Scriabin - Prometheus, the Poem of Fire - Part 1

[BrucknerMotet]

What a star-studded ensemble we have here!!!

"Chef" from Apocalypse Now and Will Ferrell with alot of makup at 1:43

Clint Eastwood at 2:24 and 4:16

Colonel Lingus from Saturday Night Live at 2:29 and 4:08

Harvey Keitel and Christopher Reeves at 2:34

Christopher Reeves at 3:53

The World's Most Interesting Man at 4:02

Peter Stomare at 5:03 and 5:44

Genetic mixup of Essa-Pekka Solonen & Tom Cruise at 6:05

[Cryomancer97]

does anybody know what instruments play in this part of the piece?

[oscarmike1985]

@Cryomancer97

can you be more specific? it's a pretty huge orchestra

[lovingboarding]

Skip to 0:34.

[Hobnomb]

lol the composer looks like he is about to sneeze

[Pato012]

@Hobnomb the composer is dead (?)

[Hobnomb]

@Pato012 errrr ok? whats your point?

[TheModCon]

Such amazing, gripping music

[dagharr2]

i'm having trouble finding where this piece connects with the famous 'mystic chord/prometheus chord'. can anyone point me in the right direction? i guess i just have to do some analysis.

\

[pcdsgh]

@dagharr2 lol, no. that's how I got here xD

[jerik70]

@dagharr2 Almost all of the harmonies in the piece are derived from the Mystic Chord, which is spelled A, B, C#, D#, E#, G#. It's sometimes hard to hear the chord because the harmonies only use some of the tones most of the time.

[DavidFick]

@jerik70

You are quite correct, dagharr2; what's most interesting about that fact is that the "Luce" (light organ) --which is printed in the score as a "cue sheet" for whomever is in charge of the "lighting," so to speak), can also be viewed by the analyst as a reverse-engineered figured bass, showing us (for the most part), EXACTLY where the tonality shifts. If Scriabin were to be accused of "sprezzatura," he shows us here that a far greater ideal --the vision of Synaesthetic Art-- is at play

[KishoAudioVisual]

Love ... Scriabin ... Love

[immortalx50]

by the way, Scriabin was inspired by eastern mysticism and was a friend of wandering Indian sufist master Inayat Khan

[Emanresu56]

This is why I love classical music.

[unbeatableenergy]

Unbelievable! Never heard of Scriatin before! It's amazing! Reminds me a bit of Henri Deautilleux.

[gaaraabian]

no dude, he really saw the colors, but if it convinces you it is a very-very rare music skill, like absolute hearing (but synesthesia way more rare)

[philnoll]

@gaaraabian i hear colors when i'm on drugs

[Absintherra]

omfg... i'm seen colors... jokes aside, seen colors while heraing music is scientific crap...i accept, that there is synethesia in this world, but scriabin just invented some colors to his music, or vice versa.

[Beerlejuice]

@Absintherra I haven't actually seen colors, but I've always imagined colors whenever I listen to music.

[skryabyn]

holy crap the guy at 6:24 looks like scriabin

[Fishies125]

Excuse me, symphonies.

[Fishies125]

This is the first time I've heard any of Scriabin's orchestral stuff. I am loving it! Especially his piano concertos! This stuff is freakin beautiful! For some reason I thought his orchestral stuff wouldn't be as genius as his solo piano stuff but I couldn't have been more off.

[Neongrapes]

this is the shit man. this is an excellent performance. at first I thought a tad slow; but actually it works great

[tralalalala87]

Sorry but I can't wright it in english!

Cette oeuvre est extraordinaire tant par son modernisme d'anticipation que par les couleurs sombres et changeantes de la musique! on dirait une sorte de concerto pour piano mais élargit à un orchestre démesuré! On frôle parfois le Schönberg pour plonger dans un certain romantisme "éclairé"...Scriabin est vraiment un génie!

[harriter88]

I have always adored this work.Mazel Ashkenazy is still the best.Right up there along with the Rach prok Gersh Ravel piano and orchestra offerings of the early 20th century. Scriabin needed a different ending however thanks

[JorPove]

La asociacion de musica con color ,estuvo constreñida primero a ligar musica con chorros de agua (desde la antiguedad,visible en monumentos en todo el planeta).Luego varios compositores ligan los efectos sonoros a los visuales en composiciones vanguardistas.En los años 60 la casa Phillips asocia sistemas electronicos a la musica en algunos monumentos universales y en la actualidad en edificios y hoteles contemporaneos es comun esta asociacion.Las claves son variadas y los resultados disimiles.

[science454]

An interesting period in music.

[MassiveJungle]

I love this

[SculptSound]

god this is atmospheric

[wogandmush]

Needs more cowbell.

[DaJugglingFool]

ROFL

[IanTanYeeEn]

is that from saturday night live? lol

[ehswan]

Light is not simply about colour. As with sound it has many permutations. In performance these have been barely explored. Sriabin somehow knew this but was not able to express it. I must go.

[ligetisays]

Scriabin had synesthesia, like Rimsky-Korsakov. His brain would associate certain pitches and harmonies with colors; he would, for lack of a better term, see the colors with the music. He scored the piece to include a "light-organ" which would produce the corresponding colors on a screen as the harmonies shifted. Most editions of the score contain the light-organ staff.

[SculptSound]

scriabin didnt have synesthesia his colour system is just a system based on newtons optiks around the circle of fifths merely to show the spectral relationship rimsky korsakov did have synasthesia however as did rachmaninov and they both percived green when the note e was played and is why rach wrote so much in e unlike scriabin who's system suggests A

[VikingBerserker]

Rachmaninoff did not have synasthesia.

"In his autobiographical Recollections, Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov about Scriabin's association of colour and music.

cont--

[VikingBerserker]

"Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed with Scriabin on associations of musical keys with colors; himself skeptical, Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colours involved. Both maintained that the key of D major was golden-brown; but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue.

cont--

[VikingBerserker]

However, Rimsky-Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff's opera The Miserly Knight supported their view: the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is written in D major. Scriabin told Rachmaninoff that "your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny."

from wikipedia, but I have read this from other sources as well.

[annegwishisfunny]

"Though these works are often considered to be influenced by Scriabin's synesthesia, a condition wherein one experiences sensation in one sense in response to stimulus in another, it is doubted that Alexander Scriabin actually experienced this.[10][11] His colour system, unlike most synesthetic experience, lines up with the circle of fifths: it was a thought-out system based on Sir Isaac Newton's Opticks. " Also from Wikipedia, soooooooooooo.

[ehswan]

Far out first comment. I played with a performer of this piece, Hilda Sommer, pianist, who hired me to interpret this music in light, which I did. You are quite right, he wanted light too. With out light this music is not whole. But he wanted more. He wanted the whole world to sing. Alas it never happened.

[BreuschPagan]

Re: whole world singing, I'm pretty sure you're thinking about Mysterium ;)

[Icewalker]

Whole world singing was mysterium-anyone have a recording of Nemtin's rendition of Prefactory Action?

[jre58591]

i have a video of a performance with the color organ. i might upload a sample someday.

[Botchlae]

That would be great

[emouch1]

Please do, I have never seen a performance with the color organ nor with the color projections. I would love to see that performed live

[ThePhilosorpheus]

@jre58591 well it´ve been 2 years since you said that now =) posted it yet? i´d love to see it

[jre58591]

@ThePhilosorpheus I think I saw it on YouTube already once. Martha Argerich is the soloist in it. It has the lights projected via spotlight.

[FutureMoth]

@jre58591

Please do it!

[ecwaufisxtreme]

Where's the color organ?

[BlueCougar]

Good question. Performing Prometheus without the prescribed color projections means missing an integral part of the composition. As well a a great show effect.

[prometheus040589]

if asked "whatdoithink", I would have to say interesting performance - Krainev applaudable effort conveying intensely passionate/psychotic/creative playfulness, however, general choices of slower tempi in parts- to create majesty/grandiose structure - bad idea diffracts glorious egocentricity, human passion, and doesn't hide Scriabin's flaws- not good at large scale structures. If you like the whitsundays, write me and break the shackles of capitalism!

[cybermarkkus]

Can't you please post the whole clip on demonoid or mininova?

[jre58591]

@cybermarkkus Sorry, I haven't used those sites for years and I don't think I will return to them.

[cybermarkkus]

Wow! Excellent post dude! :)) thx