Euphony V by DAC Crowell

Alexander Scriabin (1871-1915) was a Russian composer whose works, over the course of his career, employed many aspects of mystical and mythological thought. One of his late works, "Prometheus: The Poem of Fire" Op. 60, made use of a non-functional harmonic chord, known as the 'Prometheus chord'. Its pitches, A D♯ G C♯ F♯ B, were the primary material of this symphonic poem. Scriabin is considered by many to be an important composer in bridging the gap between late Romanticism and the Modernism of the first half of the 20th Century, in that he not only expanded the musical language of the time, but attempted to integrate multimedia techniques with his music; Op. 60 includes a part for a "clavier à lumières", a keyboard which was to control floods of different-colored light into the concert hall in tandem with the music of the work.

This work, "Euphony V", also makes exclusive use of the Prometheus chord's pitches. In a like manner to my previous Euphony works, stochastic methods are used to generate all of the notational material across the duration of the work, although certain 'ghost' pitches also appear as a result of certain processing methods which accentuated upper harmonics of the six pitches played in different registers.

Scriabin ultimately intended to stage a massive, week-long multimedia work in the Himalayas, the outcome of which was to create "...a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world." This work, the "Mysterium", was never completed and only sketches of the composition were extant at the composer's death. In deference to the aesthetic possibilities that the staging of such a work might have tapped, I've voiced the various parts in this piece using timbres and playing methods inherent in the music of the mountainous Central Asian region.

Composer/performer in electronic and electroacoustic media, concentrating on avant-garde ambient works. Studied with John Anthony Lennon, Salvatore Martirano and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Also known to do vaporwave and related sorts of sonic tampering. Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, he currently resides and creates in Champaign, Illinois.

patreon.com