“Le Poème de l’Extase” was performed for the first time by the Russian Symphony Society of New York in New York, December 10, 1908. Modeste Altschuler conducted. We were indebted to Mr. Altschuler in 1910 for the following information about The Poem of Ecstasy:
“While I was in Switzerland during the summer of 1907 at Scriabin’s villa, he was all taken up with the work, and I watched its progress with keen interest. The composer of the Poème de l’Extase has sought to express therein something of the emotional (and therefore musically communicable) side of his philosophy of life. Scriabin is neither a pantheist nor a theosophist, yet his creed includes ideas somewhat related to each of these schools of thought. There are three divisions in his poem: 1. His soul in the orgy of love; 2. The realization of a fantastical dream; 3. The glory of his own art.”
Mr. Modeste Altschuler has interesting letters written by Scriabin covering the period of his sojourn in the United States and Mr. Altschuler’s journey to Russia in 1907, the aim of which was to secure a subsidy from the Russian government for the Russian Symphony Orchestra in New York. Scriabin was very anxious to assist Mr. Altschuler in his mission. The letters plainly indicate his anxiety. Those letters will appear in Mr. Altschuler’s Memoirs, which a Russian historian was taking down in November, 1930, when Mr. Altschuler was conductor of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra.
Scriabin wrote from Paris in the spring of 1907 that he had finished The Poem of Ecstasy. The revised instrumentation now in use was made that summer (1907) by the composer and Modeste Altschuler together, in Switzerland, where they spent two weeks together.
It has been said that the subject of Le Poème de l’Extase begins where that of Le divin Poème leaves off. The three divisions of the latter symphony, movements joined together without a pause, are “Luttes,” “Voluptés,” “Jeu divin” (creative force consciously exercised).
Le Poème de l’Extase was completed in January, 1908, in Switzerland, the month of the Fifth sonata, which, it is said, was written in three or four days. It is scored for these instruments: piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, bells, deep chime in C, celesta, two harps, organ, and the usual strings.
Scriabin wrote a poem in Russian for this orchestral composition. The poem was published at Geneva, Switzerland, 1906. Mr. Altschuler kindly lent his copy of it. A literal translation into English was made by Mrs. Lydia L. Pimenov-Noble of Boston expressly for the Boston Symphony Programme Book of October 22, 1910. The poem is very long, too long for reprinting. There are verses that recur like a refrain, especially the first lines:
The Spirit,
Winged by the thirst for life,
Takes flight