Mysterium (Scriabin)
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Mysterium is an unfinished musical work by composer Alexander Scriabin. He started working on the composition in 1903, but it was incomplete at the time of his death in 1915.
Scriabin planned that the work would be synesthetic, exploiting the senses of smell and touch as well as hearing. He wrote that
- "There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours."
Scriabin intended that the performance of this work, to be given in the foothills of the Himalayas in India, would last seven days and would be followed by the end of the world, with the human race replaced by "nobler beings".
At the time of his death, Scriabin left 72 pages of sketches for a prelude to the Mysterium entitled Prefatory Action. These sketches have been completed by Alexander Nemtin and recorded.
One of the key components of later Scriabin compositions is related to his preliminary thinking for the "Mysterium". The so-called "Mystic Chord", C F# Bb E A D, is featured in many of Scriabin's works from the "Poem of ecstasy" onwards and particularly in the "Black Mass" piano sonata. This chord was to provide the tonal framework for "Mysterium" rather than conventional tonal triads. The "Mysterium Chord" is almost a whole-tone scale but with one constituent pitch-class raised a semitone, turning the Fortean aggregate 02468T into 013579. Later on in the 20th century the scale/harmony influenced composers such as Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen and Toru Takemitsu.
