The Poem of Ecstasy

Alexander Scriabin's The Poem of Ecstasy (Le Poème de l'extase), Op. 54, is a symphonic poem written between 1905 and 1908, when Scriabin was actively involved with the Theosophical Society. It lasts about 20 minutes.

Scriabin sometimes referred to The Poem of Ecstasy as his "fourth symphony", although it was never officially called such and avoids the traditional division into separate movements. Although played as a single movement, there are traces of the classical sonata key-scheme that Scriabin had employed previously, but it is no longer structurally important. As described by Bernard Jacobson, "The form depends instead on the constant interpenetration and cross-fertilization of a multiplicity of tiny thematic units, most of them so sinuously chromatic as to subvert tonal feeling almost entirely beneath the vertiginous onslaught of shifting harmonic colors."

Much of the work has a feeling of timelessness and suspense, because of its rhythmic ambiguity and whole-tone-based dominant harmonies derived from Scriabin's "mystic chord" (since the whole tone scale has no leading tones, any harmony based on it will not lean toward any key in particular, allowing Scriabin to write pages of music with little to no tonal resolution).

The work can be split into three major theme groups: one group that is characterized by slower chromatic winding, one faster and more agitated group characterized by quick leaps and trills, and one featuring three themes presented by the brass (a horn fanfare to provide a rhythmic motif, a trumpet fanfare emerging from the surrounding texture, and a more lyrical trumpet theme). These three groups are presented separately at the outset of the piece, but are later developed and combined in different ways. The piece also builds to two major climaxes: one in the middle and one at the end. Both are built on themes from the third group and accompanied by string and woodwind tremolos and trills. At the second climax, Scriabin introduces low bells and organ, and maintains a trumpet and percussion ostinato throughout.

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