Scriabin, Alexandr (EN)

Scriabin Alexandr Nikolayevich, *6 January 1872 (25 December 1871) Moscow, †27 (14) April 1915 Moscow, Russian composer and pianist. He came from a noble family with rich military traditions, known already in the 13^th century. Scriabin’s father, Nikolai Alexandrovich, was a lawyer (later a diplomat), and his mother, Lyubov Petrovna Scriabina (née Schetinina), a student of T. Leschetizky, was the first concert pianist in Russia. After his mother’s death (1873), his upbringing was taken care of by both his grandmothers and his aunt Lyubov Aleksandrovna Scriabin, his father’s sister, while his father remained abroad, working as a translator and Russian consul in Constantinople and Bitola (Macedonia), and in 1880, he started a new family. The lack of contact with his father in childhood, compensated by women who spoiled Scriabin, influenced his neurotic and egocentric personality until adulthood, according to biographers.

Raised in the spirit of a love of music, Scriabin, even in his early childhood, regularly attended concerts of the Russian Musical Society and opera premieres at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, constructed toy piano models, and improvised on the themes of melodies he had heard. His first piano teacher was his aunt; he began taking regular music lessons in 1883 from G. Konius and then entered the famous piano class of N. Zverev, where he met S. Rachmaninoff and A. Goldenweiser, among others. While studying under Konius, Scriabin composed his first compositions – Prelude and Canon in D minor for piano (1883). In 1882–87, he studied in the cadet corps of the military school in Moscow, where his uncle Vladimir Alexandrovich Scriabin was a tutor and lecturer. He enjoyed many privileges there: he lived in his uncle’s house, he did not have to participate in military exercises, and in return, he often entertained his superiors by playing the piano.

In January 1888, he entered the Moscow Conservatory, studied piano under W. Safonov, counterpoint and composition under S. Taneyev, and from 1889 he also studied under A. Arensky, whom he offended by expressing a lack of admiration for Tchaikovsky’s work. Relations with Arensky were quite tense throughout his studies; it is believed that Arensky’s dislike determined the outcome of Scriabin’s piano studies – he graduated with a small gold medal, while the large gold medal was awarded to Rachmaninoff. In 1892, Scriabin left the Conservatory without a diploma in composition. By then, he had already composed a dozen or so piano pieces – including a five-voice fugue, two mazurkas, two waltzes, Nocturne in A-flat major, Sonata-Fantasy in G-sharp minor, Ballade, Hungarian Rhapsody, and Rondo for orchestra.

In his youth, Scriabin was often admired for his musical abilities; he was cherished by his family and teachers as a “child prodigy,” but he often struggled with psychological problems. He was very sensitive about himself and prone to depression, suffered from somnambulism, and easily came into conflict with those around him. In 1886, while riding in a carriage, he had an accident and injured his right arm; this resulted in many years of manual problems, which intensified during intensive piano practice. The partial use of his hand, diagnosed by doctors as semi-paralysis, saved him from military service in the Russian army in 1893.

In the spring of 1892, Scriabin gave his first piano recital, organised in Moscow by the Circle of Music Lovers in the private salon of E. Gunst, the patron of the arts. That same year, Scriabin’s first piano pieces with opus numbers were published: Waltz in F minor, Op. 1, and 3 Morceaux, Op. 2, and in 1893, 10 Mazurkas, Op. 3, and 2 Nocturnes, Op. 5. In the summer of 1892, Scriabin went on his first foreign trip to Finland and Latvia, and a year later, he stayed at the Safonov villa in Crimea, where he went for a hand treatment. On 11 February 1894, Scriabin’s concert took place in St. Petersburg. The composer met M. Belyaev, a wealthy Russian industrialist and music publisher, who became a sponsor of his concerts and editor of his works. Belyaev’s favour contributed to the composer’s brilliant career in the coming years. After recitals in St. Petersburg (7 March 1895) and Moscow (11 March 1895), Scriabin gained very high critical acclaim both as a pianist and a composer whose work was then compared to the music of Chopin for the first time.

At the beginning of 1896, Scriabin went on a concert tour of Europe with great success; his foreign debut took place on 15 January in Paris, followed by a series of recitals, including in Brussels, Berlin, Amsterdam and Cologne. During his stay in Paris, Scriabin became a member of the prestigious SACEM association. In the spring of 1896, at the invitation of his father, he was in Rome, where he began work on his first orchestral piece (Allegro symphonique), which he did not finish.

In 1897, Scriabin married Vera Ivanovna Isakovich, a talented pianist, and P. Schloezer’s student at the Moscow Conservatory. Although their marriage lasted only a few years, the couple had a son, Lev, and three daughters: Rimma, Elena and Marina. In 1898, Scriabin also began teaching. At Safonov’s persuasion, he took up the position of piano professor at the Moscow Conservatory, and in 1900, he became the music inspector at the St. Catherine’s Institute. According to the testimony of one of his students, M. Nemenova-Lunc, as a teacher, he emphasised the development of musical imagination, adapting technical requirements to the individual abilities and personalities of his students.

In 1899, Scriabin became acquainted with Prince S. Trubetskoy, a professor of philosophy at the University of Moscow and president of the philosophical society, and became acquainted with, propagated by Trubetskoy, views of V. Solovyov, considered to be the precursor of symbolism in Russian poetry; reading the works of Russian symbolists (including V. Bryusov, A. Blok and A. Bely), as well as philosophical works (including the neo-Kantian J. Paulsen, K. Fischer and V. Windelband) influenced the formation of Scriabin’s aesthetic attitude. On 11 November 1900, the first performance of Scriabin’s Symphony No. 1 took place in St. Petersburg, without the last movement, which the members of Belyaev’s publishing board (N. Rimsky-Korsakov, A. Glazunov and A. Lyadov) considered impossible to perform due to the introduction of a vocal part; the work was presented in Moscow a few months later. Both concerts were received coldly by both critics and audiences. Symphony No. 2 suffered a similar fate; Scriabin, close to a mental breakdown, resigned from teaching at the conservatory in May 1902. In 1898, he met Tatiana de Schloezer, with whom he became permanently involved in 1904 during his stay in Switzerland. From this informal union (Vera Scriabin refused to consent to a divorce), three children were born: Ariadna, Julian and Marina; two of Scriabin’s descendants died during his lifetime: a daughter, Rimma (1905) and a son, Lev (1910).

From 1904, Scriabin’s financial situation deteriorated radically. After Belyaev’s death, the council of executors of his will terminated the composer’s previous contract, offering only fees – significantly lower than those previously received – for the delivered scores of new compositions. This began a series of conflicts between Scriabin and the publishing house, ending in 1906 with a temporary severance of relations. After the intervention of V. Stasov, to whom Scriabin appealed for help, Belyaev’s publishing house proposed resuming cooperation. In 1906–08, the composer was financially supported by his former student and friend M. Morozova.

At the turn of 1906/07, Scriabin went on a concert tour in the United States, organised by his friend from studies, M. Altschuler, a cellist and conductor. Concerts and recitals in New York, Washington, and Chicago, among others, were rather coldly received. In February 1907, Tatiana de Schloezer came to the United States; the news of her informal relationship with the composer soon became a sensation in the American press. Scriabin, fearing the consequences that had befallen M. Gorky the previous year (who was forced to leave New York with his concubine in an atmosphere of scandal), broke off his contract and returned to Europe. He lived briefly in Paris and then in Lausanne. In Paris, he established relations with S. Diaghilev, who was then organising the first Russian Season. Choreographic plans for Diaghilev’s ensemble to perform Scriabin’s Symphony No. 2 came to nothing because of a conflict provoked by the composer.

In 1908, Scriabin and his new family moved to Brussels, where he became close to the theosophists of the White Lodge; he met, among others, the symbolist painter J. Delville (later the author of the cover of the score of Prometheus), and read the writings of R. Steiner and H. Blavatsky. The inspiration from the theosophists’ views found expression in his own concept of music, which he was formulating at the time, understood as a quasi-realistic mystery serving the spiritual transformation of the recipient. Scriabin shared these new ideas with S. Koussevitzky, who offered him his help. Koussevitzky’s financial support meant salvation for the composer for the next three years; however, this friendship, confirmed by joint travels in Russia and Germany in 1910–11, was abruptly broken.

The year 1909 began a series of successes for Scriabin in Russia, where he was finally appreciated as a composer and pianist. On 19 January, the first performance of the Poem of Ecstasy took place in St. Petersburg, and after another concert (31 January), Scriabin was offered the honorary position of superintendent of the Tsar’s chapel, which he did not accept. At the beginning of 1910, he returned to Russia and settled in Moscow. On 15 March 1911, the Moscow first performance of Prometheus took place. The program booklet for this concert included a literary programme of the work written by L. Sabaneev. Thanks to Rachmaninoff, Scriabin had many concerts at home and abroad at that time, which improved his financial situation. In 1913, he gave a series of concerts and recitals in London, which increased his fame; the performance of Prometheus conducted by H. Wood (1 February) brought particularly enthusiastic reviews. In the summer of 1913, he was in Switzerland, where he met I. Stravinsky. At that time, he was sketching the score of the mystery, or rather its “preliminary act” (Acte préalable), and also planning a trip to India, which he considered the best place to realise this creative idea. On this trip, he was to be accompanied by a friendly Russian journalist and publisher, Alexander Nikolayevich Brianchaninov, who gathered information about India for the composer and arranged his contacts with authorities in the field of occultism and secret knowledge. Scriabin’s last public performance took place in Petrograd on 2 April 1915; this recital, consisting exclusively of his own piano pieces, was a great success for the composer. A dozen or so days later, on the morning of Easter Sunday, Scriabin died of a blood infection.

In European music at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Scriabin’s work occupies a separate place and does not fit into any of the emerging trends of musical modernism at that time. Its face was primarily determined by the composer’s very radical artistic worldview, which, to a large extent, determined his creative achievements and ultimately led to the development of an original and specific musical language. Scriabin’s aesthetic views were shaped by the philosophy of E. Swedenborg and German idealism (G.W.F. Hegel, F.W.J. von Schelling and F. Nietzsche), the poetry of Russian symbolists (K. Balmont, W. Bryusov, A. Blok and V. Ivanov), as well as theosophical thought (especially the writings of H. Blavatsky and R. Steiner). Like the symbolists, Scriabin understood art as the highest form of knowledge, attributing divinity to the creator, i.e. the unfettered power of artistic creation, which was a replica of the act of Creation. In his notes and texts for some of his works (The Poem of Ecstasy, Acte préalable), there is a clear thread of the freedom apotheosis of the creative spirit, whose “ultimate goal is to renew the harmony of the world, i.e. ecstasy” (Prometheische Phantasien, p. 72). Scriabin’s musical system is based on two fundamental ideas: the principle of universal analogies and the principle of universal vibration; both have their source in theosophical doctrine, especially in the oldest alchemical treatise, the Emerald Tablet attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. This found expression, among other things, in the search for the divina proportio of musical form, the striving to create a closed harmonic-melodic system, and the attempt at a synesthetic presentation of a musical work as an ecstatic mystery combining sounds, colours, smells, and the expression of a dance gesture.

Scrabin’s work, in terms of genre limited to piano and symphonic music, shows a significant evolution of style. Three stages can be distinguished: the first (up to 1903), comprising youthful works, three sonatas and two symphonies, was a direct continuation of the legacy of musical romanticism; the second (1903–08) saw the crystallisation of the composer’s individual style; Sonatas No. 4 and No. 5, Symphony No. 3 and the Poem of Ecstasy were written in this period; the last stage (1908–15), initiated by Prometheus, was characterised, on the one hand, by the exploration of the possibilities of his own system on the basis of fort music (Sonatas No. 6–No. 10), and, on the other, by the obsessive idea of ​​creating an opus vitae – a monumental mystery for a large vocal-instrumental apparatus accompanied by the play of coloured lights, the scent of incense and dance.

Scriabin’s early work was strongly influenced by Chopin’s music, manifesting itself not only in reaching for the forms of Chopin’s piano miniature (mazurka, polonaise, impromptu, preludes and etudes) but also through frequent references to the harmonic language of the Polish composer (Chopin’s chord). N. Rimsky-Korsakov, reviewing Scriabin’s youthful scores, is supposed to have said that the young adept of composition found a dusty suitcase full of Chopin’s unpublished works in an old attic and presented them as his own. Symphonies and piano sonatas from this period are characterised by a free treatment of the sonata cycle, sometimes reduced to two (Sonata-Fantasia No. 2) or expanded to five (Symphony No. 2) or even six movements (Symphony No. 1). Characteristic is also the striving to integrate the form through thematic material common to individual movements, as well as the preference for development as the most extensive link in the sonata allegro; in his later works, the introduction of a second development between the recapitulation and the coda would become a rule (Symphony No. 3, Poem of Ecstasy, Sonata No. 7, No. 8 and No. 10). The harmony of Scriabin’s early works does not differ in principle from the norms of the extended system of major-minor functional tonality; however, the primary importance of chromaticism and the avoidance of the keynote as the centre of functional references are clear (e.g. in the Etude in C sharp major, Op. 8, No. 1, the tonic chord appears only towards the end, in the 40^th bar). The composer’s individuality is manifested, above all, in the specific programme nature of some works, expressed by the apotheosis of transcendent values ​​(Hymn to Art in the last movement of Symphony No. 1, States of Soul as the subtitle of Sonata No. 3).

Towards the end of his first creative period, in 1901–1903, Scriabin undertook the project of composing an opera, which he abandoned for unknown reasons. He wrote only a short, poetic sketch of the libretto, covering four scenes. The main character of the opera was to be an unnamed philosopher, musician and poet in one person, endowed with the power of agency equal to that of a god, who wins the king’s daughter; they feast together and then die united in the ecstasy of love. The first source of the concept of mystery should be sought in this creative idea.

The works of the second period, however, remain under the influence of R. Wagner and R. Strauss, visible especially in the gradual departure from the functional tonality of major-minor, increasingly complex texture and expanded instrumentation. Scriabin’s approach to traditional forms is characterised by the reduction of the sonata cycle to a single-movement form and the accompanying enrichment of thematic material (in the Poem of Ecstasy, there are as many as nine independent thematic ideas). Moreover, symptomatic of Scriabin’s symphonic and piano works after 1903 is the reference to the category of the poem, which can be interpreted, on the one hand, in the aspect of the heritage of the romantic tradition of narrative-musical form (symphonic poems by F. Liszt and R. Strauss), and on the other as evidence of the metaphysical aspirations of the composer, searching for a universal message of his own work also outside of music. The term “poem” appears in the titles of his last three symphonic works and as many as ten piano pieces (from Op. 32 to Op. 72), constituting almost one third of his piano works written since 1903. In many of Scriabin’s works from this period – and also later ones – we find the importance given to numbers in shaping the form, expressed in the proportions of the duration of individual parts measured in bars; for example, in the Poem of Ecstasy, the sizes of all the parts are multiples of the number 36 (the double Pythagorean tetractys), while in Prometheus, the moment of climax, i.e. the transition from development to recapitulation, falls at the point of the “golden section” (in the 374^th bar of a composition spanning 606 bars).

Wagner’s influence on Scriabin’s work from the second period is evidenced primarily by the use of the large apparatus of the late Romantic orchestra, while at the same time preferring the sound mass of individual instrumental sections and the chromatisation of the harmonic language, leading to a complete break with tonality. The orchestra of both symphonic works composed at that time includes, in addition to string instruments, a quadruple cast of woodwind instruments, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, two harps and extensive percussion; in the Poem of Ecstasy, there is also an organ. In terms of harmony, the use of seventh, ninth and then eleventh chords with alternation of individual components is characteristic. In Sonata No. 4, a Tristan chord appears, and in the Poem of Ecstasy — a dominant ninth chord with a doubly altered fifth, which can be reduced to a whole-tone scale. Scriabin’s harmony, considered to be the element of his compositional style that underwent the most dynamic changes, crystallised into an individual and innovative system, present in his work starting with Prometheus (1910). Evidence of profound stylistic and aesthetic changes can be found in the piano sonatas, with a clear caesura occurring between Sonatas No. 5 and No. 6 – works separated by a five-year break in composing this genre. The breakthrough concerns primarily the sphere of musical expression. While in the first five sonatas, Scriabin limited himself to using traditional, Italian expressive markings, starting with Sonata No. 6, there is a consistent transition to French and a far-reaching expansion of the vocabulary of expressions, rich in poetic metaphors. The most telling example of the “poeticization” of musical matter can be found above the 298^th bar of Sonata No. 6, where the performance cue takes the form of a whole verse as if taken directly from a literary work: “l’épouvante surgit, elle se mêle à la danse” (“terror is born and joins in the mad dance”).

The basis of the harmonic language of Scriabin’s late works is the fourth chord: C-F-sharp-B-flat-E-A-D, called by the composer himself a synthetic chord, and by researchers of his work referred to as, among others, a mystical chord (L. Sabaniev), a Promethean chord (J. Beer), and a sound centre (Z. Lissa). It is identical to the hexatonic scale, following Scriabin’s view that in his music “melody is a distributed harmony, and harmony is a condensed melody.” The synthetic chord and its inversions and transpositional varieties determine the principle that unifies the sound space in the vertical and horizontal dimensions; they determine the homogeneity of the chords giving the impression of continuous vibration while being at the same time a source of themes and counterpoints. In his last work – sketches for a planned mystery play (Acte préalable), Scriabin extended the synthetic chord to twelve-note structures. This gave some researchers (G. Eberle, Z. Lissa) the basis for considering his harmonic system as a forerunner of A. Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic technique. There are three hypotheses regarding the genesis of the synthetic chord: the first – adhering to the composer’s views – assumes that this chord was discovered purely intuitively, subconsciously; according to the second, it is the result of the gradual evolution of the harmonic language, reaching back to Chopin’s harmony (Z. Lissa); the third hypothesis connects its structure with a series of component tones of sound and the law of natural resonance (L. Sabaniev). In light of this last view, the synthetic chord is an extension of the concept of the perfect chord, which would justify its use by Scriabin in the function of a consonant chord that does not require resolution. Prometheus. The Poem of Fire, Scriabin’s last completed symphonic work, is a hybrid composition combining the features of a symphonic poem, a cantata, a concerto (due to the virtuoso piano part) and a multimedia spectacle based primarily on the interdependence of sound and colour. This work was the first to reveal the composer’s aspirations to create – following R. Wagner’s example – a “total work of art” appealing to various senses. The sources of Scriabin’s concept are seen in his individual ability of so-called colour hearing (audition colorée), consisting of the direct association of specific sounds or chords with their corresponding colours. According to the principle of universal analogies adopted by the composer, the individual tones – the “points” of the circle of fifths – are to be equivalent to the subsequent colours of the light spectrum: C – red, G – orange, D – yellow, A – green, E – blue, B – white, F-sharp – indigo, D-flat – violet, A-flat – lilac, E-flat – steel, B-flat – grey, F – purple.

The reflection of Scriabin’s synaesthetic projects in Prometheus is the two-voice “luce” part included in the score – a fulgent illumination of colours accompanying the sound concretisation of the work. The upper voice is directly connected with the harmonic sphere of the work; the change of colour here corresponds to the central sounds of the successive synthetic chords. The lower voice of the “luce” part, on the other hand, has a symbolic justification; as a gradual transition along a circular line, the beginning and end of which are marked by blue, and the middle by red, it fulfils a programmatic function, expressing the cyclical evolution of the human spirit. As a result of the overlap of both these light streams, constantly “counterpointing” the sound layer of the work, an additional, third colour was to be created – in accordance with the physical laws governing the mixing of colours.

The realization of the “luce” part required the use of a special apparatus for the projection of coloured lights in close connection with the course of the sound centres, referred to in the score as clavier à lumière. Scriabin counted on this role to be fulfilled by the instrument invented in England in 1895 by W. Rimington or another specially constructed by one of his friends, A. Mozer. Unfortunately, it was not possible to obtain any of these devices for the Moscow premiere of Prometheus; the first “complete” presentation of the work using the so-called chromola, invented by the American P.S. Millar, did not take place until May 1915 in Carnegie Hall in New York, a few weeks after the composer’s death. The full realisation of the concept of a total work of art outlined in Prometheus, understood in eschatological categories, was to be brought about by the mystery – the composer’s opus magnum, conceived as a “cosmic liturgy” engaging all the senses of its potential participants. Scriabin’s dream place for the “celebration” was to be a temple in India, built on a lake; its semicircular shape, reflected in the mirror of the water, would create the illusion of complete sphericity. The originality of this project lies primarily in breaking the traditional barrier between performers and recipients – participating in a joint dance. From this perspective, the mystery appears as a foreshadowing of the 20^th-century happening.

After completing Prometheus, Scriabin devoted himself to piano compositions and to working on Acte préalable. This text is a complex and enigmatic literary structure. Lyrical and dramatic fragments are interwoven, and sometimes a narrator appears, reporting the action in the third person, which gives the work epic features. Marina Scriabine, the composer’s youngest daughter and the author of the second French translation of the work, interprets it in the categories of a mythical poem or even – considering its content scope – a cosmic epic. The formal and ideological shape of this text was significantly influenced by the concept of monumental drama developed by the younger generation of Russian symbolists, especially by V. Meyerhold, V. Bryusov, A. Bely and Scriabin’s friend V. Ivanov.

The extraordinary power of Scriabin’s creative personality made his work widely discussed both in Russia and throughout Europe. The system of centroid harmonics became a direct inspiration for younger representatives of the Russian avant-garde of the time, finding its development in dodecaphonic concepts of pitch organization, such as Zwölftondauer-Musik by J. Golyshev, “absolute harmony” by N. Obukhov, and the systems of organising sound material by N. Roslawiec, A. Lourié, and I. Wyschnegradsky.

In his main work, Le livre de la vie (1918–ca. mid-1920s) – a liturgy for solo voices, two pianos, orchestra and the so-called croix sonore (an instrument similar to ondes Martenot, designed by the composer at the time) – Obukhov also referred to Scriabin’s mystery project. In the second half of the 20^th century, several attempts were made to complete Acte préalable; the reconstructions of this piece by A. Nemtin (1973) and M. Kelkel (Tombeau de Scriabin 1974), based on 53 pages of Scriabin’s sketches, were received with appreciation. Scriabin’s idea of ​​a synthesis of sound and colour also found numerous continuations. The rich reception of Prometheus resulted in the construction of many new, increasingly precise instruments serving as clavier à lumière: from L. Moholy-Nagy’s Light Prop (1920) through H. Goepfert’s optophonium (1926), T. Wilfred’s clavilux, N. Schöffer’s musiscope (1960), to the groundbreaking use of computer technology (Antwerp 1988).

Scriabin also had a significant influence on numerous representatives of other fields of art. He was primarily an idol of Russian symbolists, who admired him and drew inspiration especially from the message of Prometheus and the idea of ​​mystery. K. Balmont expressed his fascination with Scriabin in the text The Sound of Nature and Scriabin’s Light Symphony (1917) and also made the composer the hero of his poem entitled Elf. V. Bryusov paid tribute to Scriabin in a sonnet entitled On the Death of Scriabin (1915). Scriabin’s footsteps were followed by French painters gathered in the Association des Artistes Musicalistes, founded in Paris in 1932 (including G. Bourgogne, H. Valensi, Ch. Blanc-Gatti), who proclaimed and implemented in their works the postulate of “musicalising” the visual arts, referring to the existence of analogies in the perception of visual and auditory impressions.

Literature: Pieriepiska A.N. Skriabina i M.P. Bielajewa 1894–1904, ed. W. Bielajew, St Petersburg 1922; Pisma Skriabina, ed. L. Sabaneyev, Moscow 1923; Aleksandr Skriabin. Cały jestem pragnieniem nieskończonym. Listy, selection, translation and biographical note by J. Unicka, Kraków 1976; L. Sabaneyev Wospominanija o Skriabinie, Moscow 1925; B. Asafyev Skriabin. Opyt charaktieristiki, St Petersburg 1921; A. Lourié Skriabin i russkaja muzyka, Moscow 1922; B. de Schloezer Aleksandr Skriabin, Russian ed. Berlin 1923, French ed. Paris 1975; Z. Lissa O harmonice Aleksandra Nikołajewicza Skriabina, doctoral dissertation, abstract in “Kwartalnik Muzyczny” 1930 No. 8; L. Danilewicz Aleksandr Nikołajewicz Skriabin, Moscow 1953; F. Bowers Skriabin. A Biography of the Russian Composer, 1871–1915, Tokio 1969, 2^nd ed. 1995; M. Kelkel Aleksandr Skriabin. Un musicien à la recherche de l’absolu, Paris 1999; I. Bełza Skriabin, transl. J. Unicka, Kraków 2004; T. Baranowski Profile Skriabina. Szkice z poetyki twórczości, Białystok 2013 [the works includes the only Polish translations of Scriabin’s texts – opera’s libretto and Acte préalable]; Skriabin. Mistyczna droga muzyki, ed. J. Szerszenowicz, Łódź 2016; “Muzykalnyj sowriemiennik” 1915/16 No. 4/5 (includes articles by J. Engel, L. Sabaneyev, B. de Schloezer, A. Avramov and V. Karatygin as well as reminiscence by M. Niemenowa-Łunc and M. Kaszkin, reprint in: “Russkaja muzykalnaja gazieta” XII 1915/1 1916); L. Sabaneyev Prometheus von Skriabin, in: Der Blaue Reiter. Ein Almanach, ed. F. Marc and W. Kandinsky, vol. 1, Munich 1912; J.M. Chomiński Kolorystyka dźwiękowa Skriabina and Koordynanty trytonowe i półtonowe w akordyce Skriabina, “Muzyka” 1959 No. 2; Z. Lissa Do genezy „akordu prometejskiego”Aleksandra Nikołajewicza Skriabina, “Muzyka” 1959 No. 2, also “Musik des Ostens” 1963 No. 2 and in: Studia nad twórczością Fryderyka Chopina, Kraków 1970; Z. Lissa Chopin i Skriabin, in: Russkopolskije muzykalnyje swiazi, ed. I. Bełza, Moscow 1963, also in: Studia nad twórczością Fryderyka Chopina, Kraków 1970; J. Beer L’évolution du style harmonique dans l’oeuvre de Skriabine, Paris 1966; G. Eberle Zwischen Tonalität und Atonalität. Studien zur Harmonik Aleksandr Skrjabins, Munich 1978; S. Kosz Symbolika formy w sonatach fortepianowych Aleksandra Skriabina, «Muzyka Fortepianowa» VII, in: «Prace Specjalne Akademii Muzycznej w Gdańsku» No. 42, 1987; D. Mirka Teozofia, muzyka i światło. O funkcji światła w poemacie symfonicznym „Prometeusz” Aleksandra Skriabina, «Zeszyty Naukowe Akademii Muzycznej w Bydgoszczy» No. 4, 1993, T. Baranowski Idea korespondencji sztuk w twórczości Aleksandra Skriabina, in: Pulchritudo delectans. Korespondencja. Na styku sztuk, ed. K. Klauza and J. Cieślik-Klauza, Białystok 2017.