THE "MULTIMEDIA" CONCERT

A concert under this title took place on the third day of Scriabin festival which was held in Kazan Conservatory in April 1990. The first day was devoted to the piano music of the composer; the second day - to his symphonic music. The "Prometheus" studio took part in stage design of these concerts by means of slide projections of Russian artists' works, (whose minds were close to Scriabin's, mainly the members of "World of Art" group), combined with the poems, devoted to Scriabin by his friends: K.Balmont, V.Ivanov, Yu.Baltrushaitis.

The third day was fully given to the ideas of "Gesamtkunstwerk" (which may be translated at present times as "multimedia") - and it looked like a parody to the attempts of some modern artists to develop the ideas of Scriabin's "Total Art" in the boundless post-modern style.

The program included the grotesquely designed light-music pieces (with laser effects); "spatial music" (the instruments being placed all over the hall and roll-calling each other); "Temple Art" (with the elements of happening). Very original was the piece for light-music film and the organ: the rector of Conservatory was playing (with a single finger) the "Polonaise" of Oginski , while the students of "Prometheus" wound the spectators round with a tape of light-music film. After the final chords had faded, each spectator was allowed to tear off a piece of a tape as a souvenir (of course, to that purpose a defective film copy was used).

The great interest was aroused by the duet of viola and tape-recorder. The latter changed the reproducing rate by its own will; being switched off it got into discussion with Bulat Galeyev, the concert director, arguing that the whole concert is a profanation of Scriabin's ideas. The concert director agreed, but noted that he had seen a number of similar events devoted to "Gesamtkunstwerk" and Scriabin, at the festivals of experimental music in the foreign countries.

At any case, some of the items from that parody concert have entered, so to speak, into the history of modern bourgeois art. We mean here the performance "Video Ave Maria" and some video installations presented in the interval between concert parts (click here).