SCRIABIN, ALEXANDER NICHOLAEVICH (1871 1915), Russian composer, was born at Moscow on Christmas Day 1871 (0.S.). His father was a lawyer; his mother, a good pianist and pupil of Leschetizsky, died when he was one year old. His schooling was received in the Moscow Cadet Corps, but he never showed any liking for the military career for which he was intended, and at 18 entered the Moscow Conservatoire of Music where he was a pupil of Safonov and Taneev. On leaving the conservatoire Scriabin was greatly helped by the patriotic music publisher Belaiev, who brought out his earlier works and arranged a European piano recital tour for him. At 20 he returned to Moscow and joined the conservatoire staff. Later he again travelled, this time for six years, visiting the United States amongst other countries. He then settled in Brussels for some time, and in 1910 returned to Moscow. In 1914 Scriabin visited England, giving two piano recitals, playing his own concerto and appearing as pianist in his Prometheus. He was then suffering from a tumour of the lip, from which, soon after his return, he died, April 14, 1915.
As a composer, Scriabin represents what may be called the classical-romantic school carried forward to its most advanced point. The form of his sonata and symphony movements he de rives from Mozart, through Beethoven ; however bewildering these may at first sound, they will be found, on further hearing, to be laid out on essentially the Mozart-Beethoven lines. In his pianistic idiom and general pianistic qualities of style, Scriabin derives largely from Chopin, of whose work he was a great admirer. All this then indicates a conservative side to his com position, but he was more radical in his harmonies, and it was, probably, largely the novelty of these that retarded appreciation of his later works. It is said that Scriabin gradually evolved a synthetic scale of upper partials or "mystic" chord of superposed 4ths. (C,D,E,F#,A,Bb, or as a chord, C,F#,Bb,E,A,D). One's actual impression, however, of his harmony is of an almost cease less chromaticism and of an almost unbroken use of the dominant chord with the flat 7th, 9th, 13th, sharpened 4th, and most frequent of all, the sharpened 5th (or flattened 6th). It is seldom one recognizes his chord of superposed 4ths as such, excepting at times the characteristic two perfect 4ths at the top. In his later work he makes still further harmonic excursions, notably with sharp 7ths or flat ands. The hint of this new harmonic scheme may be seen in the earliest compositions, and its development was fairly regular and consistent, until it came to dominate his later output. In his later works he discards entirely the old key signa tures. In his orchestration Scriabin calls for a large force, and uses it very freely : his scores are exceedingly contrapuntal in texture, the various instruments moving very independently and weaving together their respective themes: muted brass plays a large part in his orchestral colour scheme. In the first symphony
a chorus is used in the finale ; the Poem of Fire also uses a chorus, but in an orchestral way, no words being supplied. For the last named work the composer also wrote an optional part for a "Tastiera per Luce," or keyboard of light, the intention being that varying colours should play upon a screen as the work was being performed. The composer was greatly interested in theories as to a correspondence between the musical scale and the scale of colours. In his great Mystery (left unfinished at his death) music, dance, speech, perfume and colour were to be combined; this work was to be rather a work of ritual than of art, and was to express its author's idealistic mysticism through the medium of 2,00o participants.
It is usual to look upon Scriabin's musical work as largely the expression of theosophical views, and undoubtedly much of his inspiration was drawn from the works of Blavatsky and others. He was not, however, a close reader or a careful thinker. Seizing the main idea of a book or a creed, he would neglect the details, and then his imagination would quickly develop a huge scheme of thought having little relation to what he had read. The titles of many of his works and of their separate parts, and the marks of expression affixed to particular passages, indicate plainly the existence of a spiritual "programme." The emancipation of the human soul through ceaseless striving, and its achievement of self-expression, may be said, very roughly, to represent the general sense of the spiritual basis of Scriabin's musical works.
The works of Scriabin have been variously classed into periods. A logical classification is into four periods as follows: 1st period, with a strong Chopin influence ; the dividing line between this and the 2nd period runs through the first symphony, and the 2nd period shows some Wagner and Liszt influences; the dividing line between this and the 3rd period runs through the fifth sonata, and a 4th period begins with the Poem of Fire.
Among Scriabin's principal works are the following. For orches tra: Reverie, op. 24; first. symphony, op. 26; second symphony, op. 29 ; third symphony (or Divine Poem), op. 43 ; fourth sym phony (or Poem of Ecstasy), op. 54; Prometheus (or "Poem of Fire"), op. 6o. For piano: ten sonatas, together with a very large number of preludes, etudes, impromptus, mazurkas, poems, etc., including the great Vers la Flamme poem and the much-discussed last work, the Five Preludes (op. 74). For piano and orchestra: Concerto, op. 20. No songs or chamber music are included in Scriabin's output. (P. A. S.)