Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and perfumer Mathilde Laurent on the Symphony’s exciting new multisensory project in collaboration with Cartier
ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS
These Symphony-commissioned feature articles offer insights into the music you’ll hear in the concert hall.
Mar 1, 2024
Prometheus, The Poem of Fire
Can you describe Prometheus for somebody who might have never heard of the piece?
Esa-Pekka Salonen: Prometheus is a composition by the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. It’s a tone poem inspired by the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods, gave it to humanity, and was punished severely. But as a result of this, we humans got fire, which then made it possible to develop new technology. So, it’s a very sort of central moment in the mythological history of humankind.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet: Scriabin was a very interesting, unique, and very different composer. He dreamed of mixing as many senses as possible to see how that affects the experience. Prometheus is a piece for full orchestra, piano solo, organ, chorus, and lights. And we’re going to add even another sense, scent.
EPS: Scriabin had synesthesia, which is a connection between two senses. For him, every musical key represented a color. He wanted to project this to the audience, so he designed an instrument [the color organ] that would emit light while music is being played. What we are doing here is expanding the concept of synesthesia to smell, to fragrances, to scents.
JYT: And it’s very interesting to see everything that Scriabin had in mind, how he prepared the piece, and everything he wrote on the score. There are so many directions on the score that have nothing to do with music. They are all about feelings, about things happening in the score by desire, by joy.
How did this project come to be?
JYT: This Prometheus project is a dream and vision that I had for many, many years. I honestly thought in my lifetime that it would never be possible to realize it technically. But it certainly was something I wanted to do.
I had admired Mathilde for a long time and when I met her, I was immediately fascinated by her artistry, her knowledge, her sensibility, and how she perceives everything. I said, you probably think I’m crazy, but this is a dream I have, and this is something that should be done. And she said absolutely.
Mathilde Laurent: I was immediately interested in the project because it was synesthetic and Scriabin’s intention was very clear about working with perfume, even if he unfortunately didn’t get the chance [during his lifetime].
The perfume was foreseen by the artist from the very beginning of the composition. So, for me, it was all about synesthesia. It’s really a subject I work on a lot, because to me, olfaction is an art. Perfume is an art, and its place is among the other arts. And synesthesia is really a way of inscribing perfume in art.
JYT: Actually, when Esa-Pekka was planning his first season at the San Francisco Symphony, I got a call from my agent saying, “The orchestra just called and is asking for you. But it’s a strange piece that I’m not even sure you play or are interested in.” When they said it was Scriabin’s Prometheus I almost lost it. I said, “Are you kidding? Not only am I interested, but I really want to do it.” So, that’s the moment I went back to Mathilde and said, okay, I think we might be able to do it…then I had to convince Esa-Pekka.
EPS: My first reaction when I heard about this from Jean-Yves was, of course, like everybody’s reaction: What was he talking about? Then he explained a little more and I had the good fortune of being able to spend some time in Mathilde’s laboratory. I realized that this is not only based on science, but also artistic thinking and artistic intuition. It’s based on evolutionary psychology, physiology, and neurology.
JYT: I’ve always been a strong believer in mixing all different artforms. I think you get something that is so much deeper, and that also enriches your life and your experience. I think it gives the music, and the perception of the music, an incredible dimension that is completely different.
EPS: It’s making connections between different artforms, which is something that really interests me. The Holy Grail, obviously, is to find a way for different artforms to enhance each other rather than compete. I think in this particular case we have found a way to make that happen.
As artists, each of you has a very different relationship to scent. Can you talk about that?
JYT: I’ve been fascinated by scents and perfume for as long as I can remember. I have all these memories from when I was a small kid, and they’re all related to or have scents attached to them, which is that fantastic memory that we have. It’s always been a very strong and important part of my life.
EPS: I know from my experience, and we all have this experience, that a scent can cut through layers of memory straight away. We smell something and all of a sudden, we are transported somewhere, say, five decades back.
ML: We live in a world where olfaction is relatively unexercised. You could say that olfaction, for a very long time, was in a way invisible to other senses, and to vision in particular. And so, for me, it’s a driving force. The other driving force behind my work is to share olfaction, to open olfaction up to the world, to open people up to their own senses, which in the end they know very little about.
And I’m a great believer in the virtue of this discovery. Because today I have the impression that olfaction is a very special sense, much more visceral than the others. And finally, to put people back in touch with their senses, not just with what they smell, but with their emotions. So that’s why this project was so important to me.
And what about the relationship between scent and music?
JYT: I think music, and art in general, is about emotion. You create an emotion that touches people, so the perfume immediately touches you. I think it’s a very immediate and very strong thing. And music is the same. It touches your soul.
EPS: When we started testing the scents, it made me not only think differently about music and performing music in general, but it also made me think somewhat differently about myself because I really felt something in a different part of my mind. With music and sound I know how to label the things I feel, but I felt something that I didn’t have words for. And at the end of the day, that’s what music is—it’s something that operates beyond language. The deepest musical experiences are beyond words, and they deal with the deepest layers of our humanity. I think scent can enhance and expand the experience to previously unknown dimensions.
Mathilde, how did you go about translating sound into scent?
ML: Scriabin’s music alone remains a profoundly beautiful work, and even if it’s about chaos, it’s really a beauty that you feel when you listen to it. So, I had the same quest, in fact, to come up with something that reflected what the music was describing.
We did several listening sessions with Esa-Pekka and Jean-Yves which allowed me to understand the different moments and meanings of the piece. We defined three moments: before the fire, the arrival of fire, and after the fire.
As it happened, I’d been doing this for several years. Before I met Jean-Yves and Esa-Pekka, I had created a perfume for Cartier that was a tribute to fire and the origins of perfumery. The mixture of fire and the smoke it produces is the original perfume. In fact, the word perfume comes from the Latin per fumum, meaning “in the smoke.”
Scent cannot be tamed like another part of stage play, like light for example. It is a body that moves in the air and not a vibration such as sound or color. The speed at which olfaction moves is slower. We therefore needed to allow time between each significant moment in order not to create an olfactive cacophony; hence these three key moments, which effectively convey the effect fire creates—so powerful that everything can be summed up into before and after.
Why do you think this piece should be performed today?
JYT: I think for the audience this experience is going to be something completely new. It is fantastic that in 2024 we can still do something that’s never done before. It’s also interesting as an artist at this point of my career, to be able to have a new experience, something that I’ve never done before.
ML: The myth of Prometheus tells us that fire corresponds with the dawn of human development as we know it today, and of human elevation. Fire enabled man to create the arts, and that’s where the Prometheus myth makes absolute sense for Cartier. I think that’s part of the reason why, once we were presented with the project, the Maison wanted to commit to it. The birth of art through fire corresponds precisely with the birth of perfumery, which uses fire to create all its ingredients. The myth of Prometheus is an incredible link between these two arts.
EPS: The Prometheus myth is something I’ve been thinking about a lot because this person steals the key piece of technology from the gods and gives it to humans, thus starting the technological progress and development humans have witnessed over millennia. Now we have come to a point where Prometheus’s gift might lead to the extinction of the human race because we have pushed this technology to such a place where we’re really destroying the planet we live on. When I think about Prometheus, it really is a mixed blessing. I would like to meet this guy and say, are you sure about this?
This production shows us that technology can be used for very noble purposes, such as art and enhancing people’s experiences in this world, but it also can be used for evil and everything in between. So, it’s up to us to decide what we do with it.
This interview was conducted in October 2023 at the San Francisco Symphony and has been condensed for length and clarity.
Esa-Pekka Salonen: Prometheus is a composition by the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. It’s a tone poem inspired by the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods, gave it to humanity, and was punished severely. But as a result of this, we humans got fire, which then made it possible to develop new technology. So, it’s a very sort of central moment in the mythological history of humankind.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet: Scriabin was a very interesting, unique, and very different composer. He dreamed of mixing as many senses as possible to see how that affects the experience. Prometheus is a piece for full orchestra, piano solo, organ, chorus, and lights. And we’re going to add even another sense, scent.
EPS: Scriabin had synesthesia, which is a connection between two senses. For him, every musical key represented a color. He wanted to project this to the audience, so he designed an instrument [the color organ] that would emit light while music is being played. What we are doing here is expanding the concept of synesthesia to smell, to fragrances, to scents.
JYT: And it’s very interesting to see everything that Scriabin had in mind, how he prepared the piece, and everything he wrote on the score. There are so many directions on the score that have nothing to do with music. They are all about feelings, about things happening in the score by desire, by joy.
How did this project come to be?
JYT: This Prometheus project is a dream and vision that I had for many, many years. I honestly thought in my lifetime that it would never be possible to realize it technically. But it certainly was something I wanted to do.
I had admired Mathilde for a long time and when I met her, I was immediately fascinated by her artistry, her knowledge, her sensibility, and how she perceives everything. I said, you probably think I’m crazy, but this is a dream I have, and this is something that should be done. And she said absolutely.
Mathilde Laurent: I was immediately interested in the project because it was synesthetic and Scriabin’s intention was very clear about working with perfume, even if he unfortunately didn’t get the chance [during his lifetime].
The perfume was foreseen by the artist from the very beginning of the composition. So, for me, it was all about synesthesia. It’s really a subject I work on a lot, because to me, olfaction is an art. Perfume is an art, and its place is among the other arts. And synesthesia is really a way of inscribing perfume in art.
JYT: Actually, when Esa-Pekka was planning his first season at the San Francisco Symphony, I got a call from my agent saying, “The orchestra just called and is asking for you. But it’s a strange piece that I’m not even sure you play or are interested in.” When they said it was Scriabin’s Prometheus I almost lost it. I said, “Are you kidding? Not only am I interested, but I really want to do it.” So, that’s the moment I went back to Mathilde and said, okay, I think we might be able to do it…then I had to convince Esa-Pekka.
EPS: My first reaction when I heard about this from Jean-Yves was, of course, like everybody’s reaction: What was he talking about? Then he explained a little more and I had the good fortune of being able to spend some time in Mathilde’s laboratory. I realized that this is not only based on science, but also artistic thinking and artistic intuition. It’s based on evolutionary psychology, physiology, and neurology.
JYT: I’ve always been a strong believer in mixing all different artforms. I think you get something that is so much deeper, and that also enriches your life and your experience. I think it gives the music, and the perception of the music, an incredible dimension that is completely different.
EPS: It’s making connections between different artforms, which is something that really interests me. The Holy Grail, obviously, is to find a way for different artforms to enhance each other rather than compete. I think in this particular case we have found a way to make that happen.
As artists, each of you has a very different relationship to scent. Can you talk about that?
JYT: I’ve been fascinated by scents and perfume for as long as I can remember. I have all these memories from when I was a small kid, and they’re all related to or have scents attached to them, which is that fantastic memory that we have. It’s always been a very strong and important part of my life.
EPS: I know from my experience, and we all have this experience, that a scent can cut through layers of memory straight away. We smell something and all of a sudden, we are transported somewhere, say, five decades back.
ML: We live in a world where olfaction is relatively unexercised. You could say that olfaction, for a very long time, was in a way invisible to other senses, and to vision in particular. And so, for me, it’s a driving force. The other driving force behind my work is to share olfaction, to open olfaction up to the world, to open people up to their own senses, which in the end they know very little about.
And I’m a great believer in the virtue of this discovery. Because today I have the impression that olfaction is a very special sense, much more visceral than the others. And finally, to put people back in touch with their senses, not just with what they smell, but with their emotions. So that’s why this project was so important to me.
And what about the relationship between scent and music?
JYT: I think music, and art in general, is about emotion. You create an emotion that touches people, so the perfume immediately touches you. I think it’s a very immediate and very strong thing. And music is the same. It touches your soul.
EPS: When we started testing the scents, it made me not only think differently about music and performing music in general, but it also made me think somewhat differently about myself because I really felt something in a different part of my mind. With music and sound I know how to label the things I feel, but I felt something that I didn’t have words for. And at the end of the day, that’s what music is—it’s something that operates beyond language. The deepest musical experiences are beyond words, and they deal with the deepest layers of our humanity. I think scent can enhance and expand the experience to previously unknown dimensions.
Mathilde, how did you go about translating sound into scent?
ML: Scriabin’s music alone remains a profoundly beautiful work, and even if it’s about chaos, it’s really a beauty that you feel when you listen to it. So, I had the same quest, in fact, to come up with something that reflected what the music was describing.
We did several listening sessions with Esa-Pekka and Jean-Yves which allowed me to understand the different moments and meanings of the piece. We defined three moments: before the fire, the arrival of fire, and after the fire.
As it happened, I’d been doing this for several years. Before I met Jean-Yves and Esa-Pekka, I had created a perfume for Cartier that was a tribute to fire and the origins of perfumery. The mixture of fire and the smoke it produces is the original perfume. In fact, the word perfume comes from the Latin per fumum, meaning “in the smoke.”
Scent cannot be tamed like another part of stage play, like light for example. It is a body that moves in the air and not a vibration such as sound or color. The speed at which olfaction moves is slower. We therefore needed to allow time between each significant moment in order not to create an olfactive cacophony; hence these three key moments, which effectively convey the effect fire creates—so powerful that everything can be summed up into before and after.
Why do you think this piece should be performed today?
JYT: I think for the audience this experience is going to be something completely new. It is fantastic that in 2024 we can still do something that’s never done before. It’s also interesting as an artist at this point of my career, to be able to have a new experience, something that I’ve never done before.
ML: The myth of Prometheus tells us that fire corresponds with the dawn of human development as we know it today, and of human elevation. Fire enabled man to create the arts, and that’s where the Prometheus myth makes absolute sense for Cartier. I think that’s part of the reason why, once we were presented with the project, the Maison wanted to commit to it. The birth of art through fire corresponds precisely with the birth of perfumery, which uses fire to create all its ingredients. The myth of Prometheus is an incredible link between these two arts.
EPS: The Prometheus myth is something I’ve been thinking about a lot because this person steals the key piece of technology from the gods and gives it to humans, thus starting the technological progress and development humans have witnessed over millennia. Now we have come to a point where Prometheus’s gift might lead to the extinction of the human race because we have pushed this technology to such a place where we’re really destroying the planet we live on. When I think about Prometheus, it really is a mixed blessing. I would like to meet this guy and say, are you sure about this?
This production shows us that technology can be used for very noble purposes, such as art and enhancing people’s experiences in this world, but it also can be used for evil and everything in between. So, it’s up to us to decide what we do with it.
This interview was conducted in October 2023 at the San Francisco Symphony and has been condensed for length and clarity.
