The Pocket Mahlerian: Michelle Castelletti and her Journey into Mahler 10

Dead men tell no tales, so the old adage goes. Posterity often finds, on the other hand, that their unfinished works have much to say.

Whether by the likes of Nabokov, Michelangelo, Schubert, or Brian Wilson, the romance of incipient expression struggling against the void has long exerted a powerful grip on the collective imagination. In the realm of classical music, perhaps no other unfinished work has generated more interest—and debate—in the recent past than Mahler’s Symphony No. 10.

Its tale is one now well-known to many listeners, with details of what actually occurred during its genesis now inextricably blurred within the mists of posthumous legend. What is certain is that its performance pre-history came to a definitive end when English musicologist Deryck Cooke revealed his first “performing version” of Mahler’s sketches on a BBC program commemorating the centennial of the composer’s birth. Since then a veritable cottage industry of Mahler Tenth completions and editions, some wildly unlike each other, have proliferated: ranging from the austere conservatism of Cooke and Joe Wheeler, to the opulent re-composition of Clinton Carpenter.

Into this crowded field steps Michelle Castelletti, Maltese-born conductor, singer, and composer, whose own version of the Tenth represents a “third way,” eschewing both the radical interventionism of Carpenter and the perhaps excessive reticence of Cooke. Far from distancing herself from the notion of “completion,” Castelletti embraces it.

Her edition also adds a surprising, un-Mahlerian wrinkle to the tale of the Tenth: it is the first one to be scored for chamber orchestra. Consequently, the reduced forces highlight this symphony’s foreshadowing of musical developments to come from the likes of Schoenberg, Schreker, and Eisler.

Listeners can hear Castelletti’s edition for themselves thanks to a recent recording issued by BIS, with the Lapland Chamber Orchestra under the direction of John Storgårds. The results are, at least to this initially skeptical Mahlerite, surprisingly persuasive.

I contacted Dr. Castelletti last month and she graciously answered my questions about her new edition of the Mahler Tenth, a symphony whose legacy seems to be as much a reflection of its composer’s intentions as it is increasingly of our own current aesthetic preoccupations.

“Hail to the future conductor who will change my scores,” Mahler once exclaimed. Castelletti rises to this challenge, meeting it with a Mahlerian mixture of boldness and scrupulousness that could very well have impressed the man himself.

Néstor Castiglione: At the end of the 20th century, unfinished works, particularly from the Late Romantic era, began to exert a powerful hold on the imaginations of musicians, scholars, and the listening public. What do you believe accounts for this phenomenon? 

Michelle Castelletti: The element of “discovery” is innate.  [In our time there have been completions of] Puccini’s Turandot, Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, and Elgar’s Third Symphony; but there were others from other eras, too, like Mozart’s Requiem, attempts at Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony, or Mahler’s own retuschen of Bach, Beethoven, and Weber. The Late Romantic era was so big, rich, and bold; a period which grew so much harmonically, reaching out to the 20th century, that there [remains] a vastness to discover, with plenty of space for “what ifs” and interpretation. 

N. C.: The inspiration for your own performing version of this symphony has been the similar arrangements of Mahler and Bruckner that were made for the Society for Private Musical Performance (Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (VfMP)) by the likes of Schoenberg and Erwin Stein. Why was this so?

M. C.: I believe that Mahler's writing was moving towards a different sound. One need only listen to his Eighth Symphony, followed by Das Lied von der Erde and the Ninth to hear that progression. I also felt that the sparseness of the texture adds an element of transparency that makes all the individual lines clearer. A chamber orchestra allows for this to happen. To be honest, though, the whole idea came to me more from a research angle while doing my Ph. D. It was my absolute obsession with Mahler, coupled with my love for color and orchestration, which led my Ph. D. supervisor, Prof. Paul Max Edlin (himself a great Mahler fan, as well as an orchestration expert), to suggest having a look at the Mahler Tenth. I never turned back. It became more than just a project. Even my closest friends called Mahler “the man in my life!”

The period was also one in which there seemed to be more interest in large works arranged for chamber orchestra, with other symphonies, including some by Mahler, being arranged in [this way in] recent years. In terms of instrumentation, I wanted to try to re-create the sound of the VfMP, also because I thought it added to the authenticity of it; of a sound world that both Mahler and Schoenberg were familiar with and part of. For example, the harmonium I wrote for is the Mustel 1902 Harmonium, with two manuals and with 4’, 8’, 16’, and 32’ stops.  This is contemporaneous with the period [with the period of the Tenth’s composition]; a double-manual Art-Harmonium by Mustel, Paris 1902 has been used for other re-orchestrations, such as Erwin Stein’s chamber orchestra version of the Mahler Fourth and the Schoenberg/Riehn version of Das Lied von der Erde.  It felt like becoming part of that glorious fin de siècle Secession era.  There were also already a few completions for full orchestra, all quite different from each other.  Mine was going to be the only one for chamber forces.

Apart from all of this, [a chamber orchestra arrangement] also made me feel closer still to Mahler’s own sketches. I felt that I could pair up and interpret his intentions better with a chamber orchestra […] Having said that, I have loved not only completing the symphony, but orchestrating it as well. Aside from the detective work with the manuscripts, it was the part of the process I enjoyed most.

N. C.: How long did your project take?  

M. C.: The whole project took a few years. Initially, I spent more time studying Mahler's other works, the arrangements of the VfMP, and getting used to Mahler's modus operandi: his handwriting, identifying the different inks, locating the various sketches; as well as analyzing other completions, and seeing what I would do and say that would make a difference to what was already available. The process was almost a cross between trying to be a historian and musicologist on one hand, and a composer and orchestrator on the other.

N. C.: How challenging was it to not only reduce this symphony to chamber orchestra size, but also convincingly realize Mahler’s sketches? Were there certain passages that were particularly challenging to render in this form?

M. C.: My intention was to re-create this symphony for chamber orchestra, retaining the authenticity found in the composer’s manuscripts, and combining it with the fuller sound achieved by Rudolf Barshai, rather than the thinner textures of Deryck Cooke’s version. Thus the various contrapuntal lines and colors are allowed to form a coherent structure that are permeated with Mahler’s resounding voice. 

Luckily, the structure was there: there is a continuous line from beginning to end. Some passages were more difficult than others to realize, particularly when there was only one line, but there is information in the score from which one can glean Mahler’s intentions, or at least an interpretation of them. It was useful to look at various other editions, too.  There are also different versions of the same sections by Mahler in separate sketches. One can use this material in different ways. I tried to understand what came first, sometimes through the manuscript paper, or through the different inks, and instructions left by Mahler. Contrapuntal continuity was of the essence, as was the orchestration. There were also some sections which needed more thought in terms of the reduction, particularly in the first movement, which is the most complete out of the symphony’s five. The harmonium’s ability to become a kind of “chameleon” in sound helped enormously in the Adagio’s famous climax chord, for example. I balanced this with the more percussive sonority of the piano at points. Throughout I was always attentive to the sonority I thought Mahler was wishing to convey. 

N. C.: Because of the political situation in Central Europe at the time, the VfMP arrangements were borne out of economic need. Listeners today, however, can easily and affordably listen to various recordings of the Mahler Tenth for full-sized symphony orchestras. Is there a need for a Mahler realization that arguably runs contrary to his intent?

M. C.: Yes, I believe so. Of course, the economic reason still holds for the live performances. Nothing ever beats that. However, I also truly believe that this is more than just about economics. Mahler’s later works seem to me to call out for a leaner realization. Their internal lines become clearer, more exposed. The transparency thus achieved allows the real essence of the work to speak louder than in any other way. It is delicately veiled, making it translucent, almost like Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ sculpture. The inner workings are revealed, just like Mahler’s manuscripts reveal his inner life, with their personal “verbal ecstasies” scribbled on its pages and exposed to the world. This is the composer putting his very soul down on paper. I believe the chamber orchestration makes that even more visible.

N. C.: Among the greatest challenges this symphony poses to scholars aspiring to complete it is that its counterpoint, so crucial in late Mahler, is threadbare or non-existent in the sketches. At the same time, they must also consider the composer’s deliberate thinning of textures in his late music. How difficult is it to discern when to fill in these textures?

M. C.: I have tried to remain faithful to what I believe Mahler was wanting to say. However, there is an element of "me" in this completion, especially with “color”, and, as you rightly say, in counterpoint. I did also study the other completions. Thanks to the Austrian National Library, all the symphony’s extant sketches were at my disposal. Therefore, I was able to see where Mahler had changed his mind, where he was thinking about [certain problems], what he had scribbled, and what he wrote over.  Different colored inks helped to discern what came first, and his different “takes” and sketches allowed for deeper insight. There was also the fact that some passages had a similarity to previous ones and that made it easier, perhaps, to make informed [guesses]. After a lot of internal deliberation and discussion, with an allowance for sensitive artistic license, I have tried to put on paper what I believe Mahler himself might have done.

N. C.: Previous editors such as Deryck Cooke and Joe Wheeler chose to restrain their efforts, essentially going no further than providing a performable version of Mahler’s sketches as he had left them. How has your approach differed or agreed with theirs?  

M. C.: Whereas Cooke remained totally faithful to what was written, and, say Carpenter really indulged himself, if one may say so, I tried to provide a balance: making it performable, yet allowing myself the freedom to color idiomatically. 

N. C.: How have you allowed yourself more flexibility in realizing these sketches for performance?

M. C.: As we know, Mahler was meticulous in his detail. I tried to maintain the same level of detail that I believe he would have done himself.  Color and instrumentation, including Mahler’s use of what were in his time considered unusual percussion instruments; his use of con legno, mutes, gestopft, and portamento; the culture of vibrato around the fin de siècle period; weight, balance, register, texture, and dynamic proportions, had to be carefully analysed.  The architecture, the over-arching form and shape of the symphony, as well as the complexity of emotion this work carries, helped inform my reconstruction of a symphony which, in my opinion, is overwhelmingly autobiographical, excitingly bipolar, and plainly futuristic. 

At the forefront of my thought always was Mahler, whose name is synonymous with contrasts; the man in whose compositions pain, the grotesque, and the sublime co-exist. My journey [into this symphony] has been a fascinating [delving] into a composer’s mind; a captivating, an enthralling and literally absorbing adventure into the often underestimated power of autobiography in music. Different orchestrators have tackled these from different angles. I have tried to look at it through Mahler’s eyes, through his mind. I have identified with the situation to the extent that I was almost swallowed into this other world, a world that took my emotions to an extreme. Even in his most passionate cry of the Tenth Symphony, Mahler remains unfaltering: the cruelty of his situation; the anger, tenderness, anguish, torment, the clinging onto hope, the longing for beauty to re-emerge, and the acceptance of it all. His [inscriptions] are almost as powerful as his music–maybe to be read by the one who has caused him so much pain?    

N. C.: How involved was John Storgårds and the Lapland Chamber Orchestra in your realization of this symphony?

M. C.: The project was a collaborative effort. Yes, this completion is mine, but [Storgårds] went through the score forensically. We had long, deep discussions, and even changed things together. The musicians were there with parts and pencils, too, and we discussed many things. It was a beautiful experience. Being in the recording booth with Rob Suff from BIS for the week is an experience I will never forget. We just listened and questioned. Korundi House of Culture has exceptional acoustics, but BIS made the recording incredible. I can also never thank Universal Edition enough, especially Eric Marinitsch who started it all in the first place. 

N. C.: Why do you believe that Mahler’s Tenth has drawn such intense interest from audiences and musical professionals alike?

M. C.: It is an extraordinary work with a fascinating background story to match, not to mention music, which, for me, epitomizes the pain/beauty paradox. It is also, arguably, one of the unfinished works which has generated the most dispute, not least because of factors surrounding this composition, such as the psychological turmoil of the composer at the time of composition, the discovery of new sketches and material, the scribbles in Mahler’s handwriting in the marginalia of the score, the opposition against the reconstruction of the symphony, initially [condoned] by Alma Mahler.

I also believe it to be one of the most passionate outbursts of emotion in the world of music. It could never be left in a drawer—that would be sacrilege!

"And I, tormenting, have come to life as a beast...": Simon Nicholls and Michael Pushkin discuss the interior world of Scriabin's "Notebooks"

His music was, arguably, the catalyst which set in motion Sergei Rachmaninoff’s career as a touring pianist. Synthesizing elements from Chopin and Russian music with uniquely personal spiritual beliefs, his art captivated audiences, as well as fellow musicians.

Yet after his untimely death in 1915 at the age of 43, his music would come to be rebuked by many, including Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich. English musicologist Gerald Abraham dismissed him as a “sad pathological case,” while conductor Sir Adrian Boult refused to conduct his “evil music.”

“No one was more famous during their lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after death,” wrote Faubion Bowers about the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin.

For decades his music was kept alive by a core of true believers in Russia and, to a lesser extent, in the West. By the 1970s his music re-emerged from the margins of the repertoire. Today Scriabin’s place in musical history is secure, garnering more attention and performances than ever.

However, it was only recently that the composer’s notebooks, which provide the key to understanding his inner life, were fully translated into English by Simon Nicholls and Michael Pushkin as The Notebooks of Alexander Skryabin, published by Oxford University Press.

Earlier this month, both scholars agreed to talk to me about the importance that Scriabin’s writings held in his music and life.

Simon Nicholls, scholar and co-translator of The Notebooks of Alexander Skryabin. [Photo courtesy of Simon Nicholls]

Néstor Castiglione: Your book is the first integral publication in English of Alexander Scriabin’s writings. Were they published in other languages, aside from the original Russian, prior to this?

Simon Nicholls: The Notebooks and the Preliminary Action were translated into French in the 1970s by the composer’s daughter Marina Scriabine, who omitted The Poem of Ecstasy for some reason. Oskar Riesemann, a member of Scriabin’s circle, translated the Notebooks into German in 1924 under the title Prometheische Phantasien. A translation of The Poem of Ecstasy into German by Ernst Moritz Arndt was included in the analytical book published in 1963 by Christoph-Clemens von Gleich, Die sinfonischen Werke von Alexander Skrjabin. German versions by Dieter Hoffman of the libretto for Scriabin’s aborted opera and the Preliminary Action were included in the 1983 biography of the composer by Siegfried Schibli. Italian texts of the opera libretto, The Poem of Ecstasy and the Preliminary Action are included in the 2010 monograph on Scriabin by Luigi Verdi. In English, excerpts from the writings were published by Faubion Bowers in his 1969 biography, and Simon Morrison included a translation of the Preliminary Action in his 2002 Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement.

N. C.: How long did your English translation take?

S. N: It took us four years, during which time I was also pursuing a full-time teaching and performing career.

Michael Pushkin: Simon sent me his initial version one section at a time, and I responded with various linguistic or editorial suggestions. An extended email conversation would sometimes ensue. In addition we went through the whole book twice face-to-face.

N. C.: Why did you feel that these writings merited wider awareness?

S. N.: The excerpts published by Bowers were tantalising. Scriabin’s later music has always seemed to me to be imbued with an urgent appeal or message. I felt that study of the writings in their complete state and in the original language would clarify that; also, the available excerpts hinted at an evolving structure of thought, which I felt study of the whole would illuminate. I wanted to penetrate Scriabin’s own imaginative world by following the path taken in his own study and reading. His music is so fascinating and beautiful, so speaking and compelling in an inscrutable way, that every scrap of background seems indispensable to approaching a fuller understanding of it.


N. C.: There is a sense that this book reclaims the Russianness of Scriabin’s art, highly cosmopolitan aesthetic and spiritual outlook notwithstanding. But it is a deeper and subtler one than the nationalist exotica of some of his elders.

S. N.: I am very glad that you feel the discovery of Russian qualities from Scriabin’s writing, and Russian readers as well as those with Russian connections have made similar observations. I agree that the music and thought are essentially Russian; Russian qualities in the music would include: Extreme keyboard virtuosity and extravagant orchestral demands (the trumpet part of The Poem of Ecstasy parallels to some extent the extremity of demands in the Fifth Piano Sonata). Think of the titanic scale of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and the virtuosity and endurance (as well as finesse) required for the études of Sergei Lyapunov.

Scriabin’s large-scale works, his first three symphonies, have a breadth of horizon comparable to the Russian landscape, and the melodic lines of his early music have a Tchaikovskian sweep; the numerous jewelled and exquisite miniatures have been compared by Robert Craft to the work of Fabergé. His later harmonic style shows, in my opinion, aspects of Liszt filtered through Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and to a lesser extent Alexander Dargomyzhsky. The importance of bell sounds in the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Piano Sonatas can be compared with Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff. In Scriabin’s day there were many more churches in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia than remain now.

There is a teleological obsession in his thought which is typical of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov and was common in pre-Revolution Russian liberal society. Also found in Solovyov is an indissoluble mixture of thought and emotion, conditioned by a widespread Russian skepticism regarding the Enlightenment. Both the writing and the music of Scriabin show this mixture. Linked with this is a desire to take things either to extremes, or to their logical conclusion, depending on your point of view. This also accounts for the grandiosity of his music, typical of its period. As Leonid Sabaneyev and Vyacheslav Ivanov commented, his ambitions went beyond the normal province of art, into a desire to transform the world, and a trust in progress and perfectibility.

N. C.: It is fascinating to witness in your book Scriabin’s progression from youthful and fervent Orthodox Christian believer, to atheist, to his ultimate vision of himself as God.

S. N.: I would see this in a slightly different light. Yes, Scriabin’s thought undertook an enormous journey. Ivan Lapshin, a philosopher who was a member of the Rimsky-Korsakov circle, remarked that the progression of Scriabin’s thought was unbroken and showed no abrupt change of direction. This is not quite true, but we could sum up the progression thus:

• Adolescence: fervent Orthodoxy.

• Young manhood: fervent rejection of God (implying the existence of a God).

• Thereafter: an increasing sense of oneness, where everything (including the self) is divine.

This sense of “God-in-everything” can be felt in the poem by Fyodor Tyutchev written in the mid-1830s and sometimes referred to as Twilight: “Everything is in me, and I am in everything.” We also see this in Schopenhauer, whose writings Scriabin studied in Russian translation.

• Final period: a divine figure (the “Pre-Eternal”) re-emerges in the Preliminary Action.

The “action” is precipitated by this figure or concept wishing for self-expression. This conception may be regarded as related to Brahmanic ideas, and it should be remembered that Scriabin, having studied Theosophy, read genuine Indian writings when they became available in translation.

N. C.: The high esteem in which Scriabin held his own writing may come as a surprise to some readers. His feelings on this subject appear to be reflected in his working on the text of the Mystery before the music itself.

S. N.: It is not quite true that Scriabin worked on the text of the Mystery (actually, the Preliminary Action) before the music. At his death the revision of the text was incomplete; though they may look fragmentary to us, he played extended, coherent excerpts to friends before he died. He was capable of carrying a complete composition in his head, and it was perhaps easier for him to play it than to “transcribe” it into notation.

N. C.: Posterity has been divided in its appreciation of the composer’s literary output. For example, a radio program from 1973 finds Bowers lavishly praising it, while Vladimir Ashkenazy on the same program counters that it is “not great.” Is knowledge of these writings crucial in order to better understand his music? Do you believe that it can stand on its own merit?

S. N.: Scriabin did take his literary effort very seriously, though it should be remembered that the notebooks were intended as private jottings. I think that an acquaintance with the writings and a willingness to accept them on their own terms are very helpful in increasing understanding. The perennial appeal of Scriabin’s music worldwide, though, shows that the texts are not essential to love it. Our interest in his writings depends on the interest of the music, as is the case with Wagner. While Scriabin’s verse is clearly related to the poetry of the senior poets among his contemporaries, especially Konstantin Balmont, it is not on their exalted level, despite a vivid sense of verbal music and some images that stick in the mind (e. g. “born in the water I swim as a fish,” “in rainbow sparkling are the spiders’ webs”).

N. C.: The reader discovers that the often luxurious expressive terms employed in Scriabin’s scores are echoes of his personal writings. For some performers his idiosyncratic indications can present a formidable challenge. Will the Notebooks present a similar one to readers, even to those attuned to Scriabin’s worldview?

S. N.: We are presented in the Notebooks with a developing mindset which is indeed very far from the typical contemporary one. They start, though, from a position understandable to modern readers: The loss of a fervent, sustaining faith, and the search for a way of coping with this loss. My introduction and biographical notes are intended to prepare the reader by showing links with the experience of Scriabin’s Russian contemporaries, and the section “The Growth of Scriabin’s Thought” gives the manifold sources of his thinking. It is hoped that, following that example and providing reliable complete texts with exegeses, the present publication will help to improve understanding.

There was also the school of thought represented by Hugh Macdonald that Scriabin’s thinking and worldview are best avoided. I think we have moved on from that, and Richard Taruskin’s writing has been instrumental in this process.

N. C.: How do musicians of the present day, who tend to view performance in rational terms rather than in the poetic or spiritual ones that informed musicianship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, meet Scriabin on his expressive terms?

S. N. All performance directions are encoded messages, requiring knowledgeable interpretation. Leopold Mozart regarded tempo markings such as “allegro,” “andante,” etc as hints to musical character rather than speed; while Czerny similarly interpreted “piano,” “mezzo-forte,” “forte” as characters like those of speech, not mere levels of loudness. The explicit quality of Scriabin’s markings is specifically Symbolist: As a comparison, we might think of how in his Des pas sur la neige Debussy demands that the player evoke, in a two-note rhythm, the mood of a sad, frozen landscape.

While some of Scriabin’s markings are sheer hyperbole (e.g. “divine,” “sublime,” “monstrueux,” “terrifiant,” etc), a knowledge of his imaginative world certainly helps one to interpret its many ”calls” and ”charms,” to understand what is meant by “languor,” even the rejected marking for the opening of the Seventh Piano Sonata: “prophetique;” or the suggestive marking for the opening of the Ninth: “légendaire.” The fragmentary “story” implied in the numerous markings of the Sixth Piano Sonata recalls various scenarios in the composer’s notes, in particular parts of the early version of The Poem of Ecstasy text known as Poème Orgiaque.

I would contend that while contemporary musicians are expected to read the score scrupulously and to have a rational approach regarding performing style and the background to the music, all this is worthless unless it serves as a springboard for the performer’s personal imagination. Yuja Wang, a superb interpreter of Scriabin, takes this further, saying that the key to his music’s interpretation is “self-forgetfulness.” Of course, such self-forgetfulness presupposes the firm basis of a deep knowledge of the score and the concepts behind it, allied to great technical command. The teaching of Heinrich Neuhaus assumed that the technical means would be found by the student, but he deployed a vast range of cultural reference, Russian and, very importantly, European, in order to stimulate a “subjective,” non-standard, imaginative identification with the music. It is hoped that this book will become an important part of such a frame of reference.

N. C.: Reading the entirety of the Preliminary Action text, one is struck by how “un-operatic” it is, shunning the sense of drama and theatre that are essential in, say, Wagner or Strauss. It could be regarded as a precursor to contemporary operas and their similar concern with message over development of narrative and characters. One thinks of Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise, Glass’ Satyagraha, or Saariaho’s L’amour du loin.

S. N.: We don’t possess a text for the Mystery, but the Preliminary Action scenario, intended as a compact version of what would be portrayed in the that work, is absolutely a symbolic one. The second part of Goethe’s Faust is the nearest parallel available to Scriabin, for whom the work was essential reading at one period. Its final scene is particularly relevant. I agree with you regarding Richard Strauss’ and Wagner’s wonderful senses of drama, but the former was at the mercy of his librettists, and the action of Die Frau ohne Schatten is heavily symbolic in a way that makes that opera as problematic to stage as the latter’s Parsifal. The examples you give certainly follow in that direction.

N. C.: While he was certainly envisioning something that would go beyond Wagner’s gesamtkunstwerk, Scriabin never precisely articulated his theory of a unity of the arts. Do you hold any personal theories as to how such a vision would have been realized? Have others approached or paralleled his ideas?

S. N.: I think that he wanted the elements—music, dance, etc—to combine so closely that they could hardly be distinguished one from another. Apparently, research has shown that a baby takes some time before it becomes able to distinguish the sources of sense perceptions. The Symbolist movement aimed at restoring this unity of perception, the idea being that through the parallels between the senses one arrives at a perception beyond all phenomena detectable by the senses.

A work comes to mind which owes nothing to Scriabin musically but certainly parallels his all-embracing vision: Stockhausen’s opera sequence Licht. The London National Theatre’s productions by Peter Hall of Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Euripides’ Bacchae with musical contributions from Harrison Birtwhistle, and the composer’s own dramatic experiments there with the combination of acting and improvised music, were examples of how music and words can work together to the enhancement of both, which are closely related to, though not influenced by Scriabin’s concept for the Preliminary Action.

M. P.: Scriabin’s interest in synesthesia fits with his generally integrative, unificatory approach. Such an integrative impulse was to be seen in the 1920s and beyond in the work of theatre directors like Alexander Tairov with his “synthetic theatre,” of Vsevolod Meyerhold, and others, and what has come to be known loosely as “total theatre.” The most directly contemporaneous analogy, though, might be with the director Edward Gordon Craig. Isadora Duncan introduced him in 1908 to Konstantin Stanislavsky, who then invited Craig to direct the 1912 Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet. Craig employed a set of mobile, neutral, folding screens. In practical terms the screens aided scenic flexibility and scene-changes, but these non-representational screens have been said to have had symbolic functions too. In his book On the Art of the Theatre, published in 1911, Craig argues for the unification of all the crafts and techniques which together form theatrical art: Words, action, movement, rhythm, design and color were to combine creatively.

N. C.: The reader cannot ignore the shadow cast by the Mystery over the last few years of Scriabin’s life. Considering the cosmic aspirations of this work, would its realization been feasible?

S. N.: Some remarks of Scriabin’s to Anna Goldenweiser, first wife of the pianist Alexander, show that he considered it possible to establish the Preliminary Action in a permanent performance space, comparable with the position of Parsifal in Bayreuth, which implies that the Mystery had been indefinitely postponed. A letter to Margarita Morozova shows that Scriabin thought of the Mystery as something initiated and inspired by him, but completed as a universal act of humanity. While it was and remains an unrealisable vision, it would have been quite possible for Scriabin to complete the Preliminary Action and to have it performed. The Preliminary Action and the Mystery were very closely associated in the composer’s mind, and Boris de Schlözer found it difficult to assess to what extent the former work was taking the place of the latter. Very shortly before his final illness Scriabin told Elena Gnesina that he only had to write the music down, and he was discussing possibilities for the work’s realization during the same period. This freed him from engaging with the many impossibilities of the Mystery. He seems to have regarded the Preliminary Action as a public statement of his private thoughts.

N. C.: Faubion Bowers’ advocacy has been very important in the reception of Scriabin’s music. Yet in recent times, Bowers’ books on the composer have come under scrutiny.

S. N.: Bowers has generally served as a reference in the past. It was not easy to obtain Russian sources, especially in the Soviet era. When I first visited the Taneyev Library of the Moscow Conservatory in 2002, I was generously supplied with a photocopy of the Russian 1919 publication, and subsequently they helped me with a great deal of information and material. Since then the 1919 publication has become available (in Russian, of course) as a facsimile and on the internet, and I did manage to find an original copy later in Moscow. I was also very lucky with the help I received at the Scriabin Museum during many visits.

While he had access to many Russian sources, Bowers did not set out to write a scholarly work. No reference is given for any quotation, and the quotations themselves are not presented in accordance with academic standards. Bowers’ musical comments are clearly those of an enthusiastic amateur. His presentation of excerpts from the letters, capitalizing all the passages underlined by by the composer which are rendered in the Russian publication in spaced type, lends the them an eccentricity missing from the originals. It is characteristic of Bowers when he alleges that the “program” for the Fourth Piano Sonata was written in “indifferent French,” whereas examination of the source shows that the French is excellent, but beset by numerous typesetting errors, a frequent problem with Russian typesetters working in a foreign language. Bowers’ biography remains in print, and I’m sure it will continue to attract a popular readership.

N. C.: Would you say that this book serves as a corrective or update of Bowers?

S. N.: I wanted to provide the performer or music lover who wants to know the background and go deeper with an “Urtext” of the main sources, as far as that is possible in translation, and to enable them to check the references if they so desire. That is why I asked Michael Pushkin to help me with the translation: He is a professional academic in Russian language and cultural studies and allied with his grasp of language and grammar is a sharp poetic ear. I hope that our combined efforts have produced a version which is accurate as regards meaning and does give an idea of the style of the original. Scriabin’s sophisticated and complex texts demand no less.

The author kindly expresses his gratitude to Simon Nicholls and Michael Pushkin for sharing their erudition and time. Thanks are also owed to Alyssa Russell of Oxford University Press for arranging this interview.

This interview is an augmented version of one which has previously appeared on Culture Spot LA.