Alexander Scriabin: The Poem of Ecstasy
Le Poème de l’extase, op. 54
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Alexander Scriabin held some beliefs that many might consider to be unusual. He believed that being born on Christmas signaled his destiny as a messiah who would redeem mankind. He also had a deep faith that music had the power to change the world.
I don’t mean that in any kind of metaphorical sense.
In 1903, the composer began work on Mysterium, a piece for approximately 2,000 musicians which he believed would, when performed at a specific point he had calculated in the Himalayas, bring about the literal apocalyptic end of the world, after which humanity would be reborn into a higher level of consciousness.
Unfortunately, Scriabin cut himself shaving in 1915 and died of the subsequent infection, having only completed the three-hour “Prefatory Action” of this weeklong work.
While we may never know whether Scriabin’s music possessed the power to end existence as we know it, we can experience his less ambitious magic in Le Poème de l’extase.
The Poem of Ecstasy was composed at the height of Scriabin’s interest in Theosophy. Like many other religious movements that emerged in late-19th-century Europe, Theosophy explored the idea that humans are endowed with mystical and occult abilities which have been secretly hinted at in the world’s great religions. If people can tap into these abilities, they are able to break the bonds of physical life and free their souls for rebirth on a higher plane of existence.
The Poem of Ecstasy portrays the journey of a soul attempting to ascend into this higher consciousness. In his program note for the piece’s premiere, he explained the philosophy underlying the music:
The Poem of Ecstasy is the Joy of Liberated Action. The Cosmos, i.e., Spirit, is Eternal Creation without External Motivation, a Divine Play of Worlds. The Creative Spirit, i.e., the Universe at Play, is not conscious of the Absoluteness of its creativeness, having subordinated itself to a Finality and made creativity a means toward an end. The stronger the pulse beat of life and the more rapid the precipitation of rhythms, the more clearly the awareness comes to the Spirit that it is consubstantial with creativity itself. When the Spirit has attained the supreme culmination of its activity and has been torn away from the embraces of teleology and relativity, when it has exhausted completely its substance and its liberated active energy, the Time of Ecstasy shall arrive.
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