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Scriabin - Philosophy

Alexander Scriabin
Ideas and Ideals
A Philosopher reading, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1779)
A Philosopher reading, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1779)
  • Miniaturism Building upon Chopin’s legacy, Scriabin promoted a miniaturist approach to music, composing complete sonatas in a single movement lasting about 10 minutes, and etudes often under one minute. His most prolific genre is the Prelude, the musical equivalent of a poetic aphorism. Despite having composed nearly 200 piano works, his entire pianistic output totals less than 10 hours, giving an average length of around 3 minutes for each piece.

  • Deification For Scriabin, art is a liturgy that can guide both humanity and the individual. This is expressed in the idea of “The excitation of my real self by my fantasized self” (inspired by Novalis (1772–1801)), reflecting the Romantic notion of creating reality from dreams and the deification of the individual.

  • Merging The three essential elements of music (melody, rhythm, and harmony) progressively merge in Scriabin’s works into an interlinked unity. This synthesis begins notably with the Piano Sonata No.3.

  • Music as an Ideal In Scriabin’s view, the extra-musical (programmatic or symbolic elements) serve the music, never the other way around. Music is the ultimate and final product; “theory can’t describe magic.” Most of his descriptive texts were written after composing or merely as preliminary thoughts.

  • Music as an Essence Music connects us to all vibrations, analogies, and correspondences of the mysterious cosmos. It embodies total plenitude, serenity, and universal reconnection. Scriabin interest was fixed to an international musical language and showed little to no interest in nationalistic schools, even criticizing Chopin for confining himself too much in Polish heritage.

  • Sexuality Music is inherently sexual : a voluptuous play of tension, desire, longing, and the quest for altered states, analogous to the orgasmic ecstasy (the transcendence of body and senses akin to the transcendence of the soul). It also embraces the sensorial and moral temptation (symbolized by the figure of the devil).

  • Danses Dance is as essential as music in driving altered states and ecstasy_._ Scriabin’s output opens (Waltz Op.1) and almost closes (2 Danses Op.73) with dance forms, which remain a constant thematic and rhythmic presence. His unfinished The Mystery was intended to culminate in a gigantic Bacchanal.