Experience legendary Russian maestro Evgeny Svetlanov at the head of the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR in a complete cycle of Scriabin’s symphonic works, captured here on archival footage. His Third Symphony, a programmatic work known as Le divin poème ("The Divine Poem"), is given an excellent interpretation in this concert.
By the time Scriabin was composing his third major symphonic work, he was under the full sway of what would become an all-consuming and ego-centric fascination with the occult and the mystical. His musical language and artistic style changed drastically in an attempt to express, as he put it, “the evolution of the human spirit, which, torn from an entire past of beliefs and mysteries which it surmounts and overcomes, passes through pantheism and attains to a joyous and intoxicated affirmation of its liberty and its unity with the universe.” The work is structured in three movements—Lento/Luttes, Voluptés, and Jeu divin—following human and spiritual conflicts (“Struggles”) that give way to “Delights” and conclude with the grandiose yet humorous “Divine Levity” of the finale.
The Evgeny Svetlanov Foundation has kindly provided this program to us as part of its celebrations of the maestro's 90th birthday.
