Skryabin, Philosophy and the Music of Desire by Kenneth M. Smith (review)

Kenneth M. Smith’s monograph provides an interdisciplinary study of Aleksandr Scriabin’s music through Scriabin’s own philosophy of desire (as well as philosophies that he was exposed to), semiotic-psychoanalytical theory, and music analysis. While there is already a great body of analytical work on Scriabin’s music, there are fewer works that try to shed light on Scriabin’s music through his own philosophical ideals. Smith’s book addresses this important gap; he examines Scriabin’s music through extramusical interpretations, which he ties to selected musical works. The book provides an important intersection between the composer’s ideology and his art, something that is often overlooked in the scholarly world.

The book is organized into five chapters (and a short introduction). Each chapter begins with quotations largely drawn from Scriabin and Leonid Sabaneev (Scriabin’s close friend and biographer), expressing Scriabin’s idiosyncratic ideas on tonal eroticism, polarity of the sexes (masculine/feminine), and musical sensuality (pp. 1, 6, 46). In the introduction to his book, Smith criticizes previous writings on Scriabin’s music. By dividing them into two categories, he identifies those who have tried but failed to link Scriabin’s philosophical beliefs to his music (Alfred Eaglefield Hull, Scriabin: A Great Russian Tone-Poet [London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1918]; Leonid Sabaneev, Vospominaniia o Skryabine (Reminiscences about Scriabin) [Moscow: Klassika XXI, 2000]; Alfred Swan, Scriabin [New York: Da Capo Press, 1969]; among others) and those who have mainly focused on Scriabin’s music, neglecting his philosophy altogether (Varvara Dernova, Garmoniia Skryabina (Scriabin’s Harmony) [Lenin grad: Izd’vo Muzyka, 1968]; James M. Baker, The Music Of Alexander Scriabin [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986]; George Perle, “Scriabin’s Self-Analyses,” Music Analysis 3, no. 2 [ July 1984]: 101–22; and Peter Sabbagh, The Development of Harmony in Scriabin’s Works [U.S.: Universal Publishers, 2003]; among others). Thus, through an interdisciplinary approach, Smith attempts to present a more complete understanding of Scriabin’s music—music that is generated through the composer’s readings and understanding of different philosophical writings (Russian and Western) and Scriabin’s own writings and views on theosophy, the origin of the universe, and human desire. Smith also goes on to apply a psychoanalytical approach to some of Scriabin’s ideas on sensuality and sex. (This mostly resonates with post-Freudian psychoanalysis, largely drawn from Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva’s approaches.)

In chapter 1, Smith immediately turns the reader’s attention to Scriabin’s interdisciplinary interests. He closely examines some of the poetry that Scriabin wrote for his works. In discussing Sonata no. 4, Smith notes that the work is Scriabin’s “earliest serious attempt to musically capture this blithe and vivacious spirit of flight as a creative act of will” (p. 8). He ultimately draws parallels with Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Sunrise, which focuses on the same imagery. Smith discusses the imagery in Scriabin’s poem (e.g., “longing,” “engulfing,” “ecstasy,” and “divine creative flight”) and its manifestation on the musical surface through the tempo indications (from Andante to Presto volando) and upward pianistic gestures (pp. 8–11). Chapter 2 focuses on various discussions of womanhood from the Russian symbolist writings of Vyacheslav Ivanov to Jacques Lacan’s theories of male fantasy. Further, Smith tries to firmly establish the importance of the female in Scriabin’s philosophical thought and her importance in his musical creative process (pp. 51–59). This important meditation on the female gender paves the way to the central chapter of his book (chapter 3), which synthesizes the philosophical discussion in the previous two chapters with lengthy music analyses, especially that of Vers la flamme, op. 72 (pp. 86–96).

Smith considers Scriabin’s music against the backdrop of his writings in chapter 3, especially poems dedicated to specific pieces (e.g., Poème de l’extase and Prometheus, among others). This chapter also integrates...