Race with our modern epoch, a point just

past the era of basest materiality, with little significant progress toward the dematerialization

and heightened spirituality prophesized for Root Races Six and Seven. Scriabin stages the

present as a long look back on the past. The music of the Fifth Color Stage, sounded against

a bright yellow D in the slow luce, revisits large segments of material drawn from Color

Stages I-III.

The section as a whole serves a recapitulatory function, a survey of what has come

before. Yet the manner in which themes are reprised here—transposed and departing from

their initial order—is quite different from what one would expect in a sonata form

recapitulation. After the climactic end to the Fourth Color Stage featuring the Theme of

Will, Color Stage V begins with a return to the Rapture episode originally heard in Color

Stage III, measures 115-130, and Color Stage IV, measures 215-222 (Example 6.29).

EXAMPLE 6.29: Recurrence of the Rapture episode.

Materialization Conflict Dematerialization

I II HI ' IV ' V VI VII

Ab BS> c D E F*
dark blue violet lily lead gxey red yellow blue dark blue violet
green

115
t t
215
t
309
Rapture (Bi>) Rapture (D) Rapture (D)

294
 In its first appearance during Color Stage III, the Rapture episode begins on Bb

Pleroma, the same fundamental as the slow luce pitch. In its second appearance, it begins on

a "soft golden" D, a color which foreshadows its return at the beginning of the Fifth Color

Stage. In measures 309-316, the Rapture material stays at the same transposition level as its

appearance in Color Stage IV, but, like its first appearance, maintains the identity between

Pleroma fundamental and slow luce color.40 Instead of the dark, "terrifying" red originally

associated with the final descending phrase in measures 123-126, the colors alternate

between a "mystical" green and metallic blue in measures 317-320. While the surface colors

are still relatively dark, the bright yellow sustained luce creates a significant change of affect

for the theme, compared with its more gloomy appearances against lead-grey and material

red.

In measures 325-328, marked Suave, charme, a solo violin reprises the Theme of

Ideation's circle and ascent motives. In this dreamy passage, with a "very soft, caressing"

palette drawn from the Ffl minor-third cycle, Rapture motives continue to sound against the

quiet theme. Together, the return of the Theme of Ideation, F#-C-A-E1> Pleroma harmonies,

and the fast luce colors create a distant recollection of the very beginning of the piece.

However, the change of instrumentation and affect, the more active changes in harmony,

and the violin melody's nearly seamless continuation from the previous Rapture material

prevent this passage from sounding like the beginning of a recapitulation.

40
Pople observed that the transposition levels of the thematic recurrences and the slow luce part were identical.
This makes sense, as both passages begin with a surface Pleroma harmony which articulates the tone sustained
by the slow luce. In measure 115, the passage begins with Bb Pleroma, and in measure 309, the passage begins
with a D Pleroma. See Skryabin and Stravinsky 1908-1914: Studies in Theory and Analysis (New York: Garland,
1989), 230.

295
 SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE V, SECTIONS 1 AND 2, MEASURES 309-339.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
V: 1 309-312 Avec emotion et ravissement, puis voile mysterieux D , F , B Yellow, red,
D Rapture episode a transposed reprise of blue
yellow 115-118
313-316 Same, up T l El>, G\>, C Metallic, blue,
Reprise of 119-122 red
317-320 Rapture motive's long descent A,EI> Green,
123-127 metallic blue
2 321-324 Solo violin against Rapture motives, like A, C Green, red
127-130
325-328 Suave, charme Fjt, C, A, E\> Blue,
Theme of Mind in solo violin against "reddish-
Rapture motives orange,"
green, metallic
blue
329-330 Oboe melody based on ascent fragment, B "Greenish
widi piano ripples yellow"
331-332 Eng. Horn recollection of m. 157-158 B "Greenish
yellow"
333-336 Restatement of Suave, charmeviolin solo, like B, F, D, A\>, "greenish
325ff yellow," red,
yellow, lily-
colored
337-339 Oboe melody with piano ripples, Eke 329ff. E "Metallic
white"

Victory?

Bells sound in measures 339-340, marked etincelant [sparkling], signaling die coming

of die second major orchestral climax of die work. As die passage gains momentum in

measures 341 -346, the lights brighten in a series of crescendos and die luce projections

become more active: "tongues of flame rise up," "currents of light," "metallic fire fills the

hall." This time, die circle fragment of the Theme of Ideation propels this second climax,

combined with an ascent figure distandy reminiscent of the Theme of Will.

Three climactic waves grow in magnitude, ascending in pitch space widi intensifying

crescendos of brightness in the luce. The first segment of the climax occurs in measures 341-

350, beginning with two sequential statements of the circle fragment from the Theme of

Ideation in 341-344. The Pleroma progression of the first sequential leg, E-Bb, ascends by

296
whole step in measures 343-344 to Gb-C. The piano interrupts the sequential ascent in

measures 345-346, pounding on quartal chords drawn from an Eb Pleroma harmony—a

sonority one half-step lower than that which began the sequence. Despite the lost ground, a

climactic rising melodic figure distandy related to the Theme of Will emerges from the

piano's outburst in measures 346-350.

In measures 351-360, the circle fragment sequence begins again with the polar

Pleroma harmonies of F | and C, rising by whole step to the Ab/D pole. Now the piano

interrupts the rising sequence with F Pleroma chords, initiating the second ascent in

measures 356-360. Marked victorieux, the harmony in measures 361-363 shifts to a "lily-

colored, fiery" Ab Pleroma sonority, while the orchestra crescendos violendy to triple forte.

Is this the victory of spirit over matter? Not yet, of course, but Scriabin's use of Ab

here has a pregnant color symbolism, which will gain further depth of meaning through its

future contextual usages. The lily-color of the victorious ascent hearkens back to the Second

Color Stage, the first step on the slow luce's tone journey. The Ab Pleroma sonority shares

four out of six pitch classes with the home tonality of FJf, just as the other Pleroma chords

on the whole-tone cycle do, including Ffl's tritone pole, C. But, the lily-color of Ab is the

only hue that could convincingly be put forth as a synthesis of red and blue-violet. The real

philosophical triumph in the coming stages will not be the dominance of one theme, affect,

or color over another. Instead, the polarities which emerged will need to become reconciled

and re-synthesized if transcendence is to occur. In fact, the use of Ab Pleroma and lily-color

during the moment of victorious climax here foreshadows its use in the final transcendent

passages of the piece.

297
 However, this momentary victory sinks into defeat. In measures 363-364, the

harmony shifts to a red F Pleroma chord and downward harp glissandi parallel the luce's

collapse into gloom. Measures 365-367 attempt to climax again, but with the same result: the

victorious lily color shifts to red, and the lights dim in measures 368-370.

SUMMARY O F COLOR STAGE V, SECTION 3, MEASURES 339-370.

COLOR SUB- MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE SECTION COLOR
V: 3 339-340 Bells E Blue-green
D 341-344 Climactic wave 1: sequential statement of E, Bb; Gb, C Blue-green,
(yellow) Theme of Ideation fragment yellow; blue,
red
345-346 Piano interruption Eb Metallic
346-350 Climactic ascent 1 Eb Metallic
351-354 Climactic wave 2: like 341 ff Ftt, C; Ab, D Blue, red;
lily, yellow
355-356 Piano interruption, like 345ff F Red
356-360 Climactic ascent 2, like 346ff F Red
361-363 Victorieux: Climactic ascent 3 Ab Lily
363-365 Anticlimax, reference to avec langueur figure F Red
365-367 Climactic ascent 4 Ab Lily
367-370 Anticlimax, with reference to avec langueur F Red
figure

The Return of Will

Sonata form analysts typically consider the next section, measures 371-390, as the

beginning of their recapitulation, due to the striking restatement of the orchestral Contempktif

theme and the piano's first entrance with the Theme of Will from the First Color Stage. The

manner in which the themes return is virtually identical to their original appearance in

measures 26-46, except here they are transposed down a major third in order to preserve the

relationship of Pleroma chord progression to the sustained slow luce pitch.41 In Color Stage I,

the piano's entrances progressed along a minor third cycle from F# to El? and C—the

Once again, T values of the music match the T values of the slow luce between FJ and D; this may also be
explained by the fact that both passages begin with a Pleroma sonority with root identical to the background
luce pitch.

298
emergence of polarities, according to Sabaneev's program. In the parallel passage in Color

Stage V, transposition by major third sets the piano entrances on a journey through D-B-Ak

EXAMPLE 6.29: Reprise of the Piano's entrance from Color Stage I.

Materialization Conflict Dematerialization

I II III IV 1
V VI VII '

Ft Ab m c D E Ft
dark blue violet lily lead grey red yellow blue dark blue violet
green

t
31
t
375
Piano: Theme of Wi 11 Piano:" rheme of Will
Ftt-C D-A>

Scriabin's indications in the Parisian score suggest that there was something special

about the piano's climactic attainment of Ab in measures 385-388. His handwriting betrays

excitement when he writes "lily-color and gold, regal" in larger-than-usual underlined script.

EXAMPLE 6.30: Parisian score excerpt, measure 385 (two measures after rehearsal
39). The following page is provided for comparison.

58
mffc^L / # '

^ &<#&'
,
St.M.J»i»«<[»»> oWi'" ' 59
Ms anirae.

299
 EXAMPLE 6.31: Piano's arrival on A\>, measures 382-390.

flashes of dark lightning

382 > gloom

P =1H
Fffl^ r ^m^P
3 »/ mp cresc.

-*-jj > fm ?* J •^"w**

p y
 EXAMPLE 6.31, continued.

gloom
waves of datk
386 lightning b&t fiery, red-brown lily-color

&
=F
fe f^
pptj [Hn.]
' f\
> * ^d-bj tr^. ^ ^ ] r r

a
s _s

iJZ^Tj p ±=s
•Lf \f
s
^ (TKit

at 3EEE*E
IB i» J i;
S Ife'
"P=P= f-*~4£f
©aa- .

£E£ J^E=^
' "9- ^
# 1
= - ! •*>• — a —' p «=*
^ ^ ^ ? 7 97
S * -i- 1 t *
—s—' k^_ y
re or
•6-
-bo-
—©—

IS
 This climactic arrival on A\> transforms the dramatic role of the piano and trumpet's

ascending Theme of Will. In Color Stage I, piano and trumpet were agents of differentiation,

singling themselves out among the crowd of the orchestra. In the piano's first appearance, it

articulated movement through the F#-C polarity at the heart of the work's organization. In

Color Stage V, the piano's arrival on Al> in measure 385 signals its readiness to perform the

necessary act of the drama, and bring about the transcendent synthesis by offering itself up

for sacrifice. The color of A\> is one step removed from the home color of Fjt on the whole-

tone cycle, as is E, the color of the next Stage where the piano begins its ritual dance. This

fate was embedded in the ascending profile of the piano's entrance from the beginning. As

Ivanov wrote regarding ascent, "the God-battling and God-bearing pathos of ascent is

resolved in a sacrificial act. This is the pathos of tragedy; tragedy, in turn, is a sacrificial

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE V, SECTIONS 4 AND 5, MEASURES 371-408.

COLOR SECTIO MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE COLOR

STAGE N
V: 4 371-374 Sublime, transposed reprise of m.m. 26- D,F "orange,"
D [Reprise 30 Contemplatetheme
(yellow) of Color 375-378 Imperieux: Piano entrance 1, like m.m. D,B "gloomy red
Stage I, 31-34 brown," "yellow-
subsecti green"
on 2] 379-382 Contemplatiftheme, like m.m. 35-38 B "greenish"
383-386 Piano entrance 2, like m.m. 39-42 B,Ab "greenish," "lily-
color and gold"
387-388 Piano entrance 3 (truncated), like m.m. Ab "lily color"
43-45
389-390 Theme of Will, like m.m. 46-47 D,Ab "red-brown," lily
5 391-404 tres anime' D and its yellow, red, lily-
Piano episode 2, transposed reprise of m3-related colored, blue
m.m. 67ff chords
405-408 deplus en plus lumineux etflamboyant: [same as [same as above]
Begins like a repeat of piano episode, above]
but truncated

Ivanov, "The Symbolics of Aesthetic Principles," in Essays (2001), 6.

302
The Piano's Dance: Transition to Color Stage VI

The Fifth Color Stage concludes with a reprise of the piano's dancelike Theme of

Motion from Color Stage I, beginning in measure 393 (Example 6.31). Here, Pleroma

harmonies cycle through root motions related by a minor third cycle from D, emphasizing

the tritone D-A!> Pleroma progression. In measures 405-408, the Theme of Motion episode

begins again at measures 405-408, marked deplus en plus lumineux etflamboyant[more and more

luminous and blazing], yet the reprise is transformed into a new dancing figure in measure

409. Its arrival on an E Pleroma harmony marks the beginning of the Sixth Color Stage. The

piano's dance moves seamlessly across the color division, creating a musical elision between

the two Color Stages and hastening on the process of dematerialization (Example 6.32).

EXAMPLE 6.31: Theme of Motion, measures 393-395.

yellow
soft, tender, glittering
393

303
 EXAMPLE 6.32: Transition to Color Stage VI, measures 405-412.

whitish, lily, red-orange

yellow, red-orange, yellow yellow
Color Stage VI flashes...
flames, lightning green, a play of colors
. deptus en plus lumineux ei flamboyant green blue

1
a 8& & ^
The Dionysian Dithyramb

The Book of Dzyan ends after it recounts the emergence of the Fifth Root Race.

Blavatsky's narrative in The Secret Doctrine of further dematerialization in Root Race Six and

its reunification in a divine state of spiritual oneness in Root Race Seven becomes a

prophecy. Lacking specific plot details from Blavatsky, Scriabin turned to Nietzsche and

Ivanov's vision of Dionysian ritual to inform his musical embodiment of this process in the

last two Color Stages of Prometheus. The music of Color Stages VI-VII, dominated by

euphoric dance episodes in the piano and transcendent choral entrances, perform the

theurgic function of the Dionysian dithyramb and the chorus in ritual drama.43 Nietzsche

described the dithyrambic song and dance as an uncontrollable force which seizes the body,

and freeing the soul through the annihilation of the individual will. "In the Dionysian

dithyramb, man is incited to the greatest exaltation of his symbolic faculties.. .the entire

symbolism of the body is called into play, not the mere symbolism of the lips, face, and

speech but the whole pantomime of dancing, forcing every member into rhythmic

movement."44 Also: "in the dithyramb we confront a community of unconscious actors who

consider themselves and one another transformed."45 Ivanov echoed Nietzsche's

formulation, but his description focused on an even more primitive form of ritual. The

sacrifice of the individual will arose from the actual sacrifice of a real individual, which was

subsequently transformed into a fictitious hero in drama.

Everything is dynamic in this dithyramb: each participant in the liturgical circular

chorus was an active molecule of the orgiastic life of the Dionysian body, of its

43
See Ivanov's "Presentiments and Portents: The New Organic Era and the Theater of the Future," and
"Nietzsche and the Dionysian Rite," in Essays 95-110 and 177-188 (2001).

44
Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy," in Basic Writings ofNietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York:
Modem library, 2000), 40.

45
Ibid, 64.

305
 religious community. The Dionysian art of the choral drama arose out of ecstatic
sacrificial worship. The earlier real sacrifice subsequently became a Active sacrifice:
this is the protagonist, the hypostasis of the god of orgies, who within the circle
depicts the suffering fate of a hero condemned to die. The round dance was
originally a community of sacrificers and communicants of the sacrificial mystery.46

In Scriabin's interpretation of this process, the piano becomes a ritual celebrant,

shaking off its former role as an agent of differentiation and becoming the sacrificial hero.

The Theme of Motion piano episode at the end of the Fifth Color Stage triggers frenetic

activity from the piano during the Sixth Stage, which continues with very few pauses

throughout measures 408-448. Much of the dance material is new, a dizzy concatenation of

fragmented melodic snippets punctuated by brief returns of the motto from the Theme of

Motion, interspersed with longer sweeps of arpeggiation marked^?/ lumineux [flood of light].

Example 6.32 shows the piano's revelry in measures 409-411, which consists of a fractured,

jumpy line encrusted with fluttering trills and grace notes. Example 6.33 shows a segment of

the piano's wave-like ascending arpeggio figures in measures 415-418, marked^b/ lumineux

[flood of light].

EXAMPLE 6.31: Piano's Dionysian revelry in measures 409-411 (Dance motive 1).

Piano

Pleroma

46
Ivanov, "Presentiments and Portents," in Essays (2001), 102.

306
 EXAMPLE 6.32: Flot lumineux piano episode, measures 415-417.

Piano •

Pleroma
J

EXAMPLE 6.33: The harmonies of Example 6.32 above, as they would appear on the luce.

dark blue-violet

violet
pure blue Fit

blue-green -p \. A l> ^V-colored

^ \

green / JA J H ^ steel blue

yellow D lead grey

orange dark red

Nietzsche and Ivanov described how the transcendent reunification in ritual comes

about through the experience of Dionysian chaos. Ivanov spoke of the Dionysian spirit as

"holy intoxication and orgiastic oblivion," and "the terror and ecstasy of the loss of the self

in chaos and of the new discovery of the self in God."47 In Prometheus, Scriabin responds to

Ivanov's call for a new form of art based on Dionysian principles. "Following the example

of the ancients, who used ecstatic music and the exciting rhythms of dance as a treatment for

47
Ivanov, "Nietzsche and Dionysus," in Essays (2001), 181.

307
frenzy, we seek the musical intensification of the affect as a means capable of producing a

healing resolution."

The piano's dance is pure chaos, transcending the rational in a frenetic orgy. In the

flot lumineux episode, the harmonic rhythm speeds up, moving with the beat. As Example

6.33 shows, the variety of the harmonic root motions results in a disordered sequence of

flashing of colors in the luce. The fundamental bass moves exclusively by half step, major

third, and minor third, resulting in striking contrasts of hues as Scriabin avoids the direct

succession of colors one or two color-steps away from each other on the circle-of-fifths

color wheel. Furthermore, while each successive return of the flot luminieux material is

characterized by similar wave-like ascending arpeggios, Scriabin avoids replicating the

fundamental bass motion between episodes. Each statement traces its own wild patterns on

the luce.

The accumulated forward momentum and upward drive from measure 408

culminates in 435, as the flot lumineux arpeggiated waves break into descending, rippling

figures marked aigu, fulgurant [piercing, brilliant]. As shown in Example 6.34, the harmonies

alternate between a "fiery orange" G Pleroma and Db Pleroma, which Scriabin, perhaps

significanuy, mislabels as "lily-color" in the fast luce.

1
Ivanov, "Presentiments and Portents," in Essays (2001), 103.

308
 EXAMPLE 6.34: aigu, fulgurant, measures 435-436 (dance episode 3).

8™ i

The piano's Dionysian revelry in the Sixth Color Stage concludes with a reprise of

the Theme of Motion motto, which alternates regularly widi a new figure, as shown in

Example 6.35. The most significant aspect of this passage, however, is the re-emergence of

the Rapture motive in the flute and oboe. The rapture motive foreshadows the coming result

of the piano's action, the appearance of the chorus which concludes the color stage as a

whole.

309
 EXAMPLE 6.35: Theme of Motion motto, followed by reappearance of the Rapture motive in flute, measures 439-442.

lily-colored gloom, green gloom

^° suddenly specks of light waves of light

%$
h^'U is rOij
i BEEEfc
^=£ ^ = ^ n*~l n rrn n
V^
b^

... / r/

T^ *
The Mute Chorus

The piano abruptly drops out in measures 449-450, followed by a transformed

version of the Theme of Will played by flutes and clarinets, echoed briefly by a blast from

the horns. This outburst is followed by a dramatic drop in dynamics and change in texture.

The chorus enters on G\> Pleroma harmony, accompanied by a "powerful blue" in the luce,

which moves to A and green in measure 452, the primary and secondary tonics of the work.

The chorus sings the music of the Rapture episode, marked Exatique. Scriabin intimated the

mystical significance of the choir in Prometheus to Sabaneev:

"For me, the choir in Prometheus is not going to be an ordinary choir. Instead, I want
a little of the Mysterium to enter in. The choristers must therefore be clad in white
vestments.. .1 have written the most languishing, mystical harmony in the place
where the choir enters—and it must be sung precisely as is!"49

For Nietzsche, the chorus in ancient Greek drama annihilated the difference between

the spectators and particpants. All became members of the chorus, united in their common

experience in theurgic art:

The chorus is the "ideal spectator" insofar as it is the only beholder, the
beholder of the visionary world of the scene. A public of spectators was unknown to
the Greeks: in their theaters the terraced structure of the concentric arcs made it
possible for everybody to actually overlook the whole world of culture around him and
to imagine, in absorbed contemplation, that he himself was a chorist...
The Dionysian excitement is capable of communicating this artistic gift to a
multitude, so they can see themselves surrounded by such a host of spirits while
knowing themselves to be essentially one with them. This process of the tragic
chorus is the dramatic proto-phenomenon: to see oneself transformed before one's
own eyes and to begin to act as if one had actually entered into another body,
another character And this phenomenon is encountered epidemically: a whole
throng experiences the magic of this transformation.

49
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 77.

50
Nietzsche, "Birth of Tragedy," in Basic Writings (2000), 62-64.

311
 This was to be the principle behind the Mysterium. "In the Mysterium, there is no room

for actors or passively receptive listeners and spectators [,]" wrote Schloezer, describing

Scriabin's vision. "The participants in die Mysterium were not to be actors, but rather votaries

in the sacrament of theophany, a liturgical act in which dieir flesh and souls would undergo

die miracle of transubstantiation.51 Similarly, Ivanov revealed Scriabin's plans for the chorus

in the Mysterium as follows:

Everything was to be borne by the chorus, which was to divide up and merge
together in manifold ways, which was now to be deaf-mute, now clear in speech. It
was to be a many-faced chorus but filled with a single collective [sorbornyi]
consciousness and inspiration. It was not a chorus of performers but die sacramental
chorus of those who perform liturgical service.52

Ivanov's description of the chorus as "now deaf-mute, now clear in speech"

resonates especially widi Scriabin's use of die chorus in Prometheus. The first entrance of the

chorus in measures 451-458 is wordless. In the score excerpt shown in Example 6.32, Scriabin

instructs the first altos to sing the Rapture motive on the vowel sound "a," while second

altos and basses sing with their mouths closed.

EXAMPLE 6.32: Scriabin's instructions for the first choral entrance, measures 451-452.

51
Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic (Berkeley: Unversity of California Press, 1987), 267-268.

52
Ivanov, "Scriabin's View of Art," in Essays, 226.

312
 Scriabin's wordless chorus enacts a gradual return to human origins as imagined by

Blavatsky. In The Secret Doctrine, she wrote that die "die Second Race had a 'Sound-language,'

to wit chant-like sounds composed of vowels alone." 3 The end of the blue-green Color

Stage VI (E) parallels the beginning of the lily-colored Color Stage II (Ab) on the descending

arc, both a single step on the whole-tone cycle from the final return to divine spiritual

oneness in the deep blue-violet of Fjt-

In its previous appearances throughout the work, the Rapture episodes had

symbolized the collective forces of the orchestra, in opposition to the alienating

individualism of the Theme of Will in trumpet and piano. According to Ivanov (who was

echoed, as we saw, by Scriabin)54 Wagner had made a serious error in identifying the

orchestra as an adequate replacement for the chorus. Regarding Wagner's orchestra, Ivanov

wrote that "this symbolic wordless chorus is mute Will... [but] Wagner the hierophant does

not give die community a choral voice and word."55 In Prometheus, Scriabin corrects Wagner's

error, but he does so in two stages. Realizing that the ancient dieurgic function of the chorus

could not be accomplished by the orchestral forces alone, Scriabin adds a real chorus to

create a real community of participants. This first choral entrance at the end of the Sixth

Color Stage marks the point where Prometheus turns from a quasi-representational tone poem

to a real theurgic work of art. However, Scriabin's chorus emerges from the orchestra, and,

in their first entrance, he treats it as an orchestral instrument. Scriabin's chorus only realizes

its full theurgic potential in its second entrance. In this, too, he follows Ivanov:

53
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 198.

54
See Chapter Two.

55
Ivanov, "Presentiments and Portents," in Essays, 106.

313
 We envision a double chorus: a smaller chorus, immediately connected to the action,
as in the tragedies of Aeschylus, and a chorus symbolizing the entire community and
capable of being increased spontaneously by new participants. The latter chorus is
therefore more numerous and it interferes in the action only at moments of the
highest animation and full liberation of Dionysian energies; the dithyrambic chorus
of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is an example of this. The first chorus naturally
adds play and orchestics [i.e., dance] to the synthetic rite; the second is limited to
more important rhythms, i.e., more animated ones. It gives form to movement
(processions, theories) and acts with the massive grandiosity and collective [sobornyi]
authority of the community it represents.56

"Eaohoaoho": Color Stage VII

A trumpet fanfare, blasting the last appearance of the Theme of Will, ushers in the

advent of the spiritual blue violet of the final Color Stage.57 In measure 459, the slow luce

turns a deep blue and "the fieriest ray pierces the darkness." The Seventh Color Stage opens

with a Dl> Pleroma harmony, associated with violet on Scriabin's color wheel. Significantly,

Scriabin mislabels the Db, re-labeling it as "lily-colored," the synthetic fusion of the material

red and the spiritual violet-blue. In measures 461-466, bells enter, signaling the second

entrance of the chorus.

Marked avec un eclat ebloussiant [with dazzling brilliance], the chorus enters "clear in

speech," just as Ivanov described it. They sing the mystic word, "Eaohoaoho," derived from

the Book of Dzyan: "Oeaohoo is one," it reads.58 Blavatsky's commentary explains that the

56
Ibid, 107.

57
The printed score contains an error in the slow luce part in measure 459: in the Parisian score, Scriabin
crossed out the Efl between E and Fjt, suggesting die pitch now be read as E-natural, die final measure of die
color stage.

58
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. 1 (1888), 68. See Chapter Two for more information on Blavatsky's Stanzas
ofD^ian.

314
word signifies the "Father-Mother of the Gods," a metaphor for the androgynous force of

Akasa, "the SIX-IN-ONE, or the septenary rootfrom which allproceeds." Blavatsky explains,

All depends upon the accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced
as one, three, or even seven syllables by adding an e after the letter "o." This mystic
name is given out, because without a thorough mastery of the triple pronunciation it
remains for ever ineffectual [Oeaohoo] refers to the Non-Separateness of all that
lives and has its being, whether in active or passive state in another sense it is a
name for the manifested one life, the Eternal living Unity.60

Significantly, Scriabin's annotations call for a "nearly white light" in measure 467, a

transcendent unification of all spectral colors.61 Scriabin remarked to Sabaneev, '"When light

becomes so intense, it blends together, and all the colors are mixed in white: all are present

within it, so the nuances become no longer important.'"62

As Example 6.35 shows, the choir sings an augmented version of the Theme of

Ideation, the breath of sound from which all originated. However, the specific setting is not

taken direcdy from the beginning of the work, but from the piano's theme large majesteux in

Color Stage III (Example 6.34). The theme, which once signified the triumph of the

individual Promethean spirit, has been taken over by the masses.

EXAMPLE 6.34: Thematic reference in "Eaohoaho"

Materialization Conflict Dematerialization

r IT III IV r VI VII

Ft Ai. Bt c D E Fit
dark blue violet. lily lead grey red yellow blue dark blue violet
green

5 131 467
Horns: Piano: majesttiisx Chorus: "Eaohoaho"
Theme of Ideation (Theme of Ideation) (Theme of Ideation)

59
Ibid., emphasis original.

60
Ibid., 68. See Chapter O n e for m o r e information o n Blavatsky's Stands ofD^yan.

61
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 57; BocnoMUHcmuwi (2000), 55-56.

62
Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 73.

315
 EXAMPLE 6.35: Second choral entrance, "Eaohoaoho," measures 467-478.

a sunny white, bluish,

nearly white light
streams of light
M M J=46 waves...explosions,.. like an eruption
467 bright... [50] avec un eclat'eblotussant blue becomes stronger stiU %-colored stronger
 The luce projects a dazzling display during die choral episode: "everything begins to

blaze u p , " "streams of light, waves.. .explosions..." "like an eruption," "a whole sea of light

and fire." T h e luce's increasingly violent effects begin to take on cataclysmic proportions as

the final Color Stage progresses. In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky describes the periodic world

disasters that mark the transition from one epoch of human history to another. 63 Scriabin's

use of the mystic, seven-syllable word E-a-o-ho-a-o-ho not only refers to Blavatsky's use of

the word as the invocation of the primal spiritual unity at the beginning of the entire cosmic

cycle,64 b u t it also resonates with her Theosophic exegesis of the E n d of Days as described in

the Book of Revelation:

T h e mysteries of the seven Gnostic vowels, uttered by the thunders of St. J o h n , can
be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of Aryavarta, brought into
India by the primeval Brahmins, w h o had been initiated in Central Asia [original
emphasis].. .When the seven "thunders," or "sounds," or "vowels"—one meaning
out of the seven for each such vowel relating direcdy to our own Earth and its seven
Root-Races in each R o u n d — " h a d uttered their voices"—but forbidden the Seer to
write them, and made him "seal u p those things"—what did the Angel "standing
upon the sea and u p o n the earth" do? H e lifted his hand to heaven "and sware [sic]
by him that liveth for ever and ever... [sic] that there should be time no longer?' "But in
the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the Mystery of
G o d (of the Cycle) should be finished," which means, in theosophic phraseology,
that when the Seventh Round is completed, then Time will cease.. .praylaya will set in
and there will remain n o one on earth to keep a division of time, during that
periodical dissolution and arrest of conscious life.65

Scriabin's Seventh Color Stage, then, presents the final Rapture in sound and light,

with b o t h its transcendent and cataclysmic aspects.

63
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. 2 (1888), 138-148.

64
Ibid., vol. 1 (1888), 68-69.

65
Ibid, vol 2 (1888), 565.

317
 SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE VII, SECTIONS 1 AND 2, MEASURES 459-509.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
VII: 1 459-461 Theme of Will Db "lily-colored
F» gloom"
Dark 461-467 de plus en plus large, bells Db "becoming blue"
blue 468-477 avec un eclat ebhuissant. Chorus, "a sunny white,
Db, Bb, E,
with a "Eaohoaho" 1 bluish, nearly
Db
shade white light," blue-
of green, Ely-colored
violet 478-490 Chorus: "Eaohoaho" 2 Db, Eb, A, Lily-colored,
Gb metallic, greenish,
blue
491-503 Chorus: "Eaoho" 3—truncated climax Gb,D Blue, "Sunny
yellow, majestic"
2 504-505 Dolcissimo: Solo violin, like m. 147-148 C*,A|t "blue lily-colored
twilight,"
"metallic grey"
506-507 Ascending harp chords, like 149-150 C| "deep blue with
508-509 New violin solo melody lily-colored
ripples"

The Dance of Flame

The piano begins its final sacrificial dance in measure 512, accompanied by an

acceleration of tempo and a shift from triple to duple meter. For Scriabin, the sudden

acceleration after measure 510 was the quickening of time itself, propelling the world toward

the final ecstasy.66 The expressive markings printed in the score read aile [winged], dansant

[dancing, flickering or shimmering]." Scriabin's annotations add images of fiery sacrifice:

"dance of flame or amongst the flames," "glittering, blazes, Hghtning, tongues of flame."

Like the piano dance episode in Color Stage VI, Scriabin evokes irrational frenzy

through his use of disjunct, freely-combined motives. The flot lumineux arpeggiation returns

in a varied guise, along with new passagework based on motives shown in Example 6.36. In

measures 558-565, the piano dance incorporates a reference to the circle fragment from the

Sabaneev, Erinnerungen (2005), 58-59.

318
Theme of Ideation (Example 6.36C), which is then liquidated in measures 566ff. Scriabin

increasingly relies on hypermetric compression to increase the sense of forward momentum.

EXAMPLE 6.36: Piano figuration in Color Stage IV, section 3.

A. AiU, dansant (dance motive 4), measures 512-513

B. Dance motive 5, measures 522-523

C. Dance motive 6, incorporating circle fragment from the

Theme of Ideation (left hand)

319
 SUMMARY O F COLOR STAGE VII, SECTION 3, MEASURES 510-557.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
VII: 3 510-511 Accel, molto: Ascending harp chords, like ctt "Lily-
Fit 506-507 colored"
Dark 512-519 Prestissimo. AiU, dansant Piano dance Ctt,D Lily-
blue episode 4, "Joyeux" colored,
with a yellow
shade 520-521 Orchestral bridge D Yellow
of 522-525 Piano dance 5 C»,G "blue,"
violet "fiery
orange"
526-529 Flot lumineux C(t, B\>, D, E, Varied (see
F,Ai> score)
530-533 Piano dance 5, m.m. 522ff C» Lily-colored
534-541 Flot lumineux Cfl,Bb,D,E, Varied (see
F,Ab score)
542-547 "Joyeux" dance 4, piano and w.w., m.m. C»,D "Intense
512-519 blue,"
yellow
Orchestral bridge, m.m. 520-521 D Yellow
550-553 Piano dance 5, m.m. 522 Ctt,G "blue,"
"orange,"
"blue lily-
color"
554-557 Flot lumineux Q,Bb,D,E, Varied (see
F,AI> score)

Vertige

In measures 574-579, the episode breaks into new figuration against a fast-moving

harmonic sequence. This last passage is marked dans un vertige [in a vertigo]," and in Scriabin's

own hand, "dance amidst the flames." Sabaneev and Scriabin discussed what he meant by

this marking.

"I will write tempi faster than any which have been written before. And
especially at the end, during the 'vertige.'"
I did not know then what he meant by "vertige."
"You see, that is, so to speak, like the last dance before the final ecstasy," he
said to me, as if he expected me to make a reply. "And then"—here he made only a
motion, as if he had no more breath, either due to the overflowing of beatitude or
some other wild emotion.

320
 "And precisely in this moment, with the contemplation of the harmony, the
dematerialization sets in, which are at root one and the same thing. To me all that is
fully clear now, but how does it strike you? Is it also clear to you?" he asked.

The "vertige" piano sequence is followed in measures 581-588 with melodic

fragments material drawn from measures 566-569, but now in eighth notes, halving the

original rhythmic values. The piano's intoxicated gyrations continue until 588, halting before

the choir's ultimate entrance which closes the work. The great variety of new and old

motives, their free variation and novel juxtapositions, combined with the various accelerando

techniques at the level of the pulse, bar, and hypermeasure gives the entirety of the piano's

dance a scattered, crazed, relendess quality which propels the piece toward its transcendent

conclusion.

SUMMARY OF COLOR STAGE VII, SECTIONS 4-6, MEASURES 558-606.

COLOR SECTION MM. NOTES PLEROMA FAST-LUCE

STAGE COLOR
VII: 4 558-561 Piano dance 6, w / opening theme Bb, E, Db, D Blue,
reference greenish,
Ftt lily-colored,
yellow
Dark 562-565 Same as above, T5 Eb, A, F)t, F Metallic,
lue green, blue,
with a red
shade 5 566-573 Piano dance 7 D, Bb, C# Yellow,
of leaden, lily-
violet colored
574-580 dans un vertige: piano dance 8 (harmonic Varied (see Varied (see
sequence) score) score)
581-590 Piano dance 7, like m. 566, but in
rhythmic diminution
6 591-594 Bells Ab Blue lily
colored
595-603 Final ascent: trumpets, choir, organ Ab Becoming
602-606 Final transcendence glaring,
Fjt major triad
white

321
The Final Transcendence

In measure 589, the piano abruptly drops out, and the forward momentum slows to

a halt in measure 591-594. Bells enter, signaling the coming of the final transfiguration, and

the harmony settles onto Al> Pleroma, marked "blue lily-color." This color not only

represents a reunification of spiritual and material poles—a mixture of blue and red—but it

also brings the harmony of the fast luce into a close, first-degree relationship with the

sustained Fjf of the slow luce. The luce then brightens in a crescendo in measures 591-595,

"becoming glaring, white." As in the chorus's second entrance, the use of white reflects a

synthesis of colors, eliminating differences between colors as they blend together.

In measure 594, the chorus and organ enter, against trumpets blasting a slow

arpeggiation of the At Pleroma chord (Example 6.39). The ascent is taken from the piano's

demonic, fiery ascents at the beginning of Color Stage V. As Example 6.37 shows, the use of

the piano's arpeggiation spiritualizes the virtuosic passagework which marked the complete

descent into materialization, just as the return of the Theme of Ideation at the beginning of

the Fifth Color Stage represented the materialization of the spiritual theme which began the

work. As the trumpet, chorus, and organ make their final triumphal ascent to the climax,

Scriabin's annotation refers to the world's fiery end: "inferno, the whole world engulfed." In

measure 604, the harmony suddenly opens up to a shining F# major triad marked "cataclysm,

all in fire."

322
 EXAMPLE 6.37: Materialization of spirit, spiritualization of matter.

Materialization Conflict DematGrialization

II III TV V VI VII
Fl At> Bt c D E F§
darl > blue violet lily lead grey red yellow blue dark blue violet
green

5 187
it193 594
Horns: Horns: Piano: Orch:
Theme of Ideation Theme of Ideation Pleroma arpeggialion Pleroraa arpeggiation
I I I
materialization of spirit spiritualizatioti of matter

Tonal Centricity or Polarity?

Why the final F# major triad? It could be that Scriabin, convinced that he

constructed the Pleroma chord from pitches 8-14 on the harmonic series,68 decided to move

closer to the fundamental for the final chord, in the name of greater acoustic unity (Example

6.40).

EXAMPLE 6.38: Harmonic series of Fft.

M. - u «. Ik Ik te te = *= **
^ ^
P=s^
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Final Fjt triad F# Pleroma chord

68
See Chapter Four.

323
 EXAMPLE 6.39: The final transcendence, measures 594-606.

-^ becoming glaring, white inferno, the whole world engulfed cataclysm, all in fire
Z3I
Luce
KJJt^JJkJjL JA-lpt Lfi f^f f*
r—3-

Trumpet yssfcafc^

Otgan,j
Choir

Pleroma
 This open-ended quality resides to a great extent in the chord's voicing. The

trumpet's ascent culminates on the third of the chord, Ajt, which remains in the highest

register, as if straining for something beyond itself. In this context, Ajt sounds like a leading

tone, which would make the F# major triad a dominant, not a tonic at all.

In Chapter Five, I suggested that Prometheus engages tonality through analogy, and

very litde more. However, during this time period he would frequendy dominantize his

tonics, destabilizing them either through their preparation with a functional pre-dominant or

endowing them with dominant quality through the use of added tritones and sevenths. This

procedure, as well as his distinctive tritone usage in his later works, is a musical manifestation

of polarity, the esoteric concept of the two in one. As we have seen, the idea of polarity was

central to Prometheus, and expressed in many different parameters: color, harmony, melodic

profile, affect.

However, Scriabin employs none of the cadential strategies associated with polarity

in the final gesture of Prometheus. But there is a way in which the piece's deeply suppressed B

tonality, hinted at through the voicing of its final triad, is manifested in the music. Example

6.38 shows the very first presentation of the Theme of Ideation in measures 5-12. The

pitches conform to a B major scale70 with the lowered sixth scale-degree G-natural, and the

melody outlines a B major triad.

69
See Chapter Three.

70
I have spelled the second pitch in measure 10 as an A)t rather than Bl> to make it conform to B major. In
Scriabin's orchestral score, the half-step is written as an inflection of a single scale degree for horns, F)t-F,
which transposes down a fifth to B-Bk

325
 EXAMPLE 6.38: Theme of Mind, measures 5-12. Numerals refer to scale degrees in B major.

m
>- is*

The F(t triad has been interpreted as a regressive gesture, a nod to consonant

harmony after so many measures of Scriabin's synthetic tonal language.71 But as Pople has

argued, its power comes from its sudden, unprepared appearance,72 and its very

anomalousness within the context of the piece lends it a quality of otherness—something

new, different, unexpected. Although it has been interpreted as a tonic, an aural

manifestation of the sustained F | in the slow luce which opens and closes the piece, it sounds

extraordinarily open-ended, as if it is pointing to something beyond the parameters of the

work.

Yet this tonal allusion to B major, if we can even treat it as such, is all but

imperceptible against the thrumming A Pleroma sonority which opens the piece. The cyclic

reference of the F# major triad back to the first theme of the work is occult, meaning that it

is hidden from ordinary sensory perception. The open-sounding F# major triad at the very

end of the work comes as a flash of insight, but an ephemeral one, leaving its final status

ambivalent.

71
For example, Richard Taruskin wrote that the chord seemed "arbitrary and even a bit anachronistic" in
Oxford History of Western Music, volume 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 219. Baker treated the final
chord as a tonic, and used Schenkerian principles to derive a bass progression for the piece as a whole in F|t.
The Music of Alexander Scriabin, 261-267.

72
Pople, Skryabin and Stravinsky (1987), 231.

326
 I am convinced that art is the highest task
and the truly metaphysical activity of this life.

—Friedrich Nietzsche 1

Chapter Seven
Esotericism and Analysis Reconsidered

Scriabin's Prometheus, op. 60 was an ideal work of art: it existed solely as a concept in

the mind of its creator. Over the course of its history, fragments of this concept emerged in

the real world. First, Prometheus appeared as sounding music accompanied by the composer's

statements to his friends, which were made public in Sabaneev's vague metaphysical

program which accompanied the premiere. Then, the score was published with a

rudimentary part for colored lights. Two years later, on March 16, 1913, Sabaneev persuaded

Scriabin to sit down with him at the Prague restaurant in Moscow and write down precisely

what he had envisioned for the tastieraper luce.2 While the notes Scriabin made on that day

were by far the most complete manifestation of his ideas regarding the colored light part,

they still only reflected one moment in what was a continuously evolving concept. The

programmatic materials associated with Prometheus—which include the actual programs

written by Sabaneev and Newmarch, the cover of the original score by Delville, as well as

Sabaneev's recollections of conversations with the composer—all stand one degree of

1
Friedrich Nietzsche, Forward to Richard Wagner (1871), in Die Geburt derlragodie aus dem Nachlass 1869-1873
(Leipzig: Alfred Kroner Verlag, 1905), 50.

2
The Parisian score is labeled widi the date and place.

327
removal from Scriabin himself. Still, they provide glimpses of the third aspect of Scriabin's

total idea oi Prometheus: the meaning behind the music and the lights.

These three aspects comprised the whole of Scriabin's total concept: the music, the

lights, and the secret esoteric program. Because the actual manifestations of the piece in the

real world were fragmentary and disconnected, the three elements of the whole became

separated from one another in the work's history of performance and critical reception. Too

often, this has translated into negative aesthetic judgments regarding the work itself. For

Nicholas Cook, Prometheus was the prime example of musical multimedia gone wrong: "the

luce part [in Prometheus] literally does add little; for while the slower part has no discernible

relationship to what is heard, the faster part simply duplicates information that is already

present in the music."3 Cook's evaluation of Prometheus was based on the limited information

in the published version of the score and his own mental construction of the work.4 It is no

wonder, then, that he concluded, "in neither case is there a substantial degree of perceptual

interaction between what is seen and what is heard." Cook's judgment wasn't based on an

experience of perceiving the work at all.5

3
Nicholas Cook, Analysing MusicalMultimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 41. Cook contrasts what
he views as a quasi-synaesthetic, mechanical parallelism between color and music in Prometheus with
Schoenberg's Die Gliickliche Hand, the elements of which work together in a "multimedia heterophony." Cook
refers repeatedly to the "lighting crescendo" in Schoenberg's drama. Scriabin's Parisian score annotations draws
Prometheus much closer to Schoenberg's conception Die Gliickliche Hand dian Cook's description of the work
would indicate. See Analysing Musical'Multimedia (1998), 34, 55-56.

4
Cook mentions the existence of the Parisian score, but his discussion indicates that he was not aware of its
contents. Not only does he conceptualize the light part as merely a play of colors, but he repeatedly refers to
the Ejj in the slow luce part in the printed score at bar 459, which is clearly crossed out in the Parisian score.

5
The rarity of fully-lighted performances of Prometheus increases the likelihood that this was die case. Cook
cites several historical accounts of performances, including Percy Scholes, "Color and Music," in The Oxford
Companion to Music, edited by Percy Scholes, ninth edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 208; Hugh
McDonald, Skryabin (London: Oxford University Press 1978), 57 and "Lighting the Fire," The Musical Times
124/1688 (October 1983): 600; Leonid Sabaneev, "Scriabin's Prometheus," in TfeBlaue Reiter Almanac, edited
by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, translated by Henning Falkenstein (London: Thames and Hudson,
1974), 131; A.E. Hull, A Great Russian Tone Poet: Scriabin, second edition (London: Triibner and Co., Ltd., 1927),
227. If Cook had seen the work performed widi lights, he probably would have also cited that performance.

328
 The first objective of this dissertation was to reconstruct Scriabin's ideal image by

bringing the three separated components of Scriabin's Prometheus, op, 60 back together again.

I accepted Ivanov's invitation to become a creative participant in this work of symbolist art.

Ivanov imagined the artist and the receiver as sharing the work in their mutual acts of

creation, as just as two performers share a piece of music as they create it together:

If, as a poet and a sage, I command knowledge of things; if I instruct the listener's
reason and educate his will, while giving pleasure to his heart;
—but if I am a poet crowned with this threefold crown of melodious power,
yet, despite this threefold charm, am still unable to compel the very soul of the
listener to sing together with me in a voice different from my own, not in the unison
of the psychological surface but in the counterpoint of its innermost depths, to sing
of what is deeper than the depths I show and higher than the heights I
disclose.. .then I am not a symbolic poet.0

To become a worthy symbolist collaborator, I steeped myself in Scriabin's

inspirational literature and constructed a mental assemblage of source materials, one that

paralleled Scriabin's own. Because Scriabin's philosophical interests were wide-ranging and

his source materials possessed a rich intellectual background, I surveyed a large body of

literature in order to situate his three main sources of inspiration for Prometheus in their

appropriate intellectual contexts. This allowed me to ground the relationships I perceived

among the components of Prometheus in some text or textual tradition that Scriabin himself

studied.

The second objective of my dissertation was to contemplate the relationship of

aesthetics and analysis. As reviewed in Chapter One, this relationship is particularly

problematic in Scriabin scholarship, as current analytical modes of discourse seem so far

removed from the ecstatic aesthetic of the music. This incompatibility is a result of

differences between two modes of receiving a piece of music. Analysis is the reception of the

6
Viacheslav Ivanov, "Thoughts on Symbolism," (1912), in Selected Essays, translated by Robert Bird (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 2001), 51.

329
work as a text, and is not necessarily bound by the limits of real time, while the heightened

emotional or spiritual state Scriabin's music was intended to elicit is tied to the experience of

a work in performance.

Ironically, of course, the large-scale works of Scriabin's last years—-Prometheus, the

Preparatory Act, and the Mysterium—remained conceptualizations, never to be fully realized.

Because these works were meant to catalyze a transfiguration of reality, they were more

effective as perpetual potentialities than as actual performances. Scriabin avoided putting his

ideas into practice because, if he did, he would have to acknowledge that music didn't

possess the spiritual agency he attributed to it. His withdrawal of the original luce from the

premiere of Prometheus allowed the work to exist in its ideal form, untouched by the crushing

disillusionment of reality. By premiering the music alone, he deliberately presented an

incomplete work. The impossible luce part he imagined and later wrote down in the Parisian

score was also a face-saving gesture. Its inability to be realized in his own time would ensure

that the theurgic claims he made for the work would never be tested.

I took the conceptual status of Prometheus as an opportunity to bring analysis and

aesthetics closer together. If analysis is the reception of the music as a text and the act of

analysis generates an ideal mental image of the work, that ideal image can be shaped and

broadened by relating the music-as-text to other texts. Put another way, music-as-idea can be

related to other ideas.

In Chapter Two, I identified three main sources that direcdy contributed to

Scriabin's idea of Prometheus: Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, Ivanov's By the Stars, and

Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine. I found that these three texts, despite the apparent

geographical dispersal of their authors, all emerged from a common German intellectual

tradition, a combination of nineteenth-century idealism, romanticism, and comparative

330
philology. Indeed, all three authors also had geographical ties to Germany in their

backgrounds. Ivanov spent formative years there as a young man, studying ancient history at

the University of Berlin.7 Blavatsky, nee von Hahn, was German on her fadier's side, and

became acquainted with works of German philosophy in her youth.8 Scriabin himself had

direct contact with German philosophy and aesthetics through his own reading of Kant,

Fichte, Schopenhauer, Goethe, Novaks, and his engagement with Wagner's music. The

ideas he generated on his own would have been supplemented by those of his friends,

particularly Ivanov and Sabaneev.

The engagement of Nietzsche, Ivanov, and Blavatsky with the German comparative

philological tradition allowed me to recontextualize Scriabin's yearning for an imaginary

India and references to Indian philosophy.10 As seen in Chapter Two, comparative philology

arose in response to the availability of ancient Eastern texts in the west, and its primary task

was relating the language and mythology of Europe to an ancient eastern source tradition.

Scriabin's own image of India was informed by scholarly glosses on ancient Brahmanical

religion, ancient texts in translation, and Theosophical reformulations.11

The common background of Scriabin's three main texts would have created a

mutually reinforcing network of ideas in Scriabin's mind. Scriabin's biographers referred to

7
See Michael WachtePs introduction to Ivanov, Selected Essays (2001), viii-x.

8
Blavatsky lived with her maternal grandmother, Princess Helena Pavlovna Dolgorukova, after the death of
her mother at age 11. Princess Helena Pavlovna was a scholar, artist, and scientist, and her library possessed a
sizeable collection of German philosophical texts. Blavatsky's fluency in German manifested itself through the
automatic writing she produced in that language during her teenage years. Marion Meade, Madame Blavatsky: The
Woman Behind the Myth (New York: G.P. Putnam's and Sons, 1980), 16-17, 41, 48.

9
Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 93-94,122, 234.

10
As discussed in Chapter Two, Nietzsche and Ivanov were both trained as philologists, and Blavatsky's text
The Secret Doctrine poses as a work of philological scholarship.

11
Schloezer, Artist and Mystic (1987), 200.

331
him as an avid, though unsystematic reader of texts, gleaning various ideas and internally

reformulating them to suit his own purposes. The religious historian Olaf Hammer

identified this type of epistemological strategy as characteristic of the esoteric movement in

general, which tends toward eclecticism. Within the assembly of various concepts, this

strategy prioritizes similarities rather than differences, valuing the unity of abstractions rather

than the distinction of particulars.13 This same mentality characterized Blavatsky's pseudo-

philological work The Secret Doctrine, as well as Ivanov's theory of symbolism. This mentality

was an integral part of the early philological tradition, as evidenced by the network of

etymology and concepts Adalbert Kuhn constructed around the Prometheus myth and its

connection to the Vedas.14 The associative mentality informed the manner in which I

assembled ideas from Scriabin's aesthetic source readings and in the way I approached the

music, allowing inter- and intra-textual connections to proliferate.15

Another goal of this dissertation was to use Scriabin's source readings to establish a

system of values that could inform my analysis of the music. I hoped that by doing so, my

construal and understanding of musical relationships would change. I found that my

understanding of the Law of Polarity altered my conception of Scriabin's late harmonic

12
SdAoezei, Artist and Mystic (1987), 64, 70,191-192; Leonid Sabaneev, "Scriabin and the Idea of a Religious
Art," The Musical Times 72/'1063 (September 1,1931): 791.

13
Olaf Hammer, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemo logyfrom Theosophy to the New Age (Leiden: Brill, 2001),
157-180.

14
George S. Williamson, The Longingfor Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culturefrom Romanticism to Nietzsche
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 215

15
The associative mentality is central to the principle of intertextuality. See James Porter, Intertexuality and the
Discourse Community," Rhetoric Review 5/1 (Autumn 1986), 34-47. Porter describes intertextuality as "the
principle that all writing and speech—indeed, all signs—arise from a single network: what Vygotsky called the
'web of meaning'; what poststructuralists label Text or Writing.. .and what a more distant age perhaps knew as
logos. Examining texts 'intertextually' means looking for 'traces,' the bits and pieces of Text which writers or
speakers sew together to create new discourse." 34. For a relatively recent musical application of intertextuality
to music, see Michael Klein, Intertextuality in Western Art Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).

332
practice, allowing me to appreciate the extent to which his dominantizations of the tonic and

his tritonal bass motions undermined a clear hierarchical presentation of pitch classes. The

paradox of his tonal usage became a musical instantiation of the mystical paradox of duality

within unity.

Polarity was also a central concept both in the wide intellectual field surrounding

Prometheus and in Scriabin's system of tone-color correspondences. My understanding of the

interpretative function of the luce, informed by Sabaneev's memoir, helped me to establish

new formal and hermeneutic narratives for the work, drawing on the polar principle and

other concepts from Scriabin's source readings. However, many of the other values I

perceived embedded in Scriabin's source texts were similar to those historically associated

with the practice of musical analysis. For example, Blavatsky's cosmology is an organic

narrative of the universe. She likens the evolution of humanity to the growth of a cactus

plant with recursive trunk, branches, and spines. Her basic narrative of human history

recounts its emergence from primal unity, its fall into by division and conflict, and its final

culmination in transcendent reunification. Scriabin's own preoccupations with unity, organic

interrelatedness, and dialectical polarity emerged in his writings and in descriptions of his

philosophy by his contemporary biographers.16

During the 1980s and 1990s, music analysis fell under criticism for its

unselfconscious application of metaphors of unity, organicism, and dialectics. These

16
Scriabin's notebooks, dating from 1901-1905, are collected in Notes et reflexions: Carnets ine'dits, translated and
edited by Marina Scrabine (Paris: Editions Klincksieck, 1979). See also ScUoezet, Artist and Mystic (1987);
Leonid Sabaneev, Erinnerungen an Alexander Skrjabin, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn,
2005), and Alexander Skrfabin=- Werk und Gedankenwelt, translated by Ernst Kuhn (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn,
2006).

17
See, for example, Janet M. Levy, "Covert and Casual Values in Recent Writings about Music," Journal of
Musicokgy 5/1 (Winter 1987): 3-27; Alan Street, "Superior Myths, Dogmatic Allegories: The Resistance to
Musical Unity," Musical Analysis 8 (1989): 77-123; Kevin Korsyn, "Brahms Research and Aesthetic Ideology,"
Music Analysis 12 (1993): 89-103.

333
metaphors were traced back to the early nineteenth century and the influence of German

romantic aesthetics and idealist philosophy on developing discourses of music analysis and

criticism.18 The similarity between the metaphors and values embedded in modern musical

analytic discourse and in Blavatskian metaphysics is partly due to their common relationship

to the German intellectual tradition.

There is a difference, however, between the manner in which these values are

expressed in modern scholarship and the way Scriabin engaged them. For Scriabin, these

values weren't metaphorical; they were metaphysical. As we shall see, this draws Scriabin's

philosophy even closer to its German heritage.

The interrelationship among the concepts of unity, organicism, and dialectics was

made most explicit in the early philosophy of Friedrich Schelling.19 Schelling's idealism was

based on the premise that internal and external realities were one in the same. Schelling

wrote of objective and subjective experiences as oppositional forces, which interacted in a

polar dialectic:

If we conceive the self (the thesis) as absolute reality, its opposite will have to be
absolute negation. But absolute reality, just because it is absolute, is no reality, and
both opposites are thus in their opposition merely ideal. If the self is to be real, that
is, to become an object to itself, reality must be blotted out in it, that is, it must cease
to be absolute reality. But by the same token, if the opposite is to become real, it
must cease to be absolute negation. If both are to become real, they must, as it were,
share out reality between them. But this division of reality between the two, the
subjective and the objective, is possible no otherwise than through a third activity of

18
See Mark Evan Bonds, Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age ofBeethoven (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2006); as well as two volumes edited by Ian Bent, Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism
(Cambridge University Press, 1996); Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century II: Hermenuetic Approaches (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994). See also Ruth A. Solie, "The Living Work: Organicism and Musical
Analysis," Nineteenth Century Music A12 (Autumn, 1980): 147-156.

19
Schelling's philosophy changed throughout his life. The three main texts considered here are those composed
between 1797 and 1803: Ideen %u einer Philosophie der Natur als Einkitung in das Studium dieser Wissenschaft (1797),
translated as Ideasfor a Philosophy ofNature: as Introduction to the Study of this Science by E.E. Harris and P. Heath
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); System des transcendentalen Idealismus (1800), translated as System of
Transcendental Idealism by P. Heath (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978); and Phitosophie derKunst
(1802-3) translated as Philosophy of Art by Douglass Stott (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989).

334
 the self, that wavers between them, and this third activity is again not possible unless
both opposites are themselves activities of the self. This advance from thesis to
antithesis, and from thence to synthesis, is therefore originally founded in the
mechanism of the mind."20

As Schelling explained, the apparent division between subjective and objective

experience was reconciled in a higher synthesis, the "absolute consciousness" of the self.

Because internal and external realities were, in fact, identical, Schelling posited another

identity between ideation and matter, and so reasoned that all nature took on the same

structure as absolute consciousness. In Ideasfor a Philosophy ofNature (1799) and On the World's

Soul (1798), Schelling described how all nature arose through a unity of opposing forces. The

polar interaction he saw governing all reality replicated itself throughout the every level of

the natural order, so all phenomena were organically interrelated through their shared

structure or growth from polarity.22

At the end of his System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Schelling identified art as

reflecting "the identity of the conscious and the unconscious activities,"23 and defined it as

"the only true and eternal organ and document of philosophy, which always and

continuously speaks to us of what philosophy cannot represent externally."24 The highest

form of art, in Schelling's view, was music, due to its ability to replicate polar processes at

differing levels of structure. "The art form in which the real unity purely as such becomes

20
Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism (1978), 46-47.

21
Ibid., 49-50.

22
See Dale A. Snow, Schelling and the End of Idealism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 82-93.

23
Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism (1978), 225.

24
Ibid, 231.

335
potence and symbol is music.. .music as the form in which the real unity becomes its own

symbol encompasses necessarily all other unities within itself."25

For Schelling, musical rhythm was "music with music" because rhythm was the

purest embodiment of "unity in multiplicity."26 Rhythm divided the unity of absolute time

into accented and unaccented pulses, and this opposition generated a succession of "higher"

unities at the bar, phrase, and section.27 Schelling saw other musical parameters participating

in a similar dialectical process. Harmony arises in opposition to rhythm, and they are

reconciled by their synthesis, melody.

Only now can we establish the ultimate significance of rhythm, harmony, and
melody. They are the first and purest forms of movement in the universe and,
viewed from the real perspective, are the mode in which material things are equal to
ideas. The cosmic bodies float on the wings of harmony and rhythm. That which one
calls centripetal and centrifugal force is nothing other than harmony and rhythm,
respectively. Elevated by the same wings, music floats in space to weave an audible
universe from the transparent body of sound and tone." 28

Other philosophers and writers of Schelling's generation were obsessed with the

ability of art to reveal profound truths about reality and the human soul.29 In Phantasien fiber

die Kunst (1799), Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder admired music's potential to "expand the

spirit and elevate it to a beautifulfaith"*0The theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote,

25
Schelling, Philosophy ofArt (1989), 109.

26
Ibid., 111.

27
Ibid., 109-111. See also Ian Biddle, "F. W.J. Schelling's Pbilosophie der Kunst: An Emergent Semiology ofMusic,"'in
Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism, edited by Ian Bent, 25-36 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

28
Schelling, Philosophy of Art (1989), 117.

29
Members of the romantic generation who in some way shared this view were Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel,
Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Friedrich Holderlin, among others. For an account of this aesthetic and its
implications for musical reception, see Bonds, Listening to the Symphony (2006), 6-43.

30
Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Phantasien uher die Kunst (1799), 191; quoted in Philip Edward Stoltzfus,
Theology as Performance: music, aesthetics, and God in Western Thought (New York: T & T Clark International, 2006),
66.

336
"religion and art stand beside one another like two friendly souls whose inner affinity,

whether or not they equally surmise it, is nevertheless still unknown to diem."31 However,

for Schelling and Arthur Schopenhauer, the relationship between music and metaphysics was

one of identity, rather than affinity. In both of their philosophies, the structure of reality

took on musical characteristics, and the structure of music took on the characteristics of

reality. Schelling wrote, "depending on die perspective, [music] can be the highest and most

universal element, die sphere in which the confusion of concrete reality direcdy suspends or

dissolves itself into purest reason. Or, it is also the deepest potence."32

While Schelling saw nature's secret order in music, Schopenhauer saw its primal

disorder. For Schopenhauer, the apparent diversity of die world's phenomena was illusory,

the workings of mayd which deceived die senses. The true essence of the world was die

single, terrifying, primal force of Will.

Schopenhauer saw the phenomenal world organized in various hierarchical levels of

the Will's objectivization. He argued that phenomena at the lower levels of objectivization

come into conflict and give rise to the higher levels in a strife-filled dialectical process.33

However, the derivation of all phenomena from the single unitary force of Will connects all

aspects of the manifested world in a relationship of multi-leveled correspondence. 34 Like

Schelling, Schopenhauer mapped this basic structure of reality onto a hierarchy of the arts.

31
Schleiermacher, "On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers," (1799), quoted in Stoltzfus, Theology as
Performance (2006), 74

32
Schelling, Philosophy ofArt (1987), 118.

33
Friedrich Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Presentation, translated by Richard A. Aquila, vol. 1 (New York:
Pearson Education, 2008), 187-189.

34
Schopenhauer noted approvingly, "It seems to have been obscure recognition of this fact that gave rise to
the Kabbala and all the mathematical philosophy of the Pythagoreans, as well as that of the Chinese in the I
Ching," The World as Will and Presentation (2008), 186.

337
But music stood apart from this hierarchy, because music was not a representation, but the

direct copy of the Will itself.

For music.. .differs from all the other arts in that it is not an image of the
phenomenon, or more accurately, of an adequate objectivization of will, but
immediately an image of the will itself, and thus for all the physical reality of the
world it depicts the metaphysical side, for all phenomena the thing in itself. One
could accordingly just as well call the world embodied music as embodied will.35

Accordingly, the structure of music took on the structure of reality, organized into

recursively-related hierarchical levels.36 Schopenhauer then uses musical features such as

texture, melody, rhydim, affect, scales, temperament, and affect to illustrate points of his

doctrine.37 For Schopenhauer, this knowledge of Will was only achievable through artistic or

mystical experiences. Music became the revelation of metaphysical truth. Schelling had

expressed a similarly mystical view of art:

I am speaking of a more sacred art, one that in the words of antiquity is a tool of the
gods, a proclaimer of divine mysteries, the unveiler of the ideas; I am speaking of
that unborn beauty whose undesecrated radiance only dwells in and illuminates purer
souls, and whose form is just as concealed and inaccessible to the sensual eye as is
the trudi corresponding to it For [the philosopher] it is a necessary phenomenon
emanating directly from the absolute, and only to the extent it can be presented and
proved as such does it possess reality for him.39

35
Ibid., 313.

36
Ibid., 309. Schopenhauer saw nature manifested at various levels of musical texture: "The basso continuo is
thus for us in the harmony what inorganic nature is in the world, the crudest mass upon which all things rest
and from which all things rise and develop. —Then further, in the totality of die voices of the ripieno producing
the harmony, between the bass and the leading voice performing die melody, I recognize the total sequence of
levels of the Ideas in which will is objectified. Those standing nearer to the bass are die lower of these levels,
bodies that are still inorganic but already expressing themselves in a multiplicity of ways; those lying higher
represent the animal worlds to me." Melody, as the highest level of objectivization of the will, is "a depiction of
the reflectively interconnected living and striving of human beings," ibid., 198.

37
Ibid., 309-312.

38
Ibid., 228 and 476.

39
Schelling, Philosophy ofArt (1987), 4. See Ernst Benz, The Mystical Sources of German Romantic Philosophy,
translated by Blair R. Reynolds and Eunice M. Paul (Allison Park: Pickwick Publications, 1983).

338
 T h e history of analytical aesthetics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is partly

the story of h o w the values of unity, organicism, and dialectics became desacralized while

they persisted as epistemological strategies and metaphors. This story has been told before,

especially in histories of organicism. 40 However, it has n o t often been understood h o w the

organicist value of unity-in-multiplicity relates to the mystical concept of polarity. 41 F o r

Schelling, polarity sprung from an absolute unity, and polar interaction was the agent of

multiplicity. T h e organic interrelatedness of all things was a direct consequence of polarity.

In what follows, I show by means of a few brief examples the presence of the concept in

nineteenth-century musical discourse.

T h e music theorist perhaps most closely connected to the idealist m o v e m e n t was

A.B. Marx. 4 2 In Marx's Die Lehre der muiskalischen Komposition (1837-1847), he defined music

as being neither wholly spiritual or wholly material, b u t rather a union of spirit and matter, a

"living spirit, revealed in corporeal/sensuous form [Gestalt]." 43 H e argued that the study of

40
See, for example, Kevin Korsyn, "Schenker's Organicism Reexamined," Integral! (1993): 82-118; David L.
Montgomery, "The Mydi of Organicism: From Bad Science to Great Art" The MusicalQuarterly 76/1 (Spring
1992): 17-66; Solie, "The Living Work" (1980): 147-156; for general accounts of the secularization of sacred
thought among nineteenth-century philosophers, artists, and poets, see M. H. Abrams, NaturalSupernaturalism:
Tradition and Evolution in Romantic Literature (New York: Norton, 1971) and The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic
Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); Thomas Weiskel, The Romantic
Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology ofTranscendence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985),
22.

41
In writings involving the dialectical model in music, the progression of thesis-antithesis-synthesis is often
taken to imply simple opposition, rather man the more complex, paradoxical implication I see arising from its
original idealist context. See, for example, Michael Cherlin, "Dialectical Opposition in Schoenberg's Music and
Thought," Music Theory Spectrum 22/2 (Autumn 2000): 157-176.

42
Scott Burnham wrote, "Marx's theory of form and compositional method... fulfills most explicitly the
aesthetic and moral compact that marks him as a member of the idealist generation; it is here that he sees
himself engaged in the great project of elucidating and promoting the union of music and spirit." See
Bumham's introduction to A.B. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and Method,
edited and translated by Scott Bumham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 2. Bumham notes that
Marx's chair in music at die University of Berlin put him into contact with Fichte (who was a formative
influence on Schelling), Schleiermacher, the comparative philogist F.A. Wolf, and G.W.F. Hegel.

43
A.B. Marx, Die Lehre der muiskalischen Komposition:praktisch-theoretish, seventh edition (1868), translated in
Burnham, MusicalForm (1997), 35.

339
composition provided a more profound insight into the workings of music, which in turn

provided a means to acquire a higher spiritual knowledge:

The art of music lives and works in those regions of life in which the higher activities
of the spirit stand in the closest interpenetration with the senses.. .Only a higher
cultivation [Bi/dung] on the part of those receiving and those creating allows them to
participate in the higher content that musical art is able to take up and then dispense
from within the human spirit. Only this spiritual content indisputably elevates music to
an art and to a benefactor of mankind.44

Marx's presentation of the compositional process shows its indebtedness to the idea

of polarity giving rise to a unified organic structure. In an 1856 essay, "Form in Music," he

demonstrated how a small musical gesture, Q-Dj, could give rise to a great variety of musical

forms. He explained the two-note gesture as a union of spirit and matter, writing, "it is

something other than a single tone. In that it contains more than a singularity, it shows a

persistence and propagation in the musical element.. .it thus already boasts not just material

content but also spiritual content."45

Marx described the motive as "the primal configuration of everything musical, just as

the germinal vesicle, that membranous sac filled with some fluid element.. .is the primal

configuration of everything organic—the true primal plant or primal animal." Marx

proceeded to show how the motive can be repeated and elaborated into a Gang, "the first

fundamental form in music," possessing an unstable, open character, or a Sat^ "the second

fundamental form in music," which closes on the tonic.46 These two opposing forms were

the basis of all larger composition. "Everything that is formed in music is either Gang or Sat%

or a compound of both," wrote Marx. He then showed how the dynamic interaction of Gang

44
A.B. Marx, The Old School ofMusic in Conflict with our Times (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1841), translated by
Scott Bumham in Musical Form (1997), 22.

45
Marx, "Die Form in der Musik," from Die Wissenschaften im neun^ehnten Jahrhundert, edited by J. A. Romberg,
vol. 2 (Leipzig: Rombergs Verlag, 1856), in Burnham, Musical Form (1997), 66.

46
Marx, Ibid., 67-68.

340
and the Sat\ generated larger forms in increasing degrees of complexity, culminating with the

sonata form, which "strove beyond the rondo forms to a more intimate unity of content."47

As Marx explained in Die Lehre, the sonata assumed a three-part form,

But this middle, or second, part may not introduce foreign material—a second,
subsidiary Sat^—as in the rondo forms, for this would disrupt the unity whose
complete attainment is in fact the task of the sonata
The Second Part of a sonata form contains in essence no new content. As a
consequence it must concern itself primarily with the content of the first part.. .Yet
this involvement is in no way simply a matter of repetition.. .The reappearing themes
are rather chosen, ordered and connected, and varied...
Thus it is clear that the Second Part manifests itself primarily as the locus of
variety and motion, and once again we see the original antithesis, the fundamental
law of all musical formation now revealed in the three parts of the sonata form:
Rube—Bewegung—Ruhe.48

Marx instructs the budding composer to replicate the same types of processes

Schelling and others saw in the natural world: the division of a primal unity into productively

complementary oppositions, which gives successive rise to increasing forms of complexity.

Marx's compositional theory reflects all three values of unity, organicism, and polarity, and

links music to the metaphysical context from which those values arose.

In harmonic theory, a different manifestation of the concept of polarity arose in early

dualist discourse. The dualist project may be summarized as a series of attempts to find

theoretical justification for a belief that the minor triad was structurally equal to the major

triad, and not a derivative of it.49 The belief in the equality of major and minor was founded

47
Marx, Die Lehre in Burnham, MuskalForm (1997), 93.

48
Ibid, 94-97.

49
For overviews of the dualist theoretical tradition, see Henry Klumpenhouwer, "Dualist Tonal Space and
Transformation in Nineteenth-Century Musical Thought," in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory,
edited by Thomas Christensen 456-474 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Daniel Harrison,
Harmonic Function in Chromatic Music: A Renewed Dualist Theory and an Account ofIts Precedents (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1994), 215-322, Alexander Rehding, Hugo Riemann and the Birth ofModern Musical Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), especially 15-66.

341
in part on the seemingly equal treatment of major and minor mode in compositional

practice. However, the opposition of major and minor also became a convenient conceptual

vehicle by which the idea of polarity could be applied to a musical domain. This was clearly

the case with Goethe, who planned to write an overview of physics showing polarity as the

organizing principle of all nature. His notes for a chapter on music, jotted down in 1810,

read as follows:

Indication about the minor tone. It does not arise from the basic resonance;
it manifests itself in less concrete relationships of number and size, and yet it
altogether suits human nature, even more so than the basic, concrete type of tone.
Objective proof in reverse through the resonance in strings tuned to this
tone which is taken from empirical observation. (Thus the tonic C gives fhe harmony
of C major above it and F minor below it.)
Major and minor keys as the polarity in the theory of tone. The basic
principle of both: the major key created by climbing, by an acceleration upward, by
an upward extension of all intervals; the minor key by falling, by an acceleration
downward... Development of this contrast as the basis for all music.50

But it was Moritz Hauptmann who systematically applied the concept of polarity, or

duaHty-within-unity, to harmony. Famously inspired by Hegel, Schelling, and other German

Idealists, Hauptmann viewed all music as being generated from and organized by the

following succession: Einheit (unity), Ziveiheit (duality or opposition), and Verbindung (union),

which correspond roughly to Hegel's thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The final reunification of

opposed forces gives rise to a "higher" unity, implying a progressive process. Hauptmann

wrote,

This tightness, i.e., reasonableness of fhe shape taken by music, has for its law of
formation Unity, with the opposite of itself, and the removal of the opposite;
immediate unity, which, through an element of being at two with itself passes into

50
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Theory of Tone," in Collected Works 12, translated by Michael Hamburger,
Christopher Middleton, David Luke, and Vemon Waddns (New York: Suhrkamp Publishers, 1983), 301-302.

342
 mediated unity. There must always be the repetition of this process on that which is
assumed as immediate unity or given as the result of a previous process."

H a u p t m a n n viewed this process as generative of the major triad itself. H e wrote,

"the octave is the expression for unity; the fifth expresses duality or separation; the third,

unity of duality or union. T h e third is the union of the octave and the fifth."52 In

Hauptmann's three-stage conception of the triad, the third synthesizes the unity of the

octave and the opposition of the fifth, exemplifying, as he p u t it, "the notion of

identification of opposites: of duality as unity" 5 3 —i.e., polarity as a mystical paradox. As

Hauptmann struggled to express early in his treatise, opposition is a condition of unity.

O f the meaning of unity and opposition we have to say, that under unity is to be
understood being one with self, without distinction; under opposition, being
different to self. T h e sense of opposition that is to be comprehended here, is, n o t
that something is different to something else, but that it opposes itself as other to
itself. T h e first is only difference, but n o t opposition; intellectual opposition can only
proceed from identity. 54

Hauptmann associated the productive, dialectical relationship between unity and

opposition with other polarities, such as Sein (being) /Maben (having), the generator of major

and minor triads. H a u p t m a n explained,

T h e determinations of the intervals of the triad have been hitherto taken as starting
from a positive unity, a Root, to which the Fifth and Third are referred. They may
also be thought of in an opposite sense. If the first may be expressed by saying, that
a note has a. fifth and third, then the opposite meaning will lie in a note being fifth and
third. Having is an active state, being a passive one. T h e unity, to which the two
determinations are referred in the second meaning, is passive: in opposition to the

51
Moritz Hauptmann, Die Natur derHarmonik und derMetrik (Leipzig: Brietkopf und Hartel, 1853), translated by
W.E. Heathcoate as The Nature of Harmony and Metre (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1883), xli-ii.

52
Ibid, 6.

53
Ibid.

54
Ibid, 7.

343
 having of the first idea we find the second, being had. The first is expressed in the
major triad, the second in the minor.55

Hauptmann's accretion of polar terms such as being/having, passive/active,

melody/harmony, arsis/thesis and masculine/feminine was expressive of the prevalence of

polarity-as-worldview in early nineteenth-century German philosophy. Hauptmann's

explanation of the minor triad proved to be inspirational for later dualists such as Oettingen

and Riemann,56 although they eschewed Hauptmann's metaphysical framework in favor of

die pseudoscience of undertones. The concept of polarity continued to exert a subde

epistemological influence over dualist music theory, even if its metaphysical aspect was

suppressed.

I have indicated how the shared values of unity, organicism, and polarity between

Theosophy and the music theoretical tradition arose from their common heritage in early

nineteenth-century German idealist philosophy. Yet, there is more to the story regarding

diese values and their presence in nineteenth-century European culture. As Chapter Two

indicated, Blavatsky's cosmology was based in her interpretation of Eastern—particularly

Indian—metaphysics. Her knowledge of Indian scripture and philosophy was drawn from

her reading of comparative philology, supplemented by translations of ancient texts that

were made available in translations. The increasing availability of Eastern metaphysical texts

in the early part of die nineteenth century inspired what was then called the "Oriental

Renaissance," particularly in Germany. In 1818 Schopenhauer wrote that "I presume that the

influence of Sanskrit literature will be no less deep in its reach than that of the revival of

55
Ibid., 20.

56
See Harrison's discussion of Hauptmann's influence, Harmonic Function in Chromatic Music (1994), 229-234.

344
Greek literature in the 15 Century." In 1840, Auguste Barchou de Penhoen confirmed

Schopenhauer's prediction, writing, "It is difficult to imagine any of the great German

philosophical systems if one subtracts the [oriental] element."58 One year later, the religious

historian Edgar Quinet echoed the same idea:

This is the great subject in philosophy today. In the Oriental Renaissance the
pantheism of the Orient, transformed by Germany, corresponds to the idealism of
Plato as amended by Descartes, which, in the seventeenth century, crowned the
Greek and Latin Renaissance.59

The historian Raymond Schwab described die situation as follows:

The publications of the Indie scholars at Calcutta ignited a kind of fervid intensity in
certain young Germans. In philosophy they included Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel,
not to mention Schopenhauer and Schleiermacher. In poetry they included Goethe,
Schiller, Novaks, Tieck, and Brentano. And among the great innovators of the new
ideas that were to become Romanticism, a certain Herder passed the word to a
certain Friedrich Schlegel.60

What did these early romantic philosophers, who were to exert such a strong

influence on musical discourse in the nineteenth century, perceive in Indian scriptures that

excited them so much? J. J. Clarke provides several answers:

The appeal of the Upanishads to Goethe, Herder, and to the great

philosophers of the Romantic period lay in what was perceived as that scripture's
monistic idealism, namely, the belief that all things are, in the final analysis, one
single whole, and that this oneness arises from the fundamentally spiritual nature of
reality, the multiplicity of things being an illusion of our finite senses. The German
idealist movement from Fichte and Schelling to Hegel and Schopenhauer comes
remarkably close in many respects to this way of thinking... [Schelling's] philosophy
underwent several transformations in the course of his long career, but the two
elements of which we need to take note from the orientalist perspective are, first, his
early 'nature philosophy,' and second, his later work on mythology. In the 1790s
Schelling had developed a philosophy in which nature is viewed in terms of dynamic
growth and development, as a unified organic system in the process of self-

57
Schopenhauer, Will and Presentation, vol. 1 (2008), 13.

58
Auguste Theodore Hilaire Barchou de Penhoen, (1840), quoted in Raymond Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance:
Europe's Rediscovery ofIndia and the East, 1680-1880 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 14.

59
Edgar Quinet, Genie des religions (1841), quoted ibid., 11.

60
Ibid., 53.

345
 formation through the process of self-formation and through the reconciliation of
opposing tendencies, with Spirit emerging from the womb of nature as its highest
manifestation, its most complete state of self-fulfillment being identified with the
Absolute. His 'system of absolute identity' as he called it, which involved the
resolution of differences in unity, his central notion of the Absolute as the ultimate
perfection and unity of all things in nature, physical as well as mental, his belief in the
illusory nature of the finite world, his pantheism, 'world-soul,' and pervasive
intuitionism, all were recognized in his day as arising from the same intellectual
source as a the philosophy of the Upanishads. Schelling himself underlined the
affinity in his statement that Hindu philosophy is 'nothing but the most exalted
idealism.'.. .Especially important for Schopenhauer was the Hindu concept oimaya
which for him indicated the illusoriness of the phenomenal world of multiplicity, and
the Upanishadic teaching that all things are ultimately one appealed to him as the
precise equivalent of his notion that the separateness and individuality of things is a
mind-made illusion."61

In other words, what the idealist philosophers found confirmed in Indian scripture

was the belief in the existence of a transcendent reality and the metaphysical values of unity,

organicism, and polar dialectics.

The final objective of this study, then, is to bring Scriabin's philosophical beliefs

closer to the mainstream of European intellectual history. Through this process, that

mainstream has become defamiliarized. Musical mysticism and reverence for the Indian ideal

were central to the intellectual heritage passed down from the German romantics, and this

lineage shaped the fundamental values of musical theoretical discourse.

61
J.J. Clarke, Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought (London: Routledge, 1997),
63-64; 68. See also Alexander Lyon Macfie, editor, Easter Influences on Western Philosophy: A Reader (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2003).

346
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