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The Death of Alexander Scriabin from 1995, a play on BBC Radio 3 by Ken Russell with Oliver Reed, James Wilby and Hetty Baynes. It was broadcast on 18 Jun 1995 and repeated on 4 Aug 1996. For the opening of the radio play click
"Two exciting firsts for radio as Oliver Reed stars in Ken Russell's new play about one of the 20th century's most revolutionary composers. In 1914, two men with more than a passing interest in the occult meet in St Basil's Cathedral, Moscow - the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin and the notorious English mystic Aleister Crowley" (BBC Radio Times, 18 Jun 1995, click here, and the Diversity Website, Suttonelms, click here).
"Without question Scriabin was the most unusual composer ever nurtured on Russian soil. He ranks among the greatest of any country as a rare innovator of music" (Faubion Bowers, Scriabin A Biography, 1996, Volume 1 p76). Isadora Duncan (whose story Ken Russell filmed) said "Are you playing beautiful music? Think of me and play Scriabin"(ibid p87). Compare with Crowley "I have never had much time for Aleister Crowley. Magic(k) [one of his books] is nonsense; the mystical societies he formed were simply pretexts for him to take as may drugs and have as much sex as he could. And he was a second-rate writer at best" (Nicholas Lezard, New Statesman, 20 Aug 2022). Ken Russell discovered were in Moscow at the same time (around 1915) though never met and he imagines a meeting between them. Tom Stoppard uses a similar device in Travesties, bringing together Lenin and James Joyce who were both in Zurich in 1917. Despite the many differences between Scriabin and Crowley, some of Scriabin's actual views do approach the fanaticism of Crowley "Scriabin's philosophy above all else wanted transubstantiation in music, to turn sound into ecstasy. He searched for ritual which would recapture ancient history's magical power. To him the present was a 'degeneration of what was before,, the cult of real magic'" and "No other composer... ever flavored so much of his music with evil" (Bowers, p319 and 337) and "Scriabin's megalomania- 'I am God' was and is offensive" (Bowers, volume 2, p53). One of his work used by Russell in the play has the title The Black Mass Sonata, though in contrast another is titled The Divine Poem. Russell's play does not really dig into the relationship and contradictions between the two figures, and has some weak dialogue. Whereas in his television and film work there are long extracts of music to accompany visuals which develop the plot, he is restricted by radio and includes only short extracts from the music, often with dialogue as a voiceover. Despite the title the death of Scriabin is hardly covered. He died following "a little sore [which] appeared on my lip" (Bowers, p256) which lead to blood coursing throughout Scriabin's body and "...he complained he could not breathe. He grew more and more delirious. Once he shouted out 'Who is There?' Those were his last words to Sister Death" (Bowers, pages 278-9). In Russell's play there is no context and the death seems an afterthought in the writing, Ken Russell writes and directs and the
producer was Adrian Bean. The cast were Oliver Reed (Aleister Crowley, above left), James Wilby (Alexander Scriabin, above right), Hetty Baynes (Olga) and Donald MacLeod (Announcer). Russell also appeared as Professor R.J. Stone. Other roles were Brian Murphy (Police Sergeant), Don Warrington (Headman), Tanya Schloezer (Kristin Milward), Joshua Towb, (Ernie Gross), Gavin Muir (Arensky), Don MacCorkindale (Rimsky-Korsakov) with piano played by Dmitri Sladkowski. James Welby would later play Sir Clifford Chatterley in Russell's Lady Chatterley. Brian Murphy would appear in The Devils and The Boyfriend. “If there was a fault with this play, considered as parody, it was that it was too mercilessly accurate. One by one, Russell's foibles were caught, gassed and pinned into place: you want music 'n' sex? You can have Scriabin, a man whose most famous work (the "Poem of Ecstasy") is a lengthy orchestral depiction of orgasm (surprising Russell hasn't got round to him already, come to think of it). You want orthodox religion defied? Over-the-top acting by Oliver Reed? Bizarre fantasy sequences? … In the end, this felt rather less like a radio play and more like a 50- minute commentary on something Russell considers far more important, his own films: all in all, flatulent, self-indulgent and artistically redundant. Did I say that I loved it?” (Independent, 19 June 1995, click here). The music includes short extracts from: |
