The work recorded on this disc is a unique phenomenon. It does not merely represent the completion of an unfinished composition; it is a bold and unprecedented attempt of one composer to recreate the concept of another on the basis of drafts.
Alexander Scriabin considered the creation of his “Mystery” the main target of his life. This work of cosmic character planned on a grandiose scale, demanded such conditions for its realization that were absolutely unreal in his day and continue to be unreal today, six decades later. Scriabin aspired to a work that would not be simply a musical piece or even a synthetic composition that would contain drama, poetry, dance and colors but a most unusual creation such as no musician ever wrote, in which people would not be divided into performers and listeners (or spectators), they were all to be, according to his conception, participants of this grandiose performance.
But three years passed after he wrote his last symphonic work “Prometheus” and his dream of writing his “Mystery” remained only a dream. It seems that Scriabin was not yet ready to create his “Mystery”. Obviously, a certain intermediate stage on the road to the realization, or complete rejection, of the plan was needed and it was in this context that the idea of “The Prefatory Action” came into being. According to the memoirs of Boris Schloetzer this idea finally crystallized in August, 1913. At first Scriabin was not too pleased with the title of the work and in this connection, he said: “It is a preliminary act and it meant to serve as a link between what already exists and the future “Mystery”.
He began to work on the composition by writing the poetic text which he managed to complete. Parallel with this he worked at the music. According to his contemporaries, Scriabin sometimes played the fragments he had already finished to his friends.
Apart from writing the fragments and test of “The Prefatory Action”, Scriabin defined the “light” line. in the way he defined it when he wrote “Prometheus”. This is a very important factor because by then Scriabin had already invented his “key board of light” which coincided with the natural color spectrum. This mechanical scheme was arranged in fifths and the light here was made “to duplicate” dully the chordal outline of the orchestral score.
Scriabin's untimely death in April 1915 cut short his work on “The Prefatory Action”. It later turned out that he had failed to write down many of his ideas and even some of the fragments that he had played to his friends were missing.
In 1970 the thirty-four-year-old composer from Moscow Alexander Nemtin decided to more closely examine the drafts that were destined to reach us. He managed to arrange them in logic order and in this way discovered what fragments were missing. The material that he had at his disposal he investigated very profoundly and by penetrating into the spirit of Scriabin's works of the middle and late creative periods and studying the text of “The Prefatory Action” and his color theory Nemtin finally chose the original form of duologue for piano, organ, chorus and large symphony orchestra.
The text itself was not included into the duologue because it was impossible to imagine what kind of vocal music Scriabin planned to write here as he had never in his lifetime written any vocal works and Nemtin from the start decided that he would not introduce music of his own concoction into this work. Nevertheless, the text made it possible for the contemporary co-author to arrange the materials in their logical sequence and this prompted his choice of the musical form for this composition.
Besides this in his restoration of “The Prefatory Action” Nemtin used some fragments of the Eighth Sonata, “Garlandes”, op. 73, and Preludes No. 2 and No. 4 of op. 74, fragments of which are found in Scriabin's drafts. The music recorded on this disc, represents Part I of the dilogy that was first performed in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on March 16, 1973.
Kirill Kondrashin on whose initiative this work was performed states: “Of course the work that Alexander Nemtin accomplished cannot be called a restoration for he has written an absolutely original composition. His music is such that one feels that the young composer knows and loves Scriabin's creative work, that he has studied the manner of music-writing and orchestration identified with Scriabin. The structure here is built on principles, adherent to the composer's later creative period. From my point of view the work is extremely interesting.”
