Trip to Moscow to attend a conference organized to mark the 100th anniversary of establishing the Scriabin Museum

It is a New Year’s Eve and the last moment to say goodbye—is there a better way of doing it than by remembering the highlights of 2018? Of course, for me it was the participation in a conference organized to mark the 100th anniversary of founding the Memorial Museum of Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, the famous Russian composer and pianist. Since I devoted to his mystic chord the entire first chapter of my book Abstract Reproductive as Productive Art: Chromatic fantasies of the Composer Alexander Scriabin, Painter Alexej Jawlensky and Pianist Ivo Pogorelich, the Scriabin Museum invited me to Moscow to present the results of my work, as well as to listen to what other artists and researchers have to say about Scriabin’s art. The title of the chapter is Alexander Scriabin’s Mystic Chord as a Marionette of Heinrich von Kleist, because I discerned in mystic chord a figure in motion that comes to life the moment Scriabin, like a puppeteer, from the center of his spiritual creation manages the world of sounds.

Walking around Moscow at night is a wonderful experience due to an unusual warmth radiated by this often very icy city

Vers la flamme like the flaming form of the Saint Basil’s Cathedral

After visiting Moscow, it seems to me that the mobility of mystic chord, besides in the urban structure of this city, may even more likely have its origin in the blazing form of the Saint Basil’s Cathedral. Thus the decision to project fire on the screen during my elaboration of Scriabin’s composition Vers la flamme (Toward the Flame) and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire in this context also proved to be appropriate. And obviously neither Stravinsky was far from the same idea when he composed his world known masterpiece Firebird. It seems to me that many Russian artists have found in this picturesque cathedral a spiritual drive for their artistic concepts, and as it is located at the very origin of Moscow, I cannot escape the impression that precisely this church is the eternal hearth of all Russians, having the power to thaw even the coldest hearts during the endless winter nights. However, I noticed the greatest interest of the audience when I presented the last picture—Sir James Fraser’s spiral illusion, and only now I realize that long before I went to Moscow, by choosing this pictorial example, I had anticipated my future experience of the rhythm, harmony and melody of the city in which numerous Russian artists created their greatest works (read more in Part 1 of this travelogue).

Numerous new acquaintances and friendships

Let’s get back to the conference—it was wonderful to exchange ideas with the museum staff and professors from the Moscow and St. Petersburg Conservatories. On top of that, the place in the conference schedule reserved for my lecture was indeed a great honor: on the second day, the first lecture was given by the Academician Atanas Kurtev (the famous Bulgarian pianist who teaches at numerous European Conservatories), after his lecture I was the one to present my work on mystic chord, and then the podium was reserved for Alexander Serafimovich Scriabin—Scriabin’s descendant and the President of the Scriabin Foundation and the Honorary President of the UK based Scriabin Association. As I do not speak Russian, I prepared the lecture in English and sent the text to the Scriabin Museum, thus my colleague Areg Mekhakyan, who—in addition to preparing an extremely interesting lecture on the connection between Scriabin’s music and Eastern philosophy—was kind to translate it into Russian in order to be able to simultaneously read part by part during my presentation. This is why everyone expected me to speak English, not knowing that as an expression of respect and gratitude I prepared the first few sentences in fluent Russian (I have practiced proper accents for a week). I will never forget the spontaneous smile of the audience as a reaction to that surprise. Everyone was very friendly during the conference: Vladimir Popkov, the Head of the Scientific Research Department, made sure that everything develops smoothly from the first invitation letter until participants’ departure from Moscow, and one of the most fascinating people I had a chance to meet was Mrs. Valentina Vassilyevna Rubtsova, the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Music.

Real life stories are often like fairy-tales

Every story that resembles a fairy-tale always has an unexpected epilogue, so this one is no different: when I returned to Zagreb, colleagues from the Scriabin Museum contacted me to inform me that on the occasion of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Museum they would like to publish my complete essay on mystic chord in Russian! Since translating into a foreign language is the greatest dream of all authors, I immediately started working as 80 pages urgently needed to be translated into English so that the Museum would have enough time to translate it into Russian and publish it next year. The indication that the New Year could be as good as the past one is the best possible ending of 2018, so in Scriabin’s spirit I wish all the readers to fulfill all of their chromatic fantasies and all the best in 2019!