At the Crossroads of the Senses

DH 4.2. Aleksandr Scriabin, Color-Tonality for “Prometheus,” 1909-10 and Score Annotations, 1913

This page showcases Scriabin’s color-tonality wheel following the circle of fifths along with a selection of his comments on the autograph score of Prometheus. See below Ana Gawboy and Justin Townsend’s reconstruction based on Scriabin’s annotations on the autograph Paris score in Gawboy and Townsend, “Scriabin and the Possible,” MTO 18.2 (2012). Example 10. Tonal distance measured in the number of fifth transpositions separating one chordal root from another.

On the title page of Scriabin’s autograph score held at Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Scriabin wrote out the colors he associated with the twelve Mystic chords. Based on Scriabin’s instructions, critics have reconstructed his color-tonality wheel.

Below are also Scriabin’s handwritten comments over the Luce part noting the colors and lighting displays he imagined for Prometheus at rehearsal marks 1, 2, and 10. As my color-coded translation shows,contrasting blue and red lightning bolts and green and red flashes strike over the music.

This page has paths:

  1. Music: Chapter 4 - Scriabin Polina Dimova

This page has tags:

  1. Color-Sound Disks Polina Dimova

This page references: