Symphonic poem Borodin's "In the Steppes of Central Asia" "powerful orchestral pictures, each unique in its composer's output". Titled a "musical portrait", "In the Steppes of Central Asia" evokes the journey of a caravan across the steppes. "Night on Bald Mountain", especially its original version, contains harmony that is often striking, sometimes pungent and highly abrasive; its initial stretches especially pull the listener into a world of uncompromisingly brutal directness and energy. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote only two orchestral works that rank as symphonic poems, his "musical tableau" "Sadko" (1867–92) and "Skazka" ("Legend", 1879–80), originally titled "Baba-Yaga". While this may perhaps be surprising,
Prometheus: The Poem of Fire Prometheus: The Poem of Fire Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60 (1910), is a symphonic work by the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin for piano, orchestra, optional choir, and clavier à lumières or "Chromola" (a color organ invented by Preston Millar, in fact rarely featured in performances of the piece, including those during Scriabin's lifetime). "Prometheus" is only loosely based on the myth of Prometheus. A typical performance lasts about 20 minutes. The music is complex and somewhat dissonant, based almost entirely around various inversions and transpositions of Scriabin's matrix sonority: A D G C F B. Sabaneyev referred to