Scriabin’s Prometheus & Rachmaninov’s The Bells

Enter the kaleidoscopic world of Scriabin, as the Philharmonia recreates his Prometheus, complete with the colours he saw when he heard different sounds. 

Most of us will never know what it’s like to have synaesthesia – where two senses, in Scriabin’s case hearing and sight, are linked. But in his mystical masterpiece Prometheus: The Poem of Fire he did his best to share his experience with us. As well as solo piano, organ, chorus and an array of percussion, the score contains a part for ‘colour organ’, indicating the colours that should flood the concert hall at each key moment in the music. 

First, there’s a rare opportunity to hear Rachmaninov’s The Bells, based on poems by Edgar Allan Poe. From the youthful frivolity of a sleigh ride, through the sensuous promise of a wedding day to the grim tolling of funeral bells, Rachmaninov charts life’s milestones in music of huge emotional impact. 

Liadov’s From the Apocalypse, with its enigmatic references to the biblical Book of Revelation, completes this programme of music from the years of unrest and artistic experimentation leading up to the Russian Revolution.