The Poem of Ecstasy

A synaesthete who associated musical pitches with specific colours, Alexander Scriabin integrated his own clavier à lumières into his final orchestral work Prométhée. Poème du feu with the intention of producing a coloured lighting effect in the concert hall during performances of the work. The colours are notated in the score on their own staff with the indication ‘Luce’ (light).

Scriabin’s greatest success, however, was the 1908 première in New York of his symphonic poem Le Poème de l’Extase. Based on a poem written by the composer, this stirring work reflects Scriabin’s Nietzschean philosophy of ‘the self’ which later culminated in the concept of a ‘mystery’. The blurring of form, the extension of orchestral forces to enormous dimensions and the representation of non-musical conceptual worlds, as found in Le Poème de l’Extase, are all typical of symphonic compositions of the early twentieth century. Scriabin’s advanced harmonic writing was also at its height during this period. From 1894 Scriabin cultivated a friendship with M. P. Belaieff, publisher and patron of the arts, who soon helped him to gain a reputation abroad.