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Alexander Scriabin. The great Russian composer. Photo by Unknown author.

Top 10 Facts about Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin was a Russian composer and greatly gifted pianist of the 19^th century. His early works were heavily influenced by polish composer Frederic Chopin.

However, he later evolved into his rather unique sound world. His music became quite dissonant, and hard to categorize. His works include ten sonatas, an early concerto, and several preludes. He was a virtuoso indeed, despite having small hands that could barely stretch to a ninth.

 He is considered to be the greatest Russian Symbolist composer. Russian symbolism was an artistic movement that emerged at the end of the 19^th century, characterized by mysticism and the use of symbols to express ideas.

Scriabin was quite innovative and impressionistic in his musical style. He employed dance, poetry, colors, and light in his pieces to achieve a kind of ecstasy. He was the first to have written a piece with a notation for light and color. The piece, ‘Prometheus; The Poem of Fire’ is one of his most notable works.

His style was quite unusual in terms of harmony and this made him a bit controversial in musical society.  Scriabin was a musical genius and way ahead of his time. Here are the top 10 facts about Alexander Scriabin.

1. Alexander Scriabin was born into a Russian noble family

Young Alexander Scriabin. Photo by Russian photographer (1870s).

He was born on 25^th December 1891 to a Russian aristocratic family. His father, Nikolai Scriabin was a wealthy diplomat. His grandfather was military leader Ivan Scriabin, who had been granted hereditary nobility in 1819. Alexander’s paternal grandmother was a descendant of a noble house of the Novgorod Governorate.

Scriabin had no want growing up, except that his father was mostly away on trips. His mother died when he was still a toddler.

Most of Scriabin’s relatives were in the military, a path he pursued at first too. At the Moscow Cadet, he would play the piano too, and his brilliance made up for his physique and personality deficiencies.

Naturally, he was small-bodied, a factor that saw him exempted from intense drilling and arms-bearing.

2. He was exposed to the piano at a very young age

 Scriabin’s childhood was filled with music. His mother, Lyubov Petrovna was a professional pianist. His aunt also played piano. When his mother died, he was barely 2 years old.

His aunt, in his father’s absence, raised him. She would play piano for him numerous times. Scriabin’s obsession with the piano and music started growing from that tender age.

An anecdote tells of an instance when he tried conducting an orchestra of local children. He would also perform his amateur operas with puppets to willing audiences.

3. Alexander Scriabin’s first piano teacher was Nikolai Zverev

Nikolai Zveref and students, from left to right, Samuelson, Scriabin, Maximov, Rachmaninoff, Chernyaev, Keneman, and Pressman. Photo by Alton.

Scriabin started his piano lessons at an early age. Nikolai was his first piano teacher. He was teaching other musical prodigies at the same time.

One of them was Sergei Rachmaninoff, a virtuoso pianist whose compositions have been described as difficult to perform. He had very large hands and could stretch up to 12 keys.

Scriabin and Rachmaninoff became good friends. Despite their musical differences, Rachmaninoff would later play Scriabin’s compositions to raise funds after his death.

4. He severely injured his hand at the age of 20

Scriabin later joined the Moscow Conservatory and continued to learn piano. He schooled with Anton Arensky, Sergei Taneyev, and Vasily Safonov. Despite his prowess, he felt challenged by one of his classmates, Josef Lhevinne.

He practiced Franz Liszt’s ‘Reminiscences de Don Juan’ for long hours in order to outdo Josef. He ended up overstraining his right hand which became badly damaged. His doctor had intimated that it would never recover. Luckily, however, it did after some time.

5. Alexander Scriabin was gifted with the synesthetic ability

Scriabin Circle. Alexander Scriabin’s key-color association. Photo by Megamatic.

Synesthesia is a condition in which one can associate and describe one sensory perception with another. Scriabin easily associated harmonic notes with colors. You could say he saw musical notes as colors! He even had a color-coded ‘Circle of Fifths’.

In analyzing his style of composition and performance, Scriabin seems to have sought to achieve a harmony of all senses.

Indeed, his creations have been described as expressions of ecstasy, passion, and mystical sensation. His innovative skills were quite over the top. Some critics thought he was mad while others saw him as a genius.

6. He sought inspiration from a variety of philosophical works

Scriabin was an avid reader and seeker of knowledge. His reading ranged from astrology, medicine, and metaphysics, to Friedrich Nietzsche and Isaac Newton’s Optics.

He was deeply philosophical and mystical, an aspect that is evident in his compositions. In one of his pieces, ‘Poem of Ecstasy’, he adopted Nietzsche’s line; ‘I am God’, although he dropped ‘God’ to avoid much controversy.

He also joined the circle of Belgian symbolist and occultist Jean Delwile, and Helen Blavatsky’s circle of Theosophy. Scriabin’s religious beliefs and mystic insights heavily influenced his works.

7. He was the first composer to include a notation for lights and colors

Scriabin colored keyboard. Photo by Unknown author.

Scriabin had an incredible synesthetic ability. Coupled with his innovative spirit, he composed a piece that became the first-ever to have a notation for lights and colors in the history of music.

The piece, ‘Prometheus; The Poem of Fire’ had color and sound intertwined; a cross senses harmony. Lights and color were played on a color keyboard and projected to the beat of the music. The performance was a precursor to modern-day rock concerts. He performed for international audiences in Western Europe.

8. His youngest son is considered a prodigy

Julian Scriabin – (1908-1919) russian composer & pianist. son of Alexander Scriabin. Photo by Unknown Russian photographer.

He had 7 children from two marriages. His first was with pianist Vera Isakovich. They later separated, and he married Tatiana Fyodorovna.

They had three children, the youngest of which was a child musical prodigy. His name was Julian Scriabin.

He wrote 4 preludes before he was 10, in his father’s style. He tragically died at 11. Commentators term him as a would-have been Alexander’s Scriabin successor.

9. He died of an inflammation complication

He had just performed for a large crowd at St. Petersburg. He soon developed a painful inflammation on his upper leap. A few days later, despite treatment, he died of septicemia, a complication from the inflammation.

He died on April 27, 1915, aged 43. He was buried at the Church of St. Nikolai, near his home in Moscow. The home is now a National Museum and a Cultural Heritage Memorial. It is open to the public.

10. His unfinished piece, The Mysterium, is considered the peak of his imagination

It was a multimedia piece, combining art, music, acting, light, and poetry. He meant to have it performed at the Himalayan mountain for 7 days.

He called it a ‘grandiose religious synthesis of all arts that would birth a New World.’ His goal was to harmonize all senses. He however was unable to complete the piece.