This article is part of a larger project on music, painting and the spiritual in twentieth century Continental Europe. From 1901 to his premature death, Alexander Scriabin was obsessed with his project, the Mysterium, an apocalyptic event, set preferably in the Himalayas, and all his music is by preparation for its fulfilment. The methodology followed in this article is to set Scriabin in his biographical, political, cultural and philosophical context, before exploring his comparatively small musical output.
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