San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, right, perfumier Mathilde Laurent, and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet test Cartier’s fragrance technology for a performance of Scriabin’s “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire.” Photo by Mynxii White.
In Tuesday’s (2/27) San Francisco Chronicle, Tony Bravo writes, “Imagine combining the power of music with the evocative nature of scent. For San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, the possibility of using fragrance as part of a performance of Alexander Scriabin’s ‘Prometheus, The Poem of Fire’ sounded fitting for the composer’s multisensory vision for the work. But controlling the flow of a scent in a space as vast as Davies Symphony Hall seemed nearly impossible … When French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet brought the concept for a multisensory performance of ‘Prometheus’ to Salonen in 2019, his outlook changed. Thibaudet introduced him to Mathilde Laurent, perfumer for French luxury house Cartier, who was experimenting with the dry diffusion of fragrance…. Moved by a fan or in a ventilation system, the concentrate releases fragrance…. ‘The scent can be instantaneous and simultaneous with the music, and the intensity of it can be controlled,’ Salonen said…. When the San Francisco Symphony performs the world premiere of this staging of ‘Prometheus’ … March 1-3, with piano soloist Thibaudet, smell will be a key component…. There are already lighting cues written into Scriabin’s score, Salonen pointed out, so the scent is an additional layer.”
