Lecture Recital: Inkyoung Lee "Scriabin's Music and Philosophy"
Lecture - Scriabin's Uniqueness: His Music and His Philosophy;
Scriabin - Sonata No. 3 in F sharp minor, Op. 23
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What a satisfying event! Finally music brought me closer to the ecstasy that Scriabin had been living for.
This afternoon I went to the Music School Britton Hall to listen to Inkyoung Lee's lecture and piano recital. Only a dozen of audience, and I sat in the front. Inkyoung Lee was a student getting her Doctorate of Musical Arts. She wore black suits and glasses, well composed. She was Korean with weak accent. She showed a powerpoint presentation, and she was reading from her notes. It was a pleasure to listen to her clear speech, and watch her sutble Asian feminine confidence throughout the lecture. She was a mature music scholar.
Four years ago I downloaded all the Scriabin music I could find on the internet, but I didn't listen to him much before my computer crashed. I knew little of Scriabin, the composer and his music, comparing to his contemporaries Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and later Prokofiev and Schostakovich. Once I attended a LA Philharmonic concert including Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy (Le poeme de l'extase) and in the concert notes they talked about the "immoral" life Scriabin was conducting. He was living with a woman outside marriage for years. When he came to America for a concert, they were arrested (or something like that) because it was illegal to be staying in the same hotel room while unmarried in the States. I also remembered the Poem of Ecstasy had something to do with sexual ecstasy. Beside these, I had studied a Scriabin Prelude in high school with my piano teacher Li Juhong. All I remembered was, "Scriabin is not Rachmaninoff".
On the powerpoint screen, Scriabin's dates were shown as 1871-1915. I was happy to see the conincidence that he was exactly 100 years older than me. It turned out he was born on Christmas Eve 1871 but according the western calendar that would be 1872 January 6. Anyway, that was close enough. Soon I am learning a lot about Scriabin. He lost his mother when he was one year old, and grew up with his aunt a pianist, and two grandmothers. He studied piano in Moscow Conservatory with "the most fashionable piano teacher and a homosexual" (name?), and his fellow student included Rachmaninoff. When they graduated, Scriabin got a "small gold medal" while Rachmaninoff got a "big gold medal". Lee mentioned that this could be a reason why Rachmaninoff's genius died when he graduated, while Scriabin's genius began to develope. Unlike Rachmaninoff, Scriabin never cared about what other people thought about him and his music, so he was free to create and to be himself. His first marriage failed but his wife (also a pianist) kept supporting him in his career. For the rest of his life he was with another woman who was once his student (they started when she was 15). Together they had some more children. He died from an infection, before he could make his religious trip to India.
Scriabin was not only a musician but also a philosopher. He subscribed Theosophy, and believed that music was a window through which we connect with everything in the world (how come I cannot find this quote on the internet???). This is the same philosophy that I have, or we all have. He was a mystic. He believed that ecstasy and intoxication would bring people to the exalted state (I am paraphrasing again). It seems that Scriabin was also once enlightened, and he wanted to communicate his love and his vision with the world through his music. In his notebook he wrote many "insane" words, such as:
I am God! I am nothing, I'm play, I am freedom, I am life. I am the boundary, I am the peak.Oh! Have I not utter such insane words when I was in my rapture of being God? Where were my words?
I am everything... /I am not myself... /I. /AM. /BEING. /There is only me./There has always been me./There has been no past, no present, no future./There is only me....Anyway, Scriabin and I have met, in this life, through our shared philosophy. I don't know if I agree with him about the ecstasy and the intoxication method to reach God, but maybe it was his way to be enlightened and creative.
"I am Ocean, Light, God, Life, Love, World, Universe, Everything, Nature, All, Existence, Choice, Infinity, Man, Buddha..."
Lee also talked about Scriabin's Synesthesia, but the idea left little impression for me. Scriabin had no perfect pitch, and his color scheme were not always the same. I would think it was an attempt for Scriabin to find correlations and similarities among different human experiences. I could well find in muisc such concepts as numbers, words, or motions of the stars.
After the lecture, Lee played Scriabin's Sonata No.3. Scriabin described this composition as "Etats d'Ame" (soul-states), and the notes for the four movments are:
The free, untamed Soul plunges passionately into an abyss of suffering and strife.
II
The Soul, weary of suffering, finds illusory and transient respite.
It forgets itself in song, in flowers...
III
The Soul floats on a tender and melancholy sea of feeling. Love, sorrow, secret desires, inexpressible thoughts are wraithlike charms.
IV
Now the elements unleash themselves. The Soul struggles within their vortex of fury. Suddenly, the voice of the Man-God rises up from within the Soul's depths.
The song of victory resounds triumphantly.
But it is weak, still...
When all is within its grasp, it sinks back, broken, falling into a new abyss of ... nothingness.
Lee's performance was with such assurance, passion, precision, and understanding, that I was almost moved to tears, feeling the struggle of the Soul of Scriabin and Music and Humanity. This was the first time Scriabin's music and I clicked. I was so happy to know Scriabin through Inkyoung Lee.
After I left the recital, I went to library and checked out all the Scriabin CDs I could find there, and bought a few more at Encore Recording. Now I have 13 more Scriabin CDs to listen to. And I want to learn more about his life and his philosophy. If we continue to click, I want to carry on the work he left unfinished. I want to use music to express my Love and Life.
One of the CDs I got: Alexander Scriabin Symphony No 3 in C minor 'Le Divin Poème' (1903) Concertgebouw Orchestra/Kiril KondrashinLive recording of a concert on 12 February 1976, ETCETERA KTC 1027 [46:01]
p.s. I was thinking, if an insane Russian sexually obsessed male composer from a century ago could communicated to me in Michigan through a young peaceful Korean woman, then I would say, music is the window through which we all connect.