Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 1 Number 3, December 2000
_______________________________________________________________
Skriabin and Obukhov:
Mysterium
& La livre de vie
The concept of
artistic synthesis.
By
The aesthetic ambitions of the Russian
composer Alexander Nikolayevich Skriabin (1871-1915) went far beyond a technical
recasting of musical elements. His achievement was to extend the wider
perspective of the Gesamtkunstwerk,
into what one of his principle biographers has called ‘Omni-art,’ [1] aiming to achieve ‘all-unity’ (vse-edonstvo). This concern with
‘extra-musical’ issues was also central to the aesthetic ideas of one of his
followers, the much less well-known Russian composer Nikolay Obukhov
(1892-1954). What an exploration of the art of the two figures uncovers is a
synthetic impulse at the heart of modernist culture; an impulse that runs
counter to the more familiar characterization of modern art and music as a
retreat into purity. I shall argue that we need to adopt a broad approach to the
work of these two figures in order to do justice to their aesthetic visions. For
both of them their art was always more than ‘music alone.’
Skriabin found support for his aesthetic
in mystic ideas, especially theosophy and Symbolism. He nevertheless remained an
eclectic thinker, who sought justification for his aesthetic in a range of
areas, while never fully adopting one particular doctrine. The one thing
consistent in his ideas throughout their formation was a deep distrust of
rationalism and positivism. He shared with Wagner a sense of validation in the
imaginative and subjective drives of creativity, believing that true insight is
intuitive. A supreme individualist, he nevertheless saw nature and imagination
as a part of the same spirit, and through his art sought contact with the world
external to the imagination. Art for him was an action, a process whose aim was
to reach out to and affect life. As he described it, the ultimate aim of art was
to bring about ‘oneness’ or ‘all-unity’, to resolve the parts into the
whole, unity of the arts and unity of man with the cosmos.
There
are commonalities between Skriabin’s thinking and the Naturphilosophen of the early nineteenth century. Novalis believed
in the mystical unity of all things, and figures such as Wilhelm Wackenroder,
Jean Paul, Friedrich Schelling and Johann Hölderlin held to the notion that the
idealised transformation of the natural world through art was a form of
communion with the divine. The result of the ecstasy and yearning evoked through
the creative act could produce an intense sense of personal inadequacy (in
extreme cases leading to suicide). While Skriabin certainly felt much the same,
he was confident of his own ‘God-given role.’ It was to fulfil this role
that the Gesamtkunstwerk idea was
employed.
Two of his earliest guides on this path
were, not surprisingly, Schopenhauer, from whom he understood the primacy of
subjective consciousness, and Nietzsche, whose The Birth of Tragedy supported aesthetic synthesis and sensuality,
and whose later work confirmed Skriabin’s belief in the artist as superman.
The notion of the evolution of consciousness was also to find a root in
theosophical beliefs, but one of his first sustained philosophical encounters
was around 1898, when he made two important contacts: the social and
intellectual circle surrounding Prince Sergei Nikolaevich Troubetzkoy, who was
at the time Professor of Philosophy at Moscow University, and the ideas and
writings of Vladimir Solovyov. Through this he was in turn introduced to the
literary salon of Margarita Morozova. There he met many of the leading lights of
the Russian Symbolist movement, amongst them Valery Bryusov, Emilli Medtner
(brother of the composer Nikolai), who was a close friend of Alexander Blok, and
Andrey Bely; these last two were connected by family to Solovyov, and by
inclination to his millenarianism and theology. Typically, Skriabin took from
these encounters what he felt was relevant to his art, but could not really be
classed as a follower or member of a group.
Skriabin
spent much time travelling abroad and living in Belgium and Switzerland (c.
1904-10). His personal contact with Russian cultural life was re-established in
January 1910 when he moved back to Moscow. Here he attended many lectures,
concerts, art exhibitions and literary discussions. It was through these
activities that he became a close friend of Jurgis Baltrusaitis, a leading
Symbolist poet. Through Baltrusaitis he also met other leading poets of the
movement, Konstantine Balmont and Vyacheslav Ivanov. Together with Bryusov,
these poets drew their inspiration from Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Stéphane
Mallarmé, whose work began to appear in translation in the early 1890’s. The
mouthpiece for the work of these ‘decadents’ was the journal World of Art (Mir iskusstva),
founded by Sergei Diaghilev in 1898, which harmonised with Skriabin’s
Messianic tone and promotion of the ‘spiritual’. The mix in their work comes
not just from French sources, but also from the German idealist tradition,
especially as filtered through the philosophical system of Vladimir Solovyov.
Through the interests of Alexander Benois and Diaghilev, the synthesis of art
and music in the Gesamtkunstwerks of
the Ballets Russes became a focus for the construction of a Russian mythology,
whose ‘answer’ to the Germanic language of Wagner’s mythic works can be
seen in Stravinsky’s first score for Diaghilev to Fokine’s choreography, The Firebird, premiered at the Paris
Opera on 25 June, 1910.
Solovyov’s
thought exerted a considerable influence on many young Russian artists towards
the turn of the century, through both his theoretical and poetic writings,
although he viewed their work with some scepticism. One notable example is Bely,
whose early works, published between 1902 and 1908, were in the form of prose
‘symphonies’, that is their synthesising aesthetic also relies heavily on
Wagner’s notions, especially in their use of leitmotifs. He later spent time
in Switzerland under the influence of Rudolph Steiner’s anthroposophical
theories, before returning to Russia in 1916 where he published his most famous
work, the experimental novel Petersburg.
Beginning
as a follower of Feuerbach and others, Solovyov later turned to the idealism of
Kant and Schopenhauer following a course similar to that of Wagner’s. [2] Solovyov imagined an ultimate synthesis of the divine and
human, earthly and ideal, embodied in part through the figure of Christ. He
argued that reality could only be fully comprehended on the basis of a synthesis
of religion, philosophy and science (or faith, thought and experience). Art, in
turn, was a microcosm of this unity: ‘Art must be a real force enlightening
and regenerating the entire human world.’ [3] The role of
the artist was therefore theurgic. Like Orpheus the artist should lead us from
the underworld to the light (from death to resurrection). [4]
This regeneration was necessary, not just because of the crisis of expression
faced by art as the classical paradigm began to collapse in the face of
modernity and the power of naturalism began to wane, but because such a change
could or should bring about a concomitant revolution of social structure.
Further, the advent of the new century seemed to signal the dawning of a new
era; one marked by a hightened spirituality in contrast to the positivism of
realism.
Solovyov’s
apocalyptic vision lead him to believe that the forces of the antichrist would
threaten civilisation from the east. Such a fundamental shake-up of society was
indeed about to happen with the Russian Revolution and the First World War, but
Skriabin died during the latter and never experienced the new social order that
followed the former. He did nevertheless read Karl Marx, or, according to
Schloezer, at least the first part of Das
Kapital, which he encountered through his socialist friend Georgy Plekhanov.
[5] He embraced the economic elements of Marxism, but not the
concomitant ideology. For him the spirit had to maintain ultimate independence
from environmental or material circumstances, although he agreed with Marx that
the collapse of capitalism was inevitable. It was art, Skriabin believed, that
would bring about real change, rather than social or political revolution.
Change would flow from artists, rather than the proletariat. For him art was a
superior form of knowledge, similar to that of mystics, gained by intuition,
which bore the seeds of true reality and which could ultimately help humanity
progress to a higher plane, to divinity. His view was closer to Solovyov, who
argued that the nature of this (spiritual) change was to be found in
metaphysical not materialist principles, and that humanity had a potential for
attaining spiritual perfection. Such a notion fits well with the idea of music
characterised by Schopenhauer (as ‘eternal truth’), and symbolists, but it
also had another important echo.
Theosophy
had a wide influence at the turn of the century. [6] Founded
in 1875 in New York City by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (known simply as Madame
Blavatsky, 1831-91), assisted by her spiritualist friend Colonel Henry Olcott,
it represented a synthesis of pre-Christian and Oriental philosophies (mainly
Indian), opposing itself to what it saw as the twin evils of science and
theology (specifically Christianity). Blavatsky’s two major theosophical texts
were Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888). In a climate
where science was threatening long held beliefs, its mysticism and
anti-materialism made it a natural ally to artists who were turning away from
naturalism and positivism. Its capacity to subsume an eclectic range of ideas
made it the paramount force for spiritualist resurgence as the new century was
dawning.
Skriabin
first became acquainted with the movement in Paris in 1906, when he subscribed
to the theosophical journal Le Lotus Bleu.
When he returned to Russia he took the Russian counterpart, the Teosifski Zhurnal. [7] While in Switzerland he read Madame
Blavatsky, Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater. One of the things that most
impressed by him in such writings was the grandiose sweep of their synthesis,
which matched the scope of symbolist ideas. Indeed, according to Schloezer, he
specifically likened Blavatsky’s vision to the ‘grandeur of Wagner’s music
dramas.’ [8]
The
principle work he consulted was Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine. [9]
In this work she outlined the belief that all existence was ordered into seven
planes, ranging from the most material or physical to the highest, most
spiritual (the term they used for the latter was ‘mahapâranirvânic) [10]. There were also seven ‘root’ races, each race
reflecting a phase in the evolution of spiritual life, so that consciousness and
its various levels was characterised on a personal, psychic and social level.
Music had a privileged place among the arts. As Schopenhauer had argued, music
spoke of the thing itself, so for theosophists music was seen as engendering
this higher consciousness through its perceived immateriality. In the process of
doing this, however, it also brought about ‘thought-forms’, as Annie Besant
and C. W. Leadbeater claimed in their book on the subject:
...sound
produces form as well as colour...every piece of music leaves behind it an
impression of this nature, which...is clearly visible and intelligible to those
who have eyes to see. [11]
Such
notions played an important part in Skriabin’s development of colour-key
relationships, as we shall discuss below. Many ideas from theosophy share common
ground with Wagner-inspired symbolist thought: a belief in the theurgic function
of art, music as the pinnacle of artistic expression, and a conviction for the
centrality of the artist in bringing about a new world order. In a way Skriabin
is not dissimilar from Wagner, who believed that the Dresden uprising would
bring about a new cultural climate more sympathetic to his art. So, too,
Skriabin saw political unrest in Russia as helpful to the fulfilment of his
aesthetic aims:
The
political revolution in Russia in its present phase [the 1905 revolution] and
the change which I want are different. Of course, this revolution, like every
other political agitation brings the beginning of my moment closer. I make a
mistake in using the word change [perevorot].
I do not want the actualization or establishing of anything. I want only endless
élan of creative activity brought
about by my art. This means that before all else I must complete my important
composition...My moment has not yet begun. But it approaches. There will be a
celebration! Soon ! [12]
The
‘important composition’ that Skriabin refers to was to be his Mysterium, in his eyes the ultimate Gesamtkunstwerk. Like Wagner, he too believed that the full
potential of the arts could only be realized through synthesis, or, at the
least, a form of parallelism; a re-unification under the banner of music. Music
appears to be the engine that propelled the artwork, but in concert with the
other arts its impact could be increased. Or, to express it in a more symbolist
form, the ‘musical element’ inherent in all art could be brought out in
concert.
The
idea for this work had been growing in Skriabin’s mind since 1902, but he
constantly delayed working on it. In large part this was due to its hugely
ambitious character: a vision of apocalyptic ecstasy leading to the end of the
material world. In fact, although it was thought out in some detail, and a
preliminary work was started, it was never actually begun before his death. As
it was to be the culmination of Skriabin’s work, an end-point, an ultimate
synthesis, a transformatory act, it is not so surprising that he never felt
quite ready to face it.
Skriabin
had great admiration for Wagner, but had in fact only heard part of the Ring cycle. He first heard Siegfried in 1902 and Götterdämmerung much later, but never
saw a staged performance of Das Rheingold
and never, according to Schloezer, heard either Parsifal or Tristan und Isolde.
Although
the role of musical experience in creating converts to the Wagnerian faith
should not be underestimated, it is worth pointing out that Wagnerism does not
necessarily equate to Wagner. The impact of Wagner’s ideas on many at this
time was second hand, and the implication of his theories was often only loosely
related to the original source of inspiration. Wagner was a cultural messiah. In
France the main filter was the Revue Wagnérienne,
which positioned him as the supreme catalyst of the Symbolist movement. In the
case of many Wagnerians, little attempt was made to differentiate between
mid-century Wagner (the period of his Gesamtkunstwerk
theories) and later Wagner, when the influence of Schopenhauer promoted the
power of music over the other arts. For our purposes this is not, however, a
weighty issue, for we are mainly concerned with the impact of Wagner’s ideas
on succeeding generations (how they saw themselves as sub specie Wagneri), rather than searching consistency in Wagner’s
own aesthetic ambitions. The importance of Wagner’s ideas to Skriabin, for
example, is in no way diminished by the fact that he either misunderstood
Wagner’s ultimate intentions or developed only an element of them (his
understanding of Wagner’s theories came mainly through magazine articles).
Rather, it is found in the synthetic impulse he and others detected in the phase
of Wagner’s theorization around 1849 in his most well known tracts, Art and Revolution, The Art work of the
Future, and Opera and Drama. The
idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk became the
leading aesthetic concept around which the Wagnerian movement formed. Such
contact offered Skriabin enough to support his own burgeoning aesthetic, which,
as we have seen, had more than just Wagner in its mix.
Given
this limited contact it is not surprising that there are significant differences
between the two composers, most notably in relation to the role of the audience.
Skriabin took issue with Wagner’s positioning of his audience:
The
audience, the spectators are separated by the stage instead of being joined with
the performers in a single act. I will not have any sort of theatre.
Wagner,
with all his genius, could never surmount the theatrical - the stage - never,
because he did not understand what was the matter. He did not realise that all
the evil in this separation lay in that there was no unity, no genuine
experience, but only the representation of experience. The true eradication of
the stage can be accomplished in the ‘Mystery.’ [13]
Skriabin,
in other words, had no qualms about direct contact with the Dionysian as
Nietzsche had characterised it: liberation through ecstasy. Indeed, Skriabin’s
work aimed to bring about cosmic transformation. He believed in the power of
music (art) to provide ‘the
presentment of supreme joy, through which the path through destruction and
negation leads’. What is imagined for Nietzsche when the spectator ‘hears
the innermost abyss of things speaking to him’ is not for Skriabin imagined,
but lived [14], hence his argument that Wagner merely
represents.
Skriabin’s
notion of the spectator may share something in common with the primordial world
of the Volk evoked in Wagner’s
reactionary nationalism, despite the cry to ‘brotherhood,’ but for Skriabin
there were not to be spectators in the usual sense, all were to be participants.
Unlike Wagner, who excavated his ideas from Greek culture, Skriabin had a
practical model closer to home: the use of the chorus in Russian opera from its
foundation in the time of Glinka. Glinka had famously chided Western grand
opera: ‘Ah, these choruses!. They arrive from God knows where, sing God knows
what and make off as they came in...! Padding!’ [15] Since
the inception of a Russian opera the chorus had played a role as a collective dramatis personae - not dissimilar from
Greek choruses. Rather than simply commenting on the unfolding drama, roving
about in a more passive role, the Russian chorus was conceived as a participant
with as central a place as the soloists. Skriabin’s attitude of fuller
participation was prefigured (or promoted) by Ivanov who had written in 1905:
Wagner-heirophant
does not give a choral voice and words to the community. Why not? It has a right
to that voice, because it is supposed to be not a crowd of spectators, but an
assemblage of orgists...Wagner stopped halfway and did not pronounce the final
word. His synthesis of the arts is neither harmonious nor complete. [16]
Ivanov
had been influenced by both German philosophy and Solovyov’s theology, in
particular his focus on ancient myth and art had been fostered by Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy. His promotion of
community over individualism put him out of step with many symbolists, but his
view that it was the artist’s task to create myth for the people chimes with
the importance of the mythic in Skriabin’s aesthetic, and with symbolism in
general.
Towards Transcendent Synthesis
Skriabin’s
Mysterium was to extend the ‘gesamt ’ qualities of Wagner’s
artwork of the future, by involving all senses through the use of coloured
lights, music, scents and even tastes. [17] As a synaesthete,
Skriabin experienced sound as interrelated with colours, images and ideas, so
sound for him was never a priori
autonomous; it was the content of his own psychological experience. His view
that the arts required reintegration, as reported to Schloezer, has its origin
in the dawn of history, rather than in antiquity as with Wagner. Skriabin
believed that humanity had first known only an inchoate Omni-art, where the
visual, auditory and motor sensations were wedded into one aesthetic experience.
All organic senses played a part in primordial Omni-art. Indeed, it was the
memory of this Omni-art that survived as a dim echo in Greek tragedy, to which
Wagner had responded. Only those arts capable of artistic development
flourished, those associated with the senses of sight and hearing, which in turn
gave birth to the separate branches of art.
Although Wagner’s account of ancient
history was flawed, he did seek some chronicled evidence. Skriabin’s view, on
the other hand, is purely hypothetical. Theosophy offered Skriabin a model of
speculation on the spirit of prehistory. But for both Wagner and Skriabin the
important point is not so much historical accuracy, as justification for their
current practice. Neither were retracing the past, but pointing to the future.
There is no attempt to evoke antique practice, nor direct reference to ancient
models.
For
Skriabin there was no pre-existing path for the association of the arts. Their
relationships had to grow spontaneously in the process of composition. It was
his aim to weave a polyphonic design with all the arts (poetry, music, visual
art, dance) playing an equal role, so much so that it should be ultimately
impossible to disentangle them. There are even hints, according to Schloezer,
that Skriabin intended to bring out the choreography of making music, the music
of poetry, the visual spectacle of enactment; the faint resonances of Omni-art
that hover below the surface of the modern separated arts. To promote not
parallelism but counterpoint, through the voices of commonality - the visual in
music, the music in poetry, the poetry in dance - that exist implicitly in each
art form. [18] Although Skriabin found elements of Schopenhauer’s thinking
conducive to his own, he appears here to have departed from the German
philosopher’s promotion of music above the other arts. Seeking instead
transcendence through the power of synthesis, and a synthesis based on a common
root .
Not surprisingly, the details as to how
this was all to be achieved remained unspecified. He spoke of the nature of this
magnum opus for the last ten years of
his life, and he began more and more to resent his busy performance schedule, as
it took valuable time away from working on the Mysterium, only too aware of the enormity of the task his
imagination had set him. In 1913 he pronounced himself at work on it, but
quickly modified the work in hand so that it became a kind of prolegomena, what
he called the Acte préalable (‘Prefatory
Act’). This work, in turn, was unfinished at the time of his death. Prior to
this, around 1900, Skriabin had been working on an opera, but it too was
abandoned, its musical fragments used in other smaller works, and some of the
text found its way into the verse poem associated with The Poem of Ecstasy opus 54, as its conception was subsumed and
surpassed in the Mysterium.
The Acte préalable, which was originally
conceived as a way of preparing both the public, and probably himself, for the Mysterium, absorbed so much of the
material of the latter, that it became a palimpsest of the larger, unrealised
work. It consists mainly of text, but he made some sketches for the music,
fragments of thematic motives and outlined harmonic progression, notated in
black, red, blue and violet pencils, presumably bearing some relation to his
wish to include colour. They were to take their place on the pages of manuscript
made up of seventy staves, forty more than in the scoring of Prometheus. The poem on which the Mysterium was based exists in two
versions, the second of which shows the divisions for choir and soloists. It has
little narrative drive; rather it is a string of sensuous images (fields,
mountains, light, sea, death, flames and angels) which aim to be evocative. It
was to open with the following text over a tremolo chord:
Once
again the Deathless One bestows
A
blessed gift of Love on you;
Once
more the Infinite One shows
In the
Finite his image true
According
to Schloezer, in whose book more of the text is to be found, the rhythm and
rhyme of the words was to dictate the music, or rather the music was to emerge
from the musicality of the verse. [19]
The Acte préalable is deeply theosophical in
imagery. It was conceived as opening with the birth of the universe, from which
two opposite principles emerge, personified as male and female (tenor and
contralto). It concludes with the reintegration of the many into one, the
transfiguration of matter into pure spirit (ascending the planes of existence,
as described by Leadbeater).
The
language to be used in the text of the Mysterium
had to go beyond the specific connotations of commonly spoken words in order to
have the sort of universal references Skriabin envisaged. If music was, as
Skriabin understood it, a universal form of expression, then his text needed
likewise to be universal. He believed that human speech had first been
inseparable from emotion, part of the world of Omni-art synthesised with
expression. Modern languages had become abstract, however, too much part of the
expression of rational discourses that subdued the emotive, like science. He
wanted instead to find an urtext, a
language at the root of speech, a prelapsarian voice.
At the
time Skriabin was working on the Mysterium,
popular opinion believed Sanskrit to be the primordial Aryan language. So this
was where Skriabin turned, hoping that it would provide him with a ‘lingua
franca.’ However, after some study he decided that, despite its antiquity, it
was already too highly developed to be closely related to the origins of speech.
His only option was to invent his own language, which he began just before his
death. The only examples he left are simple abstract notions like ‘joying’
and ‘loveness.’ As with Wagner, we see an attempt to transcend the fixity of
language, but perhaps the most radical attempt to find a proto-language was
carried out concurrently with Skriabin’s, by Velemir (Victor) Khlebnikov.
Khlebnikov
had moved from the symbolist circle around Vyacheslav Ivanov to the circle of
artists around Mikhail Larionov. He signed the futurist manifesto ‘A slap in
the face of public taste’, and became a leader in the cubo-futurist movement.
He argued that language had once expressed everything clearly and directly. In
order to recover this state he took the opposite route to Skriabin and the
symbolists. Rather than focussing on the emotive aspects of language, Khlebnikov
argued that a more rational approach was needed. It was therefore necessary to
‘distil the language by scientific means to obtain those original meanings and
then build on this foundation a universal language’. The result of this would
have utopian political ramifications, it would ‘lead to a cessation of wars
because people would understand one another.’ [20] This idea he called Zaum, a term he had taken and differently
applied from his fellow futurist poet Alexey Kruchonykh, from the prefix
‘za’ meaning beyond and the root ‘um’ meaning mind. The formalist critic
Victor Shklovsky, however, stressed in his definition of Zaum the emotive aim of this rational investigation: ‘the language
that is so to speak personal, with words having no definite meaning, but
affecting the emotions directly.’ [21] This is the clearest statement of the
power of music over poetry, for, as Baudelaire had detected in Wagner’s
aesthetic, poetry here becomes a form of proto-music in its attempt to reflect
emotional life accurately and with little intercession. It surrenders precision
to embrace suggestion.
Other experiments in poetry lead to
closer links between it and the visual arts. [22] Nikolai Kublin, a doctor by
training, was a major player in pre-revolutionary Russian cultural life,
although after the revolution his influence and reputation quickly faded. He
promoted microtonal music, contributing an article to the Blue Rider Almanac on freedom in music, freedom from conventions. In
addition he also devised a synaesthetic alphabet which borrowed both symbolist
and theosophical ideas. He associated phonemes with colour, which in turn had
emotional signification. [23] Nikolai Burliuk, the Futurist poet and brother of
the artist David, in his book Poetic
Principles, also discussed the role of colour and the effect of visual
presentation on the function of words. [24] We can therefore see Skriabin’s
interests as part of a more general investigation of the relationships among the
arts.
Interestingly,
Skriabin found further support for his synaesthetic notions in Sanskrit sources.
According to Sourindro Mohun Tagore, Sanskrit authorities have associated ‘the
seven notes...respectively...with the following colours: black, tawny, gold,
white, yellow, purple and green.’ [25]
Not
surprisingly Skriabin imagined the performance of the Mysterium taking place in India.
Theosophists in London suggested Darjeeling to him, for he wanted to replace
Wagner’s landscape painter’s backdrops and scenery with animate nature
itself; the Himalayas, the sunrise and sunset as part of the decor and action.
The sights, smells, sounds and textures of nature were to be an integral part of
the work. Later, he more generally referred to the siting of the work as simply
‘tropical’. Originally he conceived of a temple to house his magnum opus, situated in a terraced clearing in a forest. It was in the form of
a hemisphere surrounded by water, creating a sphere in the reflection, and on a
scale that made Wagner’s architectural projects appear modest. The landscaping
and construction would be part of the score and performance, there being no
actions or elements outside the rubric of Mysterium.
Later his concrete temple disintegrated, to be replaced by a projection, an
ephemeral structure made from pillars of incense, columns and walls of light,
the temporal changes of nature and insubstantial architecture providing a
counterpoint to the temporally unfolding music. Its lack of material substance
provided a more appropriate metaphor for spiritual transcendence. [26]
Skriabin’s
interest in Indian culture was principally fostered through theosophical tracts,
among them Auguste Barth’s Réligions de
l’Inde, Edwin Arnold’s The Light
of India, Balmont’s translation of Asvaghosa’s The Life of Buddha, and a number of travel guides. The overriding
spirit of the Mysterium remains
theosophical. In addition to the inclusion of natural elements in the work, the
seven races of theosophical dogma were to be reflected in the time cycle of the
work (again, exceeding Wagner’s ambition): seven days in total, the fifth day
corresponding to our own time, after which, presumably, some form of
transcendence was to take place, climaxing on the seventh day in ‘cosmic
ecstasy’. Koussevitsky, who at one time was to be the conductor, had a
refreshingly down-to-earth view, declaring ‘we will all go out and have a fine
dinner afterwards.’ [27]
Prometheus
We can
gain an insight into the extraordinary imagination behind this un-completable
work, by looking at Skriabin’s Fifth Symphony Prometheus - The Poem of Fire, opus 60,
which he composed between 1908 and 1910, and which was his last completed
orchestral score. By no means as ambitious as the Mysterium, he nevertheless sought to
synthesise two elements: colour and sound.
Prometheus is scored for large orchestra,
including quadruple woodwind, eight horns, five trumpets, eight trombone and
tuba, two harps, piano, a large percussion section (including celesta), organ,
wordless chorus and, to add to this palette of timbre, a tastiera per luce (light keyboard: notated on the top line of the
score in conventional music notation) [Example 1]. There is no detail in the
score as regards how the light is to be projected (on a screen, throughout the
concert hall?), or via what precise means it is to be ‘played’, rather it
seems confident in its assumption that luce
is as common place in this set up as flute or piano. The first version of this
device was planned by Skriabin in consultation with Alexander Moser, a
photographer and professor of electromechanics at the Moscow School for Higher
Technical Training. However, there appears no evidence that the design of this
‘instrument’ got off the drawing board. Nevertheless, light seems to have
been a central conceptual strand of the composition process, even if the form of
notation adopted by Skriabin subordinates colour to musical convention. [28] The
notation for this luce is written on a
single stave in two parts (three parts for four bars before 30) in the treble:
one forms the ‘background’ which changes slowly, ten times in all, each
change lasting about two minutes. This part moves in wholetones from Fsharp
(blue) to the mid-point C (red), which divides the octave in half through a
tritone, onto the ‘resolution’ in Fsharp, where the piece concludes on the
only true triad of the piece (Fsharp, Asharp, Csharp), signifying spirit (in
opposition to C=red which signifies material): the move from F# to F #ı
represents a complete revolution of the cycle of fifths. However, the inclusion
of very occasional ‘passing notes’ (B, Dflat, Esharp) skews the gradual move
through the colour circle by introducing colours from diverse parts of the
colour circle. For although moves between ‘pitches’ may be only by a notated
semi-tone, as can be seen from the table below, the corresponding colour is more
distant. This is because the division of colour into twelve separate units is a
matter of nomenclature rather than physical fact. The mapping of colour onto
pitch (the chromatic scale) is then neatly achieved, although totally arbitrary.
In short, the slow moving part played by the luce appears to have been conceived to provide an indication of the
overall conceptual framework of the piece, which has in practise occasional
‘wrong notes.’ Either this, or it appears to have no relation to the music
at all.
The
other part of the luce notation, the
‘foreground,’ reflects more rapid harmonic progressions, and is closely tied
to the movement of the music. The relationship is less schematic and
specifically appears to follow the course of the so-called ‘mystic chord’
(C, Fsharp, Bflat, E, A, D) - the harmonic root of the work - as it occurs
throughout the piece. It acts to reinforce the particular, as the slower part
acts to do something similar to the ‘deeper structure’. In both cases the
function of the luce is analogical, offering the same ‘root’ experience in two
different manifestations, it is therefore cross-disciplinary.
The colour pitch correspondences that
Skriabin used are arranged in a circle of fifths. Skriabin did not, however,
experience colour-tone relationships individually, but rather through chordal
complexes, and, according to some sources, deduced the full cycle from his
spontaneous recognition of C=red, D=yellow and Fsharp=blue [20]:
C=Red
Fsharp=Bright blue
G=Orange Dflat=Violet
D=Yellow
Aflat=Purple
A=Green
Eflat=Metallic grey/blue
E=Pale
blue Bflat=Blue-grey
B=Very
pale blue F=Dark red
Such
synaesthetic correspondences, like theosophical thinking, were common in
symbolist circles and indeed have a long history, at least as far back as
Aristotle:
It is
possible that colours may stand in relation to each other in the same manner as
concords in music, for the colours which are (to each other) in proportion
corresponding with musical concords are those which appear to be most agreeable.
[30]
Later
Issac Newton also offered relationships between the seven colours of the
spectrum and the seven notes of a diatonic scale. These ideas were later taken
up by Thomas Young, and in turn the colour theorists, who influenced the
post-impressionists, Helmholtz, Chevreul, Rood and Blanc. An alternative, less
scientific rationalist tradition, which ran in parallel, can be seen originating
in the subjectivist colour theories of Goethe, culminating in the abstract art
of Kandinsky. Goethe wrote:
Colour
and sound do not admit of being directly compared together in any way, but both
are referable to a higher formula, both are derivable, although each for itself
from this higher law. They are like two rivers which have taken their source in
one and the same mountain, but subsequently pursue their way under totally
different regions, so that throughout the whole course of both no two points can
be compared. [31]
The
important point here is Goethe’s belief in a common root, and following both
symbolist and theosophical views, music, closer to the thing-itself, becomes the
route to this root.
Kandinsky
too believed that colour was fundamental in its power to effect the human soul,
as he famously put it in his book Concerning
the Spiritual in Art (1911). Following a discussion of synaesthetic
reactions, in a metaphor that brings together sound, colour and keyboards, he
writes ‘Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano,
with its many strings. The artist is the hand that purposefully sets the soul
vibrating by means of this or that key.’ [32]
Light-keyboards
also have a long technical history, the first documented case being Bertrand
Castel’s ‘clavecin oculaire’ devised in 1734. With the discovery of
electricity, Alexander Rimington breathed new life into the instrument in the
late nineteenth century. Between 1837 and 1925 over three hundred works for
‘colour organs’, as they were then known, were published. Moser’s tastiera per luce, however, existed only
as at most a prototype, and the first performance of Prometheus, which took place under Koussevitsky, with Skriabin as
pianist, on 2nd March 1911, had no accompanying light show. Even when these
experiments did not rely on a direct translation of a musical piece into its
colour equivalent, as some did, they are nearly always based on the same type of
subjective synaesthetic colour-chord relationships as Skriabin’s formulation.
[33] Despite the convenience of the metaphorical use of colours to evoke tone,
we should remember that synaesthesia is real for those who experience this type
of sensory crossover. The phenomenon of ‘colour hearing’, a specific type of
synaesthesia and one of the more common, has been rigorously investigated, but
what emerges from this work is the individualised nature of the experience;
agreements over correspondences seem to be little more than coincidences. [34]
Skriabin’s
motivation behind his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk,
with its acme in the Mysterium, was
characterised by Leonid Sabanayev in his article on ‘Prometheus’ in Wassily
Kandinsky and Franz Marc’s Der Blaue
Reiter Almanac in 1912. In this
essay Sabanayev uses terms very similar to those of Baudelaire in describing the
impact of Wagner’s music: ecstasy was its aim and all senses were involved in
its means.
We
find as much in our contemporary church service - a descendent of classical
mystical ritual - on a smaller scale, the idea of uniting the arts is preserved.
Don’t we find there music (singing, sounds of bells), plastic movement
(kneeling, ritual of priests action), play of smells (incense), play of lights
(candles, lights), painting? All arts are united here in one harmonious whole,
to attain one goal, religious exaltation. [35]
Sabanayev
finds the roots of Skriabin’s mystical-religious Gesamtkunstwerk in classical Greek
ritual, not surprisingly - the same source as Wagner. But as we have seen, this
is not the justification Skriabin himself sought for ‘Omni-art.’ For
example, the title of Prometheus - the
Greek god who saved the world through the gift of fire, but having stolen it
from Olympus was punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock, having his liver
repeatedly torn out by an eagle, until he was set free by Hercules - was read by
some commentators as emblematic of Skriabin’s view of his own artistic role.
The underlying theme of equality with the theme of divinity through imagination
and creativity - the giving of light and spiritual triumph - were, for Skriabin,
grounded in the emergence of human nature at the moment of creation; an event
that is older than its manifestation in Greek culture and thought in Omni-art,
when all was one. [36]
Prometheus, despite its more modest
proportions, is constructed around the same theosophical concerns as the Mysterium was to be. The piano part represents microcosmic humanity,
the orchestra represents the Cosmos. Peppered throughout are various themes that
go by such titles as the Will, Dawn of Human Consciousness (or Reason), Play of
Creative Spirit, Joy of Life, etc. There are eleven motifs in all, generated
from a relatively limited pitch content. The tonal core of the work is the
so-called ‘mystic chord’: C, Fsharp, Bflat, E, A, D (and as we have seen it
forms the key for colour changes; the faster section of the tastiera part). Emphasizing a quartel
arrangement, it lead Sabanayev to account for it in terms of a fourth-chord
overtone theory, as it relates to the upper partials of the harmonic series of
C, but more recent analysis has shown it to be part of a more complex, octatonic
structure grouped around tritones: in pitch-class number notation 0, 1, 3, 4, 6,
7, 9, 10 - 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 or 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 0.
In much the same way that Wagner used
dominant and diminished seventh chords, which hold open the harmonic texture and
thus suspend a sense of closure, so too Skriabin extended the boundaries of
diatonic harmony, providing a ‘climactic end to exhausted possibilities.’ [37] We shall see how things developed beyond this diatonic crisis in the case
of Obukhov. However, in Skriabin’s case, the interlocked tritones at the heart
of such seventh chords (e.g. a dominant seventh chord with a flattened fifth [C,E,Fsharp,Bflat]
consists of two interlocked tritones [C-Fsharp and E-Bflat]), which are used to
generate series of such chords, and extensions into ninths and eleventh chords,
that produce whole-tone and octatonic scales, operating as new harmonic centres
that allow for ‘modulations’. [38] In most of Skriabin’s mature works it
is no longer appropriate to talk of melodic lines, as all is subsumed in the
harmony. Foreground and background elements are compressed into a single
element, developed through motivic fragments. Despite the fact that his later
works have often been regarded as virtually atonal, and therefore without
method, his sequentially developed tritone approach, as explained by recent
investigations, shows how close he came to developing a dodecaphonic method (the
tritone divides the octave into two equal halves - in effect two hexachords). As
the musicologist Ellon Carpenter has pointed out,
Not
until Schoenberg with his twelve-tone technique do we find a composer so
consistent in his compositional technique...and Skriabin comes so close to this
12-note system that it seems probable he would have taken it as the next logical
step. [39]
One of
Skriabin’s followers, a composer who took up the challenge of the ‘extended Gesamtkunstwerk’ and technically
utilised a dodecaphonic method was the little known musician Nikolay Obukhov.
Obukhov
Like Skriabin, Obukhov was a deeply religious man. He left Russia on the eve of the
Revolution, in May 1917 to settle in Paris in 1919, after travelling for two
years through the Crimea. Having previously been a student at the St. Petersburg
Conservatory with Shteinberg and N.N. Tcherepnine, he resumed his studies,
becoming a pupil of Marcel Orban and Maurice Ravel, with whom he studied
orchestration. He later set down his own theories on harmony in his Traite d’harmonie tonale, atonale et totale
(Paris, 1947), for which Arthur Honegger wrote the foreword. Throughout this
period he concentrated on one work, his La
livre de vie (‘The Book of Life’ also known under the Russian title Kniga zhizni), a work of over eight
hundred pages in short-score with a libretto in Russian, composed in seven
chapters (reflecting the six days of creation and the day of rest) and divided
into fourteen stages (étape). The
last of these stages take the form of elaborate, composite, fold-out sheets,
collaged from cloth and coloured paper, stuck, sewn and clipped together, to
form six separate scores. Together they have considerable visual impact, an
effect of obvious importance to Obukhov, that transcends the necessity for
sonoric organisation. The painstaking nature of the manuscript makes the work a
visual art object of an obsessive and haunting, home-made beauty. [40]
Obukhov’s
interest in Russian symbolist thinking is evident in his early songs
(‘liturgical poems’), which date from 1913 and are based on, or around, the
poems of Balmont, many of which were later incorporated into La livre de vie. His aesthetic was driven
by the belief that there was a higher reality to which art could reach. He
differs from Skriabin, however, in the strength of his commitment to
Christianity as a justification for his idealism.
Like Skriabin, Obukhov considered his art to be a means to an end, not simply an
aesthetic product standing alone, and although he felt all five senses should be
involved in this goal, he regarded music as his greatest ally:
...music
enjoys decided advantages which endow it with possibilities of insinuation into
the depths of the soul, and the mind, of emotions inaccessible to other arts.
This faculty resides in the fact that music is hindered less than any other art
in the realisation of its aims by material conditions. [41]
For Obukhov, however, this ‘advantage’ needed to be restated after the
sentimentality and chromatic saturation of romantic music. In the modernist
drive to reinvent the ‘language’ of music, in the pursuit of notions of
purity music had become all system and no heart. He wanted to maintain music’s
spiritual core. He believed that only the employment of a dodecaphonic method of
composition, what he called ‘absolute harmony’, could establish a true
equilibrium of mind and spirit. This was, he believed, in accordance with
music’s origins and would lead humanity to salvation.
Like a
number of early dodecaphonic composers, such as Schoenberg and Hauer, Obukhov
believed that new harmonic ideas and systems of organisation required a
corresponding re-evaluation of musical notation. The problem was that the
conventional system of notation was based on a diatonic foundation, the key of C
major. All other keys are to a greater or lesser extent deviations from it. With
the growth in chromatic music the number of accidentals grew to a point where it
became hard always to discern how they were to be interpreted. Should they be
placed before each new note, or only once within a bar? It meant that a system
devised in relation to a key with no accidentals (indeed they are only
‘accidental’ to C) was having to contain music that shifted key constantly,
or was outside a single key system altogether. Such moves away from accepted
convention and expectation have lead to so many different notation systems in
the twentieth century. [42]
All
notational systems constrain as much as they facilitate expression and
exactitude. The history of such systems provide an account of the priorities
composers place on the elements of music. The most common concern within the
Western tradition has been on issues of pitch and duration, placing less stress
on the precision of other aspects of performance such as timbre, texture, mode
of attack, presentation (the physical presence of the performer before an
audience) and areas of the performance which are left to the creative discretion
of the performer. In addition, notation serves a number of functions: it acts as
an indication of a composers’ intentions for the performer, it allows the
composer to ‘control’ large forces and organise them simultaneously, and
provides a visual record for the analysis and classification of sound. The two
poles around which musical notation has tended to circulate are to reduce
ambiguity as much as possible, providing a transparent medium to intentions, so
that a performer only needs to ‘read’ rather than interpret (to paraphrase
Stravinsky); the other, which has more in common with contemporary theories of
language, sees all notation as a priori ambiguous,
to a greater or lesser extent, and therefore regards notation as a catalyst for
creativity, giving the performer more creative license with the work. The
invention of new musical instruments (including electronics and computers), the
increase in chromaticism, changes in the relationship between composer,
performer, and audience, increasing interest in the graphic (visual), as opposed
to symbolic, character of signs and sonic outcomes; all of these have made
notation a much more various activity by the late twentieth century than it was
at the beginning.
Given
that Obukhov took part in the early rumblings of this process (he dates his
system from 1915), it is perhaps not so surprising that he came up with a fairly
conservative solution. He based his system on equal temperament, divided into
two hexachords (adding to Guido d’Arezzo’s foundational single hexachord
e.g. Ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la (doh-ray-me-fah-sol-lah). [43] In addition to sol-fa
designation, his system designates sharped notes by a ‘x’ (de-re-fe-se-le),
rhythmic values by the conventional tails, and various bar line variations to
designate ‘emotional episodes’ and other phases of significance, in a way
not dissimilar to Messiaen.[44] The importance of equal temperament, and hence
dodecaphony, had mystic significance for Obukhov. The equality of tonal
relations between chromatic notes and their disposition, had, he believed, more
than a simple metaphorical relationship to spiritual equipoise.
Instrument of the ether
In
addition to modified notation, Obukhov also felt the need to supplement the
conventional orchestra with new musical instruments in order to realise his
aesthetic. The most intriguing of these was to be an instrument he called the
‘Ether’. This was either a type of electronically powered wind machine, in
which a large rotating wheel produced a low humming sound [45], or,
theoretically, it was inaudible. Its aim was to produce infra- and ultra-sonic
sounds that ranged from approximately five octaves below to five octaves above
human hearing. [46] The effect of such an instrument was likely to be
physiological, partly depending on amplitude - some ultra-sonic sounds can
induce fits in susceptible people, and infra-sonic sound is most likely to be
felt through slow loud vibrations, as with the rumble of an earth quake. [47]
Given the expanded notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk,
such an instrument would be an effective way of extending sensory experience.
However, there is no record that it was ever constructed.
A more
conventional instrument of his invention he called a ‘Crystal’, a keyboard
instrument where hammers were to strike semi-globes of crystal, rather in the
manner of a celesta. This also, as far as we know, never made it to the
construction stage.
One
instrument that was realised was the ‘Croix Sonore’ or Sounding Cross, [48]
which, together with Michel Billaudot and Pierre Dauvillier, Obukhov devised and
constructed in the 1920’s and early 30’s. [49] Aptly named, it consisted of
a brass cross that acted as an aerial about four feet high, surmounting a globe
with a flattened bottom, about two feet in diameter, which contained the
oscillator, this was inscribed with the name of the instrument in both French
and Russian. The rate of oscillations generated by the valve circuit affect the
pitch, which was modified by moving a hand, or hands, closer and further away
from the aerial/cross, focussing on the ‘star’ between the horizontal and
vertical bars. [50] The Sounding Cross’s most immediate precursor and probable
model is the instrument known as the Thérémin. [51]
Invented
by and named after Professor Léon Thérémin, a Russian scientist of French
descent, this instrument was demonstrated by him in Europe and America between
1927-8. It was first called the Etherophone (bearing another link to Obukhov’s
‘Ether’), but is more commonly known by the name of its inventor. It would
be surprising if Obukhov had not heard of it. In its basic makeup and means of
modulating sound the Thérémin is remarkably similar to the Sounding Cross; it
had two electric circuits, a vertical metal rod and a horizontal metal loop. The
former controlled pitch with the right hand, in the same way as Obukhov’s
instrument, the latter controlled volume, with the left hand. In addition,
harmonics could be switched and filtered through another circuit, producing
changes in timbre. A version was even placed on the market in 1929 by RCA
Victor, together with an electric gramophone on which the provided records could
be played as an accompaniment to the melodies produced on the Thérémin. [52]
Like the Sounding Cross the Thérémin was purely melodic and required the
performer to imagine the sound and check it aurally, the movements to modulate
volume and pitch in both instruments being almost entirely dependent on muscle
memory. Percy Scholes has vividly characterised performing on the Thérémin;
‘The conditions might be described by the terrifying conception of a violinist
with the strings in the air and with no neck or finger board to help him as to
the placing of his fingers.’ [53]
The
slightly earlier ‘Ondes Musicales’ (1928), which, like the Thérémin, is
now more commonly known by the surname of its inventor Maurice Martenot, also
has elements in common with the Sounding Cross, and was on occasions scored in
works by Obukhov. The former is certainly more musically versatile, as possibly
was the Thérémin, but Obukhov’s instrument has greater visual impact. In
addition the mode of varying the pitch with two hands meant that playing the
Sounding Cross often resembled the act of praying, in harmony with his beliefs
as evidenced in La livre de vie. The
shape and make up of the instrument also calls to mind orbs (or regna) as
attributes of kings or emperors. The first visual record of such globes
surmounted by a cross can be traced back to early Byzantine coins, and by the
Middle Ages, most European empires and kingdoms had adopted them as symbols of
sovereignty (used in England since the reign of Edward the Confessor). In
religious paintings they show either the Christ Child as salvator mundi or God as the Patriarch, the king of kings. [54]
Whether the resonance of this design was used by Obukhov for both regal and
religious symbolism I can only speculate [55], but it is clear that its visual
design and performance were of primary concern within the Gesamtkunstwerk, not merely a result of sonoric function.
The Sign of the Cross
The
religious symbolism of this work is rather convoluted and hard to fathom; for
example, there appear to be four central characters in La livre de vie, Christ, Judas, the Dove and the Dragon, who are
incarnated into one spirit called the ‘Blessed One’, who in turn is the
symbol for humanity. During the course of the work these various characters
separate to combat one another, after which, at the climax of the work, they are
reunited. Like Skriabin, Obukhov too argued that his Gesamtkunstwerk was not simply a spectacle; indeed, like the Mysterium, there were to be no
spectators. All involved would play a part:
...some
like priests will take part directly in the action, the others witness it,
participating mentally like the faithful in church. [56]
We
have already seen Sabanayev’s use of the analogy of a church service to
explain Skriabin’s Gesamtkunstwerk,
but where the Mysterium was largely
theosophical, Obukhov’s work more closely echoes Christian theology,
especially Russian Orthodoxy. He called the work a ‘sacred action’, for
which he was merely the vessel through which it passed. At the heart of both
works is the notion of transformation, but where Skriabin believed his work
would help bring about a shift from a material to a spiritual plane through de-materialisation,
Obukhov, seeing the human race on the threshold of perdition, conceived his art
more as an act of propitiation. [57] Central to both works is the idea of
religious ecstasy, ‘the final cry of a soul that has soared to paroxysms of
ecstasy’, as Baudelaire put it in his letter to Wagner. It is music that is in
large part able to achieve this. As the paradigmatic mechanism for
transformation or assuagement, its non-materiality, both metaphorically and (so
Skriabin and Obukhov believed) literally, acts as a bridge to the realm of the
spirit. The transformation brought about by the Gesamtkunstwerk is paralleled in the
transubstantiation of matter into divine spirit that is at the climax of the
Catholic Mass, and the less absolute consubstantiation that is central to
Orthodoxy. Within the Russian Orthodox church the importance of music as a
central part of the ritual, as a vehicle of communion, is likewise analogous to
music’s role in both Skriabin and Obukhov’s broader aesthetic.
In
many ways Obukhov’s theology shares characteristics with the movement that had
been of influence in the decades before his arrival in Paris, the Salon de la Rose + Croix,
founded by Joséphin 'Sâr' Péladan. Péladan’s symbolist sect was
characterised by a mix of Wagnerian ideas and occult Catholicism. It was part of
a reaction against naturalism, and sought to promote an idealism, which has its
roots in the early seventeenth-century, German mystical brotherhood ‘The Rosy
Cross’, named in honour of the fourteenth-century knight Christian Rosenkreutz.
According to his followers Rosenkreutz had studied with Paracelsus and the sages
of Damascus. Building on this foundation the brotherhood aimed to unify all
knowledge in preparation for the Last Judgement. [58] Despite the fact that
Rosenkreutz probably never existed, and that the whole thing was a ploy by Johan
Valentin Andreae, a Lutheran mystic who composed the most famous Rosicrucian
text The Chemical Wedding (an
alchemical allegory), such ideas of synthesis and unification took a hold on the
imagination of occultists that lasted for many hundreds of years.
Synthesis
and unification are at the heart of Obukhov’s aesthetic of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and the image of the cross is central to La livre de vie. Even in its notation,
and especially in sections viii, ix and x of the seventh climatic chapter, which
are made from scores in the shape of the cross, ix is constructed with the first
part at the top, the second at the bottom, third on the left and fourth on the
right, so as one reads it the eye make the sign of the cross. The design of the Croix Sonore stands as a symbol of
equilibrium, with the orchestra allied to the four elements: air = woodwind and
brass, earth = percussion, fire = strings, and water = keyboards. He also
required the participants to make the sign of the cross as a part of the visual
ritual of performance. Like Skriabin, who initially conceived the Mysterium taking place in a circular
temple, Obukhov imagined a similar structure with those not directly involved in
the performance at its centre. One commentator described its staging:
When
the ‘Book of Life’ is performed, by which I mean when it is lived, the
spectators, the participants will be arranged in spirals, in the interior of a
circular and raised scene. The ‘terrestrial’ orchestra will be coiled up
around the scene. A dome will contain the ‘celestial’ orchestra. Lighting
changes will intervene in the ‘Sacred Action’, a synthesis of cult and orgy
(the latter meant symbolically). Such is the ritual where science and religion
are married. [59] [a ritual in the style of a true Rosicrucian alchemical
image.]
Theosophists
found much in Obukhov’s aesthetic that was sympathetic to their own ideas.
Part of La livre de vie was performed
at a theosophical venue (the Salle Adyar) in 1926, but the major performance of
parts of this huge work in the form of a symphonic poem, fully orchestrated,
under the title Préface du la livre de
vie (‘Preface of the Book of Life’), took place on the 3 June, 1926 at
the Paris Opera, under the baton of Skriabin’s one time patron, Serge
Koussevitsky. [60] It is scored for a large orchestra, including celesta, four
harps, two pianos and male and female choirs, with the text in French rather
than Russian, as in La livre de vie
itself. The piano parts were played by the composer and the musicologist Nicolas
Slonimsky. However, the audience’s reaction did not, surprisingly, match
Obukhov’s ambitions. During the interval a member of the audience advised
Slonimsky that for his own safety he should put up a sign saying ‘I am not the
composer’. A later performance of parts of the La livre de vie was also staged in Paris
on May 15, 1934, and provoked a similar reaction from the critics and audience.
As this is one of only a handful of first hand accounts, it is worth quoting in
full. Under the headline, ‘Titters Greet Music of Obouhoff in Paris:
Singers’ Strange Performance Accompanied by Electrical Instrument, Causes
Stir’, a New York Times correspondent
reported,
A
Paris concert audience was stirred, and while it squirmed and tittered, tonight
when Nicholas Obouhoff presented parts of his ‘Book of Life” and hitherto
unknown “Annunciation of the Last Judgement,” to the accompaniment of the
new electric musical instrument, the croix sonore.
Henry
Prunieres introduced the concert, warning the audience that it was going to hear
chords played on the piano, notes sung by a human voice and sounds drawn from an
instrument such as it had never heard before. Even this warning, however, did
not prepare the listeners for the sudden “shriek” - there is no other word
for it - of Suzanne Balguerie on the opening note of one of Obouhoff’s
liturgic poems. There was no warning, either, when the singer suddenly began to
whistle instead of sing. Some members of the audience thought it was one of
their number expostulating in the classic manner and began to cry, “Hush!
hush!”
Prunieres
had praised the courage of the singers, Mme. Balguerie and Louise Matha, in
attempting music so new, and as they produced strange note after strange note
many felt that this praise was well merited, if only because their mastery of
their effects prevented the audience from tittering more loudly.
In
“Annunciation of the Last Judgement” the singers stood together, one gowned
in white, the other in red, while Obouhoff and Arthur Scholossberg played two
pianos, and Princess Marie Antoinette Aussenac de Broglie, apart and
sacramentally gowned in black, blue and orange, drew from the croix sonore notes
that throbbed like twenty violins or at times sang like a human voice. In all
this, it was the instrument that had the most success. Obuhoff, it is said,
dreamed of it long before the invention of the radio made application of the
principle possible. He wrote music for it, calling it “the etherphone”. Out
of it, by moving the hand back and forth, the Princess de Broglie drew an
amazing sweetness or the most dreadful note, like the knocking of fate, to give
Obouhoff’s strange religious music far more power that his two pianos or even
the distortions of his singers’ voices could produce. [61]
Technically
the work is dodecaphonic, with little repetition within a cycle of twelve notes:
‘I forbid myself any repetition: my harmony is based on twelve notes of which
none must be repeated. Repetition produces an impression of force without
clarity; it disturbs the harmony, dirties it.’ [62] The notion of
non-repetition is the same for Obukhov as it was for Schoenberg: if notes are
repeated too frequently within a cycle of twelve one returns to a position of
atonality (an arbitrary choice). Therefore, to maintain a systematic approach,
non-repetition is essential. The melody line is derived from the harmony as a
horizontal unfolding of the twelve-note complexes, producing a conflation of
foreground (melodic) and background (harmonic) elements. The voice is rarely
‘accompanied’ in unison (for this would produce a type of repetition), and
there is much use of vocal glissandi, producing a non-tempered, micro-tonal
contrast to the twelve-note organisation. Singers are also requested to change
from normal voice to falsetto (often within a single phrase) and to sing with
closed mouths, to mummer, whistle, wail and sigh. The feature of glissandos is
made more pronounced by the use of the Sounding Cross, which provides an ideal
means for executing them.
The
following examples demonstrate a number of these aspects of Obukhov’s method.
The first [Example 2] shows the block twelve-note harmony, although four chords
each have a note doubled, Fsharp, D, Dsharp and E, so the rule against
repetition is not absolute in practice. The second [Example
3] shows the way the
harmony is ‘horizontalized’ to produce a melodic line - the pedal builds the
melodic elements into the final twelve-note chord. The third [Example 4] shows
the vocal line complementing the ‘accompaniment’, so that it helps complete
the twelve-note cycle (but again with limited repetition). The final [example 5]
demonstrates the polyphonic combination of the four main characters, Judas, the
Dove, Christ and the Devil, with the use of vocal glissandi.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In
many ways such cataclysmic summa as the Mysterium
and La livre de vie had to remain
unfinished and unperformed, for although they are an answer to the questions
posed by Wagner in his conception of the art work of the future, it is hard to
imagine how to move beyond such messianic conceptions. The art works of the
future remain just that, of the future.
Full
assessment of the oeuvre of artists whose summa remain unrealized is
problematic. Driven to this point by deeply held spiritual beliefs - indeed they
act as the raison d’être for the
formal developments - such utopian visions were doomed to remain unfulfilled.
But such ambitions as Skriabin’s and Obukov’s, to synthesize their aesthetic
beyond music alone, provide us with a view of modernist practise which has often
been overlooked in the definition of modern art as a drive towards purity.
The
American art critic Clement Greenberg has provided an explanation of modernism
which is predicated on such a notion of purism;
The
arts lie safe now, each within its ‘legitimate’ boundaries, and free trade
has been replaced by autarchy. Purity in art consists in the willing acceptance,
of the limitations of the medium of the specific art...
The
arts, then, have been hunted back to their mediums, and there they have been
isolated, concentrated and defined. It is by virtue of its medium that each art
is unique and strictly itself. To restore the identity of an art the opacity of
its medium must be emphasized. [63]
What
we have uncovered in our investigation of Skriabin and Obukhov is a counterpoint
to this ‘willing acceptance’; artists who sought to secure aesthetic
expression through synthesis and who maintained ‘free trade’. Their work
makes our understanding of modernity both more complex, and resonant with the
hybridity of the postmodern.
See
Boris de Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and
Mystic (translated by N. Slonimsky, Oxford, 1987, first published in part in
1923). This work, while being by no means disinterested in its subject, nor
accurate in all regards, is nevertheless an extremely important primary source.
Like John Cage, Skriabin preferred conversation as a way of expressing his
aesthetic, and this presents its own difficulties of consistency and reflection.
Schoezer’s more academic approach helped to order and characterise the nature
of Skriabin’s thinking, making his book a fascinating mix of analysis and
empathy.
Wagner’s
essay ‘The Art Work of the Future’ had been dedicated to Feuerbach.
Quoted
after M. Brown, ‘Scriabin and Russian Mystic
Symbolism’ Nineteenth -Century Music
(vol. 3, 1979,) p. 44.
See
his poem ‘Tri podviga’ (‘Three exploits’), 1882.
Schloezer,
op. cit. p. 66.
Steiner
was also influenced by Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk in his belief that drama
could act as a route to religious understanding.
The
best and most entertaining account of the history of theosophy and other related
occult ideas is P. Washington’s Madame
Blavatsky’s Baboon: Theosophy and the Emergence of the Western Guru
(London, 1993)
For a
detailed account of the impact of theosophy in Russia see Maria Carlson, “No Religion Higher than Truth”: A
History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875-1922 (Princeton, 1993)
Schloezer,
op. cit. p. 68.
Published
by the London Theosophical Publishing Company in two volumes. A third volume was
published in 1897 by the Theosophical Society.
See C.
Leadbeater, Man Visible and Invisible (Adyar,
1959) for a characterisation of this.
Thought-Forms
(London, 1925, reprinted 1980) p.
67
Letter
to Morozova, 1906. See F. Bowers, Scriabin:
A biography of the Russian Composer, 1871-1915 (Tokyo and Palo Alto, 1970,
vol. ii, p. 49 (first pub. 1969)
Quoted
after Brown op. cit p. 50
See
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy,
section. 21.
Quoted
after The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music (ed.
G. Hindley, reprint 1979, London) p.346.
Zolotoe Runo/ La Toison d’or, 1905, pp. 5-6.
It is
interesting to note that Wagner’s own sensitivity extended to an appreciation
of other senses. His rooms in Briennerstrasse in Munich were draped in satin and
silks; materials he also preferred to wear, the feel of which he found conducive
to thinking, together with the smell of his favourite scent, attar of roses,
which he had sent direct from Paris.
Scloezer,
op. cit. Chapter 5, pp. 177-290.
Ibid,
chapter 6, pp. 291-306.
Quoted
after V. Markov, Russian Futurism: A
History (London, 1969), p. 302.
Ibid,
p. 284.
One of
the most radical was by the futurist Vasilisk Gnedov who was notorious for his Poem of the End, which consisted of no
words but rather a gesture; a single, sharp circular movement of the arm. This
work has points of contact with Cage in as much as a ‘surpressed’ aspect of
poetry (the body and physical presentation) is promoted over its central and
conventional defining character, word.
‘What Is the Word?’ in Charters and Declarations of Russian Futurists (Moscow, 1914). His
associations are: G = yellow-black (selfishness), K = black (hate), Kh = grey
(fear), R = red (sensuality), S = blue (spirit), Z = green (transformation), Zh
= yellow (intelligence).
Markov,
op. cit, p 176.
S. M.
Tagore, Universal History of Music
(Calcutta, 1896)
See
Schloezer op. cit. pp. 264-5.
Quoted
after Bowers The New Scriabin: Enigma and
Answers (London, 1974), p. 72.
We
know Skriabin’s colour and notated pitch relations through an annotated score
to which the composer also attached a table of colours (acquired by the Bibliothèque
nationale in 1978, catalogue no. Rés. Vma 228)
See K.
Peacock, ‘Synaesthetic Perception: Alexander Scriabin’s Color Hearing’, Music Perception, summer 1985, vol. 2,
No.4, pp. 483-505, quote p. 490 after a report by Meyer (‘Two cases of
synaesthesia’, British Journal of
Psychology, 7, 1914 pp. 112-117).
Quoted
after C.L. Eastlake in J. Goethe’s Theory
of Colour (MIT, 1978) p.418.
Ibid,
pp. 298-9, para. 748.
K.C.
Lindsay and P. Vergo (eds. and trans.) Kandinsky:
Complete Writings on Art (London, 1982), p. 161.
| C=White | Fsharp=Greyish green |
| G=Brownish grey | Dflat=Dusky, warm |
| D=Yellow | Aflat=Greyish violet |
| A=Clear rose | Eflat=Dark blueish grey |
| E=Blue (sapphire) | Bflat=none |
| B=Dark blue (shot with grey) |
F=Green |
See L.E. Marks, The unity of the senses:
Interrelations among the modalities (N.Y. Academic Press, 1978)
Sabaneev,
‘Prometheus’ in Kandinsky and Marc Der
Blaue Reiter Almanac (reprint, New York, 1974), pp. 129-130.
Nietzsche
felt that the Apollonian image had concealed the Dionysian primordial unity. On
the title page of his The Birth of Tragedy
out of the Spirit of Music (1872) the philosopher had represented
Prometheus, unbound and triumphant over the eagle, a triumph of will and art
over the bonds of a restrictive society.
As
Faubion Bowers has described Skriabin’s development of Wagnerian extended
tonality, see op. cit (1974).
For a
more detailed analysis of Skriabin’s technique see Dernova, Garmoniya Skryabina (Leningrad, Muzyka, 1968), translated as Varvara Dernova’s Garmoniia Skriabina: A
translation and critical commentary (Catholic University of America, 1979).
Also Russian Theoretical Thought in Music,
ed. G. McQuere (UMI, 1983) especially the chapter on Dernova by R.J. Guenther,
pp. 170-213. An excellent summary can be found in Bowers, op. cit. 1974, pp.
146-171. Also of note is J. Reise, ‘Late Skriabin: Some Principles Behind the
Style’ 19th-Century Music, vol.3,
1983, pp. 220-231.
Quoted
after Bowers ibid p. 171.
The
manuscript is held in the special collection of the music department at the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris under the number MS 15226.
Quoted
after M. Orban, ‘Nicolas Obouhow: un musicien mystique’ La Revue Musical, XVI, 1935, pp. 100-108, quote p. 102.
For
Schoenberg’s solution to the same problem see Style and Idea (London, 1984) pp.
354-362. The Russian composer and painter Jefim Golyshev simultaneously invented
a new notational system based on ‘x’s for sharps, but as he was then (1915)
resident in Berlin, it is therefore likely that both Russian musicians derived
their approaches from an earlier Russian model.
Guido
d’Arezzo (c. 995-1050) introduced the movable doh system in the eleventh
century. The names he used are taken from a Latin hymn for the Feast of St. John
the Baptist of four centuries before, in which each line begins one note higher
than the last - a theological circumstance that would not have been lost on
Obukhov.
Obukhov’s
explanation of his notational system can be found in the score to Préface du La livre de Vie held in the
special collection of the music department at the Bibliothèque nationale de
France in Paris. There was also a volume of standard works published by Durand
in Paris in 1947 using this notation, among them works by Chopin, Beethoven,
Schumann, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel and, interestingly, Messiaen (a prelude).
See
Hugh Davis, ‘Croix sonore’, in the Groves
Dictionary of Musical Instruments (vol. I, pp. 516).
See M.
Orban, op. cit., p. 104.
A more
recent example is the ‘Sensurround’ system devised for the 1970’s film Earthquake, which employed low-frequency
pulses and deliberately unsteady camera work, aiming to recreate the sensation
of being in an earthquake. There have also been experiments (unsuccessful) in
‘smell-o-vision’, not to mention Aldous Huxley’s vision of the
‘feelies’ in Brave New World.
In
Russian, zvuchashchui krest.
A
prototype was apparently demonstrated in Paris in 1926, the final version was
presented in 1934. (see Hugh Davis’ entry on this instrument in the Groves Dictionary of Musical Instruments (vol. I, pp. 515-6) which
also includes a line drawing of it.
See E.
Ludwig, ‘La Croix Sonore’, La Revue
Musicale 1935, pp. 96-99.
I am
grateful to Hugh Davis for pointing this out to me.
It can
be heard in the soundtrack to Hitchcock’s film Spellbound, and in the recording of the
Beach Boys’ hit Good Vibrations.
The Oxford Companion to Music
(Vol. 10, reprinted 1972) p.321.
For
example Mantegna’s painting The Holy
Family with St. John (c. 1500) National Gallery, London (NG 5641) and
Italian Florentine painting, God the
Father (c. 1420-50) National Gallery, London (NG 3627).
Boris
de Schloezer, ‘ Nicolas Obukhoff’, La
Revue Musicale, 1, part 3, Nov. 1921, pp. 38-56, quote from p. 54.
Sabaneev
ascribes a political purpose to the work - 'the restoration to the throne of the
last Russian Emperor, who is supposed to be alive and well, but in hiding.' 'Obukhov',
Musical Times, October 1, 1927. I have
been unable to find any corroboration for this view except the symbolism of the
Sounding Cross.
See F.
Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (Arkana,
1986)
Quoted
after Oban, op. cit. p. 107. Larry Sitsky, in his book Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929 (Greenwood
Press, Westport Connecticut and London, 1994) ascribes the design of this temple
to the artist Natalia Goncharova, pp. 257. This book also contains a useful
alphabetical list of Obukhov's manuscripts.
Sitsky
also mentions French Radio broadcast extracts from La livre de Vie, and that a film was made
by Germaine Dulas on the subject which had limited distribution in France and
Italy in 1935. op. cit. p. 259.
New York Times, May 16, 1934, p. 23.
Quoted
after Schloezer op. cit. p. 47.
Greenberg,
‘Towards a Newer Laocoon’ Partisan
Review, vol. vii, no. 4, New York, July-August 1940, p.305.
