In the special Scriabinologistic literature it is
the common
place the establishment of special interests
of the great
composer in philosophy. For all this, some people mention
that
all Scriabin's creative work is directly mediated
with this
philosophy and that his music is its
way "a philosophy in
sounds". Other people are prone to
consider his music
quite-sufficient, and that no knowledge
of the philosophic
passions of the composer is needed to comprehend it. As one
can
see, the appraisals are quite contrary here
and the problem
itself lies just between them. And a lot of attempts to solve
it
have been undertaken. The task is to reveal
and explain its
concrete aspect mentioned in the title of the paper.
Scriabin
selected and imbibed from the numerous teachings of both the past
and the present the moments which could explain or justify
his
doom to a brilliant feat - to realize all; one an unique
artistic
action (he named it "Mystery", beginning with the capital) which
would be able to by force of its influence
to make radical
reorganization of the whole mankind. Here
one can see the
comprehension of an artist as a High Person. That was the result of
artist's Messianhism, Orphism and whimsical interpretation
of
ideas of Fikhte, Shopinhower and Nitsche. However that
may be
these super tasks required to draw appropriate "supermedia"
for
their solution. The result was the project of mysterious all-art
which would organically unite the possibilities of all
kinds of
creativity, both conventional and new
ones. Among the
untraditional media Scriabin decided to draw was so called "Light
Symphony", the dress rehearsal of which
took place in the
"Prometheus" ("The Poem of Fire", 1910). Scriabin was the
first
who initially introduced in the score an independent part
of a
light instrument - "Luce". As my analysis shows, there were tonics
(keynotes) of sounding chords entered in the notation
of the
"Luce" and here he treated the change of the chords as the change
of the tonalities. So, in the light line
of the "Luce" he
realized colour visualization of tonality
plan of music in
accordance with his own system of "colour hearing". But
how and
why the composer up to this idea?
In the vocabulary of the theosophic dictionary (and it is known,
Scriabin took a great interest in theosophy), "aura" is
one of
the fundamental concepts. Every person is
considered to be
encircled with a kind of incorporeal halo, what in its
way is
colour visualization of his soul, visible for initiated only.
The
primitive people have "simple" auras (of red, brute colour)
and
the spiritual people have "complex" ones (of blues, pure,
lofty
colour). Scriabin himself did not use the term "aura" when talked
on art. However Sirill Scott, an English scientist and Scriabin's
contemporary, who knew of Scriabin's interest in theosophy
and
was a bit intimated with it too, he made in his book "Philosophy
of Modernism" a very delicate remark that not only man can
have
aura but also fruits of his creative work. And he cited
as an
example just Promethean "Luce".
In fact, under comparative analysis of the "Luce"
organization
and the philosophic program of the "Prometheus" one can not help
seeing that both tonality plan and color dynamics of the
"Luce"
are in equal measures aimed to incarnation
of this program
(overthrow of Spirit into matter with its following revival).
In
tonality plan it is the movement from "spiritual" tonality (Fis)
to "material" one (C) with the following ascent
back to the
"spiritual" (Fis). Changes of colouring
correspond to it
accordingly : from "spiritual" blue through "material" red
back
to blue.
So the "Luce" may be really regarded as a materialized aura
of
the music of the "Prometheus". But if one translates this
into
everyday language it will turn evident that
Scriabin and the
theosophists are exploiting here that trite
color symbolism,
based upon elementary associations, such as the "simplicity"
of
red (warm and earth) color and the "complexity" of
blue (cold
sky) color, what is marked even in perception of
children and
primitive peoples.
And it is not surprising that adopting theosophic origin or,
so
to say "aural" genesis of the Promethean "Luce" , this fact
most
apparently may be considered as transient and chance for both the
history of Light-music and Scriabin himself. The matter is that
in post Promethean projects he renounced his idea of color music
dubbing at all and began to apply to ear-visual
counterpoint
including in the visible at the same time not only color but also
complex plastics of abstract forms. Just the idea of "ear-visual
polyphony" is the main contribution of
Scriabin to the
development of the idea of light-music. However
one can not
explain it simply by means of theosophy yet.
Moreover, here
Scriabin had to abolish himself as theosophist and began to
be
guided by his intuition of genius artist. This flair brought
him
to right track and took him to the summits
of the idea of
polyphony synthesis. To the summits which
still remain
inaccessible for many our contemporaries.
| Published on Russian Avantgarde Art Site |