Symbolist gestures

Four thinkers who influenced Scriabin Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher (pictured below), who laid the foundations of the Symbolist movement with his The World as Will and Representation, a work every intelligent Russian took time to read, including Scriabin – witness his extensively annotated copy. Schopenhauer’s claim that ‘Music gives the innermost kernel preceding all form, of the heart of things’ clearly inspired Scriabin.

Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900)

A major influence on the early Russian Symbolist movement, Solovyov (pictured above) believed that art was a means to ‘the metamorphosis of physical life into spiritual life’. He also taught: ‘For true creation, it is essential that the artist should not remain with his clear and separate consciousness, but should emerge from it, in ecstatic inspiration.’ Scriabin’s

Poem of Ecstasy reflects that concept.

Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949)

Symbolist poet, classical scholar and essayist (pictured top), a friend of Scriabin’s from

1909. Ivanov introduced the composer to the philosophy of Solovyov, while his own concept of a Dionysian, collective drama that would unite mankind was an important inspiration for Scriabin’s Mystery. Both Ivanov and Scriabin believed Wagner approached music’s transcendental potential – Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is a clear influence on Scriabin’s Divine Poem.

HP Blavatsky (1831-1891)

Russian émigré founder of the Us-based Theosophical Society, which claimed to be promoting an ancient wisdom preserved by spiritual adepts known as Masters mostly based around Tibet and India. Many leading creative figures became involved in Theosophy, including Thomas Edison, WB Yeats, Kandinsky and the English composers Foulds and Holst. Scriabin read Blavatsky’s The Key to Theosophy and Secret Doctrine with great interest.