The Notebooks of Alexander Skryabin

Skryabin’s life spanned the tumultuous political events and artistic developments of the end of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth but was cut short before the end of the First World War. In an era when the Russian musical scene was relatively conservative, he aligned himself with the poets, philosophers, and dramatists of the Silver Age. Possessed by an apocalyptic vision, aspects of which he shared with other Russian thinkers and artists of the period, Skryabin transformed his Romantic musical style into a far-reaching, radical instrument for the expression of his ideas. The core of the book is a full translation of the 1919 Moscow publication of Skryabin’s writings with the original introduction by Skryabin’s close friend Boris de Schloezer, brother of the composer’s life partner, Tat′yana. Schloezer’s introduction gives a vivid impression of the final years of Skryabin’s life. This text is supplemented by relevant letters and other writings. The commentary has been researched from original materials, drawing on accounts by the composer’s friends and associates. The roots of Skryabin’s thought in ancient Greek and German idealist philosophy, the writings of Nietzsche, Indian culture, Russian philosophy, and the Theosophical writings of H. P. Blavatsky are analysed, and accounts of the Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus, the Poem of Fire show their relation to Skryabin’s world of ideas. A biographical section relates the development of the thought to the incidents of the composer’s life.