This article is, in a sense reviewing two different Scriabin works—“Prometheus” and “Poem of Ecstasy.” Upon reading the preface of The Music of Alexander Scriabin and listening to two big pieces “Prometheus” and “Poem of Ecstasy”, It is clear that Scriabin wanted to be remembered for his vast innovations of the sythentic chord of fourths, and his melodies that proved progressively on the very edge of avant garde for the times. It is recounted in Chapter 9 of The Music of Alexander Scriabin, saying that the mere harmonic materials of The Poem of Ecstacy and The Poem of Fire (Prometheus) are of the most atonal in nature of any composer's repertoire, save for Schoenberg. Both pieces are on the one hand peculiar in the fact that they were composed right before Schoenberg's atonal escapades in the '20s and beyond. On the other hand, they may not be so much an astonishment if one takes into account that contemporaries like Ives and Satie were composing work of questionable tonality at their own will. I believe the wide range of styles and textures that I've gleaned from my some of my favorite composers from Eric Whitacre and Frank Ticheli started in the very late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the 21st century, I believe we have refined the way we use the consonances and stark dissonances in the 21st century. The twentieth century belonged to the experimentation that these harmonies actually exist. Scriabin was one such composers who realized atonal harmony existed.
Schoenberg and company owe a lot to Scriabin for his sense of mixing dissonance with color. His colorwheel is what his whole piece is based on. Prometheus's instrumentation starts with the color organ, specifically designed for this and other Scriabin works to give to the audience the same coloristic experience as he pictured. Having synesthesia and after hearing Scriabin's Poem of Fire, I have a newfound respect for largely atonal music. It is not cold like Stravinsky. It is not just a matter of writing parts that have no ear or emotional meaning in them. Scriabin is the perfect mix of innovation ear and emotion. These two pieces culminate as a music and color-lover’s dream. Much of the music in these two pieces is the notion that the music is not about the beauty of nature or the conventional harmonic structures of the Romantic period or earlier, but all about the colors that were running through Scriabin’s head with each sound. Let’s later compare and contrast this with the colorful music of Olivier Messien and see how they compare.
I believe that Scriabin should be the composer credited with such innovations as they speak of about Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, or Stravinsky. Upon listening to the mysterious Prometheus, these composers merely borrowed from Scriabin, as he was the most avant garde of the last gasp of Romanticism in the late nineteenth century. You can credit those later composers for a job well done, because their use and construction of the material is great. But we must remember who started on this path and give them the credit for being the revolutionary composer. Scriabin, one might see as bleak and unimportant but he was the true innovator of what came to be the sound of the early 20th century.
