Home
AudioAsylum Trader
Classical Court

From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here.

For Sale Ads

FAQ / News / Events

 

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.

You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login


Login to access features only available to registered Asylum Inmates.
    By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username:

The Name that you picked or by default, your email.
Forgot Moniker?

 
 

Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".

Password:    

Forgot Password?

 Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:  
Your Email:  
Subject:  

Message Comments

   

Original Message

I guess I don't read that Wikipedia article the same way you do

Posted by Chris from Lafayette on February 19, 2021 at 17:26:36:

Per the very same Wikipedia article:

Modest Altschuler, who helped Scriabin revise the score in Switzerland in 1907, and who conducted the premiere with the Russian Symphony Society of New York on 10 December 1908, reported that Scriabin's implied program (which does not appear in the score) is based on three main ideas: his soul in the orgy of love, the realization of a fantastical dream, and the glory of his own art.
Hmm. . . maybe he was referring to tantric sex in the part I bolded! ;-)

I agree with you to the extent that, with music being fundamentally abstract, one can't say for sure whether its "meaning" consists of one thing or another - or both or neither. The fact that well known musicians like Sudbin acknowledge that there seems to be a sexual element in it is interesting however - and the work's eroticism is a well known part of the lingua franca in discussions and writings about the music. You're welcome to have your own ideas about the work, but you can't deny that the sensual aspects of this music pervade the general knowledge about this work throughout the world.

Another thing about the Wikipedia article is that it quotes only four of the over three hundred lines of Scriabin's poem. Fortunately, the Bowers biography to which I referred to earlier has the whole poem, and includes some of the more juicy parts which Wikipedia left out:

It [the spirit] lingers with a kiss
Over a whole world of titillation [. . .]

Horrors lift up your heads
Try to destroy me,
Caverns of dragons' mouths
Serpents twist around me
Constrict me and bite me [. . . ]

The wave of my being
Has already seized you.
You are quivering already! [. . . ]

I will bring you
The magical thrill
Of scorching love
And unimagined caresses.
I will drown you in oceans of bliss
And beloved kisses
Of great heaving waves [. . . ]

And then in torrents of flowers
I will lie upon you
With all aromas and scents.
I will bask languidly
In this play of fragrance
Now tender, now sharp
In the play of touches.
And, sinking into passion,
You will
Whisper
Again and
Ever again!
Then I will plunge. . .
With savage torment and terror
I will crawl upon you. . .
And will bite and choke you.
And you will want me
More madly and more passionately.
Then I will lie upon you
Under rays of celestial suns.
And you will burn with the fires
Of my emotion,
The holy
Flames of desire.

[and so on],

Maybe the poem was not "inspired by some sex craze", but it sure sounds pretty close to me! ;-)

Finally, you DO know that it's a cop out to claim that the only legitimate Scriabin biographical sources are in Russian, right? And in any case, you do know that some Scriabin biographies originally written in Russian, e.g., the one by Boris de Schloezer, have been translated into English, no?