…In October 1891 Alexander Scriabin, then a 19-year-old conservatory
student in Moscow, and a team of his course mates were playing a matinee
for poor students. Scriabin was on this day triggering rave response
from the audience which included the young Sekerin sisters. One of them,
Natalya was very well heeled in music taking piano lessons from the famous
Conservatory professor Nikolai Zverev Scriabin once studied with. So Natalya
had heard a great deal about his amazing talent, yet this was the first
time she heard him on stage.
After the concert, the sisters went backstage to meet Scriabin, congratulated
him on his excellent performance and invited him to be their guest at any
time. He dropped by the following day and then again and again and again…
The elder sister, Olga, was a bit disappointed to see a young man so clumsy,
impractical and, above all, unable to skate! Her younger sister, Natalya,
however, was immediately blown away by their new friend. “Look how he plays;
his touch? is absolutely out of this world!” Natalya raved.
Scriabin told the sisters about his family: his mother who died shortly
after he was born and his father, a diplomat, who spent most of his time
abroad. That he lived with his aunt and granny he loved very dearly. Impressed
by what they heard, the sisters said they would love to meet Alexander’s
aunt and granny. Alexander readily obliged inviting Olga and Natalya to
come to a Sunday church service to meet his relatives….
Scriabin’s aunt, Lyubov Scriabina, left behind the following account
of what was going on: “Alexander would go to see the sisters twice a week.
Coming back, always so happy and bubbling with emotions, he would put his
head on my knees and recall each and every word Natalya had uttered… Then
he would start asking me if he had said everything right and didn’t offend
her… Natalya so readily reciprocated Alexander’s emotion that I wished
that attachment did not go anywhere… Thus unbosoming himself, he would
go to the piano his face lit up with joy and blissful abandon. His emotion
was so strong that he spent his 20th birthday with the Sekirins just to
be able to be with her…”
One evening, Alexander slipped a letter inside Natalya’s pocket. The girl
did not notice anything… Cleaning up Natalya’s dress the following morning
her mother found the love-you missive and started reading it out loud.
The poor girl lapsed into unconsciousness... When Alexander came in, Natalya’s
mother demanded that he explain himself. Alexander said it was a done deal
and Natalya and he had long since been engaged.
Shocked by the surprise confession, the woman asked Alexander to leave
the 15-year-old girl alone and at least let her finish school. A tearful
Alexander implored her not to take away his “little Natasha”, his muse.
The mother was adamant though and took the girl out of Moscow without waiting
for the summer vacations…
When Natalya returned to Moscow that fall, Alexander somehow managed to
meet her if only for one brief moment. The two agreed to write each other.
Each morning he would come to her house to pick up a message stashed in
the fence and place his own message. Once, learning that Natasha and her
sister were going to take a walk on the Sparrow Hills, Alexander waited
for the horse-car to pass by and happily jumped aboard. The young people
spent the entire day together, even though under the watchful eye of Natasha’s
elder sister… From that happy day on, Alexander would always be somewhere
out there waiting to catch a glimpse of his loved one, to exchange a few
words with her or just to look her in the eye…
Now that Scriabin was playing more and more concerts in Moscow, Natalya
beseeched Olga to keep her company there. Olga obliged because she, too,
had come to appreciate Scriabin’s larger than life talent…
Fully aware of his abilities, Scriabin later wrote, “I was convinced I
was destined for something real big when I was still twenty! Funny! Back
then I was just a cheeky boy with nothing to lean on but his unshaken belief
in his own self…”
Then, all of a sudden, a hand injury, suffered supposedly while over-practicing,
caught up with him again… Alexander was desperate… “My God, how terrible!“
he writes Natalya. “The doctors have not pronounced the final verdict yet,
but it really kills me to think that I may not be able to play again…”
Surprisingly, Natalya seems to be little moved by Alexander’s tragedy though…
Meeting him in concert, however, she says he looks too thin and black in
the face…
Heeding his doctors’ advice, Scriabin sails down the Volga and then continues
his recuperation in Crimea. The treatment over, in early 1894 he returns
to St. Petersburg and starts playing again.
Natalya is a real beauty now... Young men are literally lining up for a
round of dance with her and these attentions are making Scriabin feel jealous.
In the spring of 1894 Natalya graduates with honors and it looks like there
is nothing now standing in the way of their happy marriage. Natalya
publicly invites Alexander to spend the summer at their family estate near
Kursk. Her mother doesn’t like the idea and Alexander firmly decides not
to go…
He heads down to the spa town of Kislovodsk in the Caucasus and comes back
in the fall, well rested and bubbling with new energy. He starts meeting
the Sekerins again. Coming to one of his concerts, Natalya’s mother, who
never liked Alexander, is so much impressed by his performance and the
rave response he gets from the audience, that she immediately changes her
attitude to her daughter’s suitor…
In the fall Scriabin plays a series of concert dates in Europe, but the
letters he writes his fiancee from there are getting shorter and shorter…
Natalya seems in no rush at all to answer either. She is surrounded by
a host of admirers and loves it… Especially the attentions she is getting
from her new piano teacher, Konstantin Igumnov. Even though a friend
of Alexander’s, Igumnov sounds pretty acidic when talking about Scriabin.
“Scriabin is a man who has nothing in store for him in the future, very
little now and everything in the past,” Igumnov says. “He says he is the
happiest man alive and, at the same time, insists it’s now time for him
to retire, that he wants to die and things like that… Despite all this
empty talk, however, he remains as loveable as he has ever been. I told
him he looked a bit over the hill and he didn’t like it at all. A pretty
strange reaction from someone who says he is tired of life, isn’t it?”
Back in Russia everything looks fine. Dressed to the nines, Scriabin is
a welcome guest at the Sekerins, but his relations with Natalya seem to
be breaking up… It all ends in 1895…
“Listen to the voice of my tortured soul!” Alexander desperately
appeals to Natalya. The letter he sends her a month later sounds terse
and icy: “I can’t stand lies. There are things that must be taken seriously!
I don’t like a phony atmosphere. Why should I?!”
Natalya responds with a polite congratulation on the upcoming Christmas
and birthday (Scriabin was born on Christmas night).
In January 1896, on his way to Europe again, Scriabin writes her his last
letter, official and dry. “Dear Natalya Valeryanovna, I wish You all the
best. Please convey my sincere compliments to Your family. Alexander Scriabin.”
Many years later, Natalya told her sister that “we never really broke up.
To his proposal to be his wife I simply said I did not deserve to be a
good wife to a genius. I think I was right…”
In early 1896 an old friend introduced Alexander to the prominent piano
teacher Pavel Schloetzer. It was then and there that the young composer
met his future wife, Vera Isakovich...
Scriabin already had had a chance to appreciate Vera’s excellent pianistic
skills. Later, after he had already asked her to be his wife, Alexander
told Vera how impressed he was by her playing.
Vera Isakovich came from a very poor family and lost her mother at an early
age. In 1892 she entered the Moscow Conservatory. Vera’s talent, beauty
and diffidence so impressed the members of the examination commission,
including Professor Schloetzer, that she was gladly admitted. Pavel Schloetzer
not only admitted her into his conservatory class but also made the young
girl part of his family treating her as if she were his daughter…
Impressed by Vera’s loveable persona, Scriabin became a frequent guest
at the Schloetzers and before long they started talking about marriage…
Vera’s modesty and helpfulness immediately appealed to Scriabin’s aunt
who rightfully surmised that
the self-effacing young lady would be a good help to her very unpractical
nephew. Whether Alexander would be able to ensure a normal life for his
family was a big question though…
“They do not make a good pair,” said one of Scriabin’s friends expressing
the general view on the upcoming marriage. Scriabin himself had some very
dark premonitions about what was going to happen even though he never tired
of saying how much he loved his fianc?e and how much she loved him… The
would-be spouses hoped for the better, Alexander appreciating Vera’s talent
and other virtues and she hoping her humble meekness would quell whatever
spats they might have down the road…
In May 1897 Vera Isakovich became an honors graduate of the Moscow Conservatory
and on August 27 Alexander Scriabin walked her down the aisle. The
wedding over, everyone accompanied the newlyweds to the rail station to
see them off on a honeymoon trip. “Each of us felt that something terrible
had happened the very moment we got on the train,” Vera recalled later…
The newlyweds headed south to the Crimea. In Yalta their friends flocked
in to meet a happy couple only to see a pair of confused husband and wife
emerging in the doorway. To shake off the blues, Scriabin immediately sits
down to write a piano concerto…
Vera is doing her best to help out, rewriting the score. She plays the
finished parts and is filled with genuine admiration for Scriabin’s new
work. The spouses pair up on stage much to the amusement of the local concert-going
public. Music was saving their marriage helping them stick together…
In late 1897 they spent a few happy months in Paris, still hoping against
hope that their marriage would somehow work out. Well, if only he were
a bit more realistic and she a bit more attentive to his musical fantasies
they could have made a happy couple…
Their firstborn, Rimma, arrived in 1898. Yelena was born two years later,
Maria in 1901 and Lev in 1902. Vera was now devoting herself entirely to
the kids and grieving about her musical career that never happened. Feeling
the pinch of financial difficulties, she was pawning family silverware,
dressing modestly and eating sparingly...
Undaunted by the financial squeeze, Scriabin stuck to his dolce vita ways
having his suits made to order by the city’s best tailors, dining at posh
restaurants and going after beautiful women. And spending much time writing
music for orchestra inventing amazingly sounding chords and mind-boggling
crescendos…
Trying desperately to grasp the new ideas of her husband, Vera urges him
to write in a simpler, better understandable and more optimistic manner,
only to hear sounds she just can’t comprehend… She is even less appreciative
of the philosophical ideas espoused by her husband, especially those inspired
by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Feeling spiritually alienated from his wife, Scriabin commits to paper
his innermost thoughts all resulting in a lyrical and detailed account
of his life and work.
“It wasn’t of my own accord that I arrived into this world… A wide-eyed
youth, filled with hope and desires, I admired the surrounding world and
expected a revelation from heaven. I was looking for the truth in people,
but, alas, they knew about it even less than I did… I was seeking eternal
beauty but never found any… My feelings were fading like flowers; days
came and went, replaced by cold and rainy nights… I was looking for solace
in the coming spring and new flowers but all in vain. Those were just attempts
to change, bring back something forever lost… There happens only one spring
in our life and people are in such a hurry to get rid of this enchanting
deception, this wondrous reverie…”
“Whoever deprived me of my freedom in order to disappoint me; gave, only
to take it away, treated me kindly only to torture - I forgive you and
do not repine… I’m still alive, I love life and I love people… I am going
to tell them about my victory over myself and you. I’m going to tell them
not to expect anything from you except something they can do themselves.
Thank you for the horrible test you put me to so that I could appreciate
my strength, my invincibility and my triumph…”
His music strikes little, if any, chord with the people... The critics
ooze acid firing salvo after painful salvo at what they see as an amorphous
mass of dissonant chords. Speaking at an after-premiere dinner, the venerable
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov scoffs at Scriabin’s symphony saying that music
like this is easy to write by the ton and raises a toast to “his Majesty
the Consonance!”…
Few people could imagine then that, one day, the symphony they were making
fun of would be called the work of a genius and a harbinger of Scriabin’s
main musical revelations…
Meanwhile, his family life was falling to pieces… Pained to see her husband
feel so alienated, Vera was trying hard to help him only to hear about
his new young flame he wanted so much that he was ready to ask for a divorce…
That fling didn’t go anywhere but very soon Scriabin met the woman who
made him forget his wife, his children, his friends and just about everybody
else…
In 1903 Alexander Scriabin made the acquaintance
of Tatiana Schloetzer, a niece of his wife’s Conservatory Professor. Vera
Scriabina (nee Isakovich), who not only studied under the guiding hand
of Pavel Schloetzer, but even lived in his family, welcomed Tatiana’s appearance:
she accepted her as ‘one of her own’. However, the girl quickly became
enamored of Scriabin and asked the composer to give her lessons.
Tatiana Schloetzer was of a rather unorthodox appearance: she was extremely
short of stature, with a head that was unproportionally large, and ever-mournful
eyes. Nobody could recall ever seeing her laugh. But Tatiana possessed
a certain charm that drew people to her. Excellently educated, impressionable,
emotional, she loved all things new and innovative. She had a marvelous
ear for music and was quick to appreciate it. Scriabin’s ideas fired the
imagination, his troubled musical harmonies were something she could relate
to. In this respect she was in sharp contrast to Vera, who often expressed
a skeptical attitude to her husband’s outbursts of fantasy. Hardly surprising
that Scriabin immediately felt attracted to his new acquaintance, who hung
on his every word.
Vera Scriabina was convinced that Tatiana Schloetzer was no more than yet
another temporary fancy of her amorous husband, and as she had her hands
full with her four children, she had no qualms about letting the girl into
their household. In the meantime, the latter was making ever deeper inroads
into the musician’s heart.
In an attempt to avoid a conflict, in January 1904 Scriabin set off
for Switzerland. This choice of country wasn’t accidental. The composer
was won over by the remarkable beauty and tranquility of the local scenery.
“Besides, Switzerland is a free country, where they accept new ideas with
ease,” admitted Scriabin. “And I have more than enough ideas in my head
– I can feel totally incredible music maturing inside me!”
In a flash of foreboding, Vera gathered up her youngsters and followed
in her husband’s wake to Switzerland. “We have a rather quaint house here,
with a lovely garden and fabulous view out onto the lake. Upstairs Alexander
has a room where he keeps his instrument, and where he can be alone. We
are enjoying the nature and quiet,” wrote the composer’s wife to one of
her friends.
However, the idyll was short-lived. Scriabin was awaiting the arrival of
Tatiana, and she eventually showed up in early April. The enamored composer
rented a house for her not far from his own.
Vera was seriously ruffled by the appearance of her rival. “I am making
a tremendous effort to keep my cool and ignore her regular appearances
on our doorstep, as well as the obvious attentions Alexander showers upon
her,” she writes to a friend.
Scriabin, aware that soon he would have to make some resolute decision,
concerns himself with Vera’s future. He attempts to bring her back to concert
activity, in the hopes this will give her more confidence when she is left
to her own devices. Vera is an excellent pianist and he was prepared to
go over all his compositions with her so that overtime she could perform
them in concert.
In this hectic period of his life Scriabin makes rough copies of his great
“Poem of Ecstasy”, which would become one of the musical symbols of the
20th century.
Round about the same time Scriabin is honing his new philosophical ideas.
“What we need is a blending of all art forms, yet not so theatrical, as
we see in Wagner’s case. Art has to harmonize with philosophy and religion
to form one indivisible whole: something that could create a new gospel,
to replace the old, obsolete one. I dream of creating such a Mysteria.
For it a special temple should be built far away in India. However, Humanity
is not yet ready for this. It needs to be preached to, inculcated with
new ideas, led along this new road…”
One of Scriabin’s close friends insisted: “He had a holy conviction that
his Self was in the very center of the world evolution process, and that
he was called upon to transform the world through his art, bringing it
back to the fold of Unity. Many though his words were but crazy ravings,
but not Tatiana Schloetzer, who revered him as the Messiah. She was constantly
flattering Scriabin, cleverly denigrating his wife, who was often unable
to restrain her tears and ran upstairs.”
In October Vera could take it no more and unexpectedly set off alone on
a journey to Europe, leaving the children to the care of her husband and
the nanny. She hoped that their first parting with her husband might make
him miss her, and bring him to his senses.
However, the moment his wife had left, Scriabin brought his lover into
the house. “We are doing fine, the children are well and went to town with
Tatiana,” - he reported jovially.
When Vera returned, the unfaithful spouse made a run for it to Paris, from
where he sent her letters full of concern:
“All my thoughts are with you, dear! I couldn’t sleep this night all because
of you… Make sure you behave! Time you got a grip, you know… Look at all
the people around you with all their cares and problems… Still, everyone
finds the means of overcoming them. Start seriously practicing the piano.
Go to concerts and the theatre, and soon I might show up to give you an
exam. Perhaps I might organize a concert tour for you.”
One can imagine what Vera felt, reading these lines from her husband. She
could see that their life together was well and truly over, yet she still
couldn’t believe it. Desiring to prove herself worthy, she did as her beloved
spouse instructed and took up the piano again. She polished up her technique
and artistic form - soon, very soon, Vera would have to rely on her own
skills to earn a living for herself and her offspring.
In the meantime, Scriabin’s thoughts were with Tatiana. In his epistles
to her beloved he altered his handwriting so as not to be recognized by
her relatives, who didn’t approve of their affair. “Tatiana! Why are you
not with me! However, perhaps this is even for the best. This way, when
we meet up I will have something to show you! The waves of inspiration
have lifted me up again. I am suffocating! I am in bliss… I am writing
heavenly music! From time to time I tear myself away from my work to think
of you!”
In December Tatiana comes to Scriabin in Paris, and they decide from thereon
to live openly together. The composer attempts to get a divorce from Vera,
yet she refuses, even though she is aware she has lost her case.
Scriabin, ever ambivalent, continues to feed his wife hope for their reconciliation.
“My darling Verusha! I am in Paris. I’ll stay here for a couple of weeks,
and then we’ll see each other. Watch out for Liyala’s cough – she is so
frail… Tell Rimma that if she gets good grades at her exams I’ll bring
her a book; tease Marusya for me, and spank Liova.”
In summer he really did come to Switzerland to join his family. But Tatiana
practically inundated him with jealous letters. “You do not love me anymore!
However, I must tell you this: I am expecting your child!”
Scriabin dashes off to Paris and there he learns of the unexpected death
of his eldest daughter Rimma. He turns back, in an attempt to get there
for the funeral. Weeping bitterly at the graveside, he berates himself
for neglect, convinced that his child’s death is God’s punishment. I think
I have done something terrible!” he exclaims at the wake.
In answer to Tatiana’s summons he responds gravely by saying he will stay
on until the ninth day, for the memorial church service. His daughter’s
death filled him with renewed tenderness for his family. But Tatiana kept
pressuring him to come to her, and after staying the designated time, he
meekly went off to join her. The composer was 33. He now had to begin so
many things afresh.
Vera was also embarking on a new life. She had many disappointments and
losses in store, yet this outwardly frail woman was in fact very strong
and tenacious. She never would grant her unfaithful spouse a divorce. However,
all the rest of her life she lived under the sign of his music. Becoming
a famous pianist, she performed Scriabin’s works and even presented whole
programmes of his music – something nobody but the author would ordinarily
dare. Scriabin himself acknowledged she was the best interpretation of
his works.
In November 1904 Alexander Scriabin left his wife and moved in with Tatiana
Schloetzer. Because Vera would not accept divorce, the two could not formalize
their relationship and this was reflecting very negatively on what was
already a difficult life lived by the composer and his new love.
And still, despite all that, Scriabin was happy…
“Tatiana is an angel and she is amazingly responsive too,” he wrote. “She
so readily embraced my ideas, she is so helpful and pampering me in every
way that, despite all our problems, I’m in seventh heaven really…”
Soon after Tatiana gave birth to a daughter they called Ariadna. The young
mother was desperate unable to give the girl her father’s name. Her
exaltation was inevitably brushing off on just about everything… All of
a sudden, she started feeling jealous of the women Scriabin had before
she came along. He was not supposed to mention his onetime friends,
let alone his ex-wife and children. The news about Vera playing concerts
of her former husband’s music added to Tatiana’s exasperation and incensed
Scriabin.
“With Vera playing concerts without divorce is bad news for me. It is an
insult to my beloved Tatiana whom I admire with all my heart, just as anybody
else…” Scriabin wrote to a friend.
To ease the family’s financial plight, Scriabin agrees to play a series
of concerts in the United States where he enjoys absolutely rave response
from the local concert-going public.
“I feel so lousy, I literally burn to write but unfortunately I have no
time for that! I have to endure this to earn more money and get back to
you,” Scriabin writes Tatiana.
Inspired by Scriabin’s head-spinning success, Tatiana crosses the Atlantic
to reunite with her loved one… only to set off a major scandal… As soon
as the puritanically-minded Americans find out that Tatiana and Alexander
are not legally married, the two are ordered to vacate their hotel suite.
The local newspapers which only the day before were heaping praise on Scriabin’s
music, are openly badmouthing the composer sending the couple on the run
back home. On April 1, 1907 Alexander and Tatiana return to Paris
with only 30 francs left…
After the dust had all settled down Scriabin still retained some very fond
memories of America and the Americans. “My impressions about that country
are very good indeed. European accounts of America are often immature and
biased. The Americans are not as dry and insensitive to the arts as we
usually think…” Scriabin wrote.
In May 1907 Scriabin’s music featured prominently during a gala concert
given as part of the Russian Seasons festival organized by the famous impresario
Sergei Dyaghilev. Many of the leading Russian art celebrities taking part
in the high-profile event were invited to come over to Scriabin’s Parisian
home.
There, in the comfy atmosphere of the spacious dining room, the host
was playing his new works and sharing his ideas of fusing music with light.
The air of polite condescension with which Scriabin’s big-time guests we
listening to his ideas, was getting on Tatiana’s nerves...
In 1908 Scriabin and Tatiana returned to Russia. His old friends had all
turned their backs on him and were giving a very cold shoulder to his new
flame…
“There was something tragic and fatalistic about her,” wrote Scriabin’s
first biographer Leonid Sabaneyev. “She was always surrounded by hearsay
and acrimony. Fearing that the romantically- and totally unfamily-minded
Scriabin could get in love again, she was always on the lookout for potential
rivals and kept them at bay. Examining the lists of invited guests, she
diligently chalked out “unwanted” names handpicking only those she thought
were tried and true friends…”
Meanwhile, Alexander Scriabin was fast becoming a cult figure of Russian
music…
His family was growing equally fast. In 1911 Tatiana gave birth to another
child, their third, but because all of them have been born out of wedlock,
they bear their mother’s name only…
To support his two families, Scriabin gives nineteen concerts all in a
row playing in Moscow, St. Petersburg, other Russian cities and then takes
his act to Switzerland and Germany. He is no longer complaining and
uses every spare moment to write new music. “I’m composing all the time,
but it’s all very jumpy, you know… One moment it’s sheer bliss and the
next I’m in desperation… “Prometheus” is a die hard, it really is…” he
writes Tatiana.
Eaten up by jealousy, Tatiana wants him to write here every day, but in
each missive she finds a reason for reproof. All she needs are daily assurances
of love…
“The letters you last sent me really pained my heart! What can I do to
make you understand that I will never be able to stop loving you?!” Scriabin
writes.
Scriabin welcomed the outbreak of the First World War as a harbinger of
upheavals he believed would purify Russia…
“The time has finally come for all creatively-minded people to realize
what is going on and come up with new art forms,” Scriabin wrote in an
open letter carried by many newspapers across the nation.
Tatiana who always seconded her loved one, was equally enthusiastic about
the start of the hostilities. It wasn’t too long that they started waking
up to the tragic reality though. In September 1914 Alexander Scriabin gave
several concerts to benefit the victims of the war.
Meanwhile, the new year 1915 quietly set in. Then war was at its peak and
Scriabin was feeling blue bracing up for another sold-out concert tour.
Tatiana, hamstrung by everyday family chores, is, as usual, burned by jealousy
demanding detailed reports about each concert he plays. He readily obliges
sending in daily missives about his life on the road, sometimes using friends
as messengers.
On April 2, 1915 Scriabin plays a concert of his works in Petrograd. Pianist
Alexander Ziloti who was there sends Tatiana the following cable, “A deafening
success. Alexander played like God Himself!” That was the last concert
played by Alexander Scriabin …
On his way back to Moscow, Scriabin accidentally cut open a swelling on
his upper lip which ultimately occasioned his death. A few hours later
he felt sick. Tatiana called for the doctor who said it was blood contamination.
All attempts to save the composer failed and on April 14 Scriabin died.
Shortly before passing away he signed a plea to the Czar to allow the formal
adoption of his and Tatiana’s children and give them and Tatiana his name.
Learning about Scriabin’s plea, Vera, who had never gave him a divorce,
contacted the authorities saying she had nothing against innocent children
taking her husband’s name but added that it would be unlawful and
unfair to allow Tatiana Schloetzer to take on her and her late spouse’s
name.
Czar Nicholas II allowed Tatiana’s children to take their father’s name.
Tatiana was denied the privilege though but she continued signing her papers
as Mrs. Scriabin.
Tatiana did much to perpetuate the name of her beloved Alexander. Throughout
wars and revolutions she somehow managed to keep intact the house she and
Alexander lived in in Moscow. Before leaving Russia for good, she entrusted
the house to the care of Scriabin’s aunt who eventually made it into a
museum
which is still there…
05.11.2006
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