Scriabin Recital With Lighting Effects

[THEHORN]

The Georgian pianist Eteri Andjaparidze gave an all Scriabin recital the other day in New York.
But this was no ordinary piano recital . It used spectral lighting effects and exotic colors to add to the mood .
Knowing Scriabin's penchant for extravagant effects like this, do CMGers think this is a legitimate tool for
recitals like this ? As is well-known, Scriabin had the strange neurological ability called synesthesia, in which
the brain links the different senses such as hearing and vision, in strange ways, so that some one with literally seems to see sound as colors .

[johnQpublic]

Don't see why not; it should have been fun to attend that recital.

Hey, man, in the early 70's I went to a Virgil Fox psychedelic light show concert. It was groovy with all those colors flashing all over. I think some dude played a "heavy organ" while they were flashing, but I'm not sure if I was hallucinating. Peace!

[jbuck919]

Don't see why not; it should have been fun to attend that recital.

Hey, man, in the early 70's I went to a Virgil Vox psychedelic light show concert. It was groovy with all those colors flashing all over. I think some dude played a "heavy organ" while they were flashing, but I'm not sure if I was hallucinating. Peace!

That's a little different (as I'm sure you know). Virgil Fox was close to being to the organ what Liberace was to the piano. Scriabin is all over the place to me, but mostly in some kind of neverland. Using visual effects during a performance of his music could be interpreted as admitting that it does not stand on its own as an auditory experience of art.

[PJME]

Several attempts have been made to perform "Prométhée" with (some sort of) a light-organ.

Here's: http://youtu.be/VvzyU-9mUaY

Promethée, ou le Poème du Feu (Symphony no.5)


Peter Jablonski, piano
Mayuko Iguchi, light-and-colour keyboard
Kunitachi Music College chorus
NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo
Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor

February 25, 2006 NHK Hall, Tokyo
The 80th anniversary concert in NHKSO establishment

[Chalkperson]

Virgil Fox was close to being to the organ what Liberace was to the piano.

That's dead right, he should have been playing Vegas...

[John F]

I saw a performance of Scriabin's "Prometheus" with lighting effects such as Scriabin prescribed. It was given in 1998 by the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein, complete with color organ. I've no way of knowing how faithful this was to what Scriabin wrote in the score, which I've never seen. Much earlier, I'm sure Leopold Stokowski would have used a color organ when he conducted the piece in the '20s and '30s.

Incidentally, I've found a recording of a Stokowski performance, made in stereo (!) by Bell Labs on March 12, 1932 in the Academy of Music. Remarkable.

http://www.stokowski.org/sitebuilderfil ... p_60_1.mp3

http://www.stokowski.org/sitebuilderfil ... rack_2.mp3

[PJME]

For even more information on Prométhée/Prometheus, see:

http://prometheus.kai.ru/perform_e.htm

P.

[maestrob]

I saw a performance of Scriabin's "Prometheus" with lighting effects such as Scriabin prescribed. It was given in 1998 by the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein, complete with color organ. I've no way of knowing how faithful this was to what Scriabin wrote in the score, which I've never seen. Much earlier, I'm sure Leopold Stokowski would have used a color organ when he conducted the piece in the '20s and '30s.

Incidentally, I've found a recording of a Stokowski performance, made in stereo (!) by Bell Labs on March 12, 1932 in the Academy of Music. Remarkable.

http://www.stokowski.org/sitebuilderfil ... p_60_1.mp3

http://www.stokowski.org/sitebuilderfil ... rack_2.mp3

Now THAT was truly amazing......Thanks JohnF for that!

[Bro]

Yes, I agree that lighting effects would be very appropriate for Scriabin. Even better when the artist brings out the colors in a vivid and dramatic fashion in performance,the way Horowitz did.

I guess I prefer the light show in my own imagination..

Bro

[ChrisX]

Found this one while doing some digging myself inspired by this thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3B7uQ5K0IU

I would have loved to have been at this concert.

[John F]

Interesting, that Scriabin notated not only colors but images in his manuscript of the work. As far as I know, the published score doesn't include all that, just notation for the "color organ."

[PJME]

From Russia, with love...and mystery!

Scriabin's "tastiera per luce" : http://prometheus.kai.ru/luce_e.htm


P.

[John F]

Mystery indeed. The translation from the Russian is so bad that much of the analysis comes out as gobbledygook. Vanechkina says, "This part [Luce] has been written using ordinary note signs, and contains no indications of colors corresponding to the notes. Neither Scriabin left any verbal instructions of this kind." Scriabin may have thought he didn't need to, any more than giving verbal instructions of frequencies corresponding to the notes in the musical score. Vanechkina's other essay quoted in this thread, also garbled in translation (and Judith Somogyi's name comes out "L. Somogie"), takes up the issue; however, the vitally important images are not displayed, making her discussion rather unhelpful.

For brief, intelligible, and helpful explanations, see Wikipedia's articles on Scriabin's piece and the particular color organ he most likely had in mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus:_Poem_of_Fire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavier_%C ... i%C3%A8res

The first of these says, "The clavier à lumières is rarely featured in the performance of the piece, including performances during Scriabin's lifetime." The second says that the clavier à lumières itself, invented in 1893 and available at least in theory when Scriabin composed "Prometheus" in 1910, wasn't actually built until 1915, the year of Scriabin's death, for a New York performance of the work.