built over a period of 3 months, and, according to the New York Times article "thousands of dollars were spent before the project was completed". Special lamps were manufactured by General Electric as the instrument projected 12 separate colors. It was operated from a keyboard with 15 keys—the extra keys repeated the first three colors of the scale. When key contacts were closed, a low-voltage DC circuit activated the 110-volt AC circuit to one of the projecting lamps. Unlike previous devices, this machine was not built to demonstrate a particular association between color and sound; it was intended solely for performances of Prometheus.
A problem was quickly encountered because Scriabin gave no indication for the colors he considered parallel to the musical notation of the Luce part. Six years after the first effort to present Prometheus with coordinated light, colorist Mathew Luckiesh wrote:
Some of those responsible for the rendition of this music, with color accompaniment, had, at different times previous to the final presentation, accepted both the Rimington scale and Scriabine's code (the latter having been discovered later in a musical journal published ... in London) as being properly related to the music) [19].
Altschuler's Carnegie Hall production of Prometheus generally met with disfavor. One critic dismissed the colored lights, which were flashed onto a small white screen, as a "pretty poppy show". For various reasons, the Chromola was considered one of the instruments of the orchestra rather than equal in effect to the combined instrumental and choral forces as Scriabin intended. Also the audience evidently expected more. Technical problems contributed to difficulties, and not enough time was allowed to establish an artistic setting. Inappropriate theater facilities further diminished the possibility of a successful color realization.
A report in the New York Times Magazine (28 March 1915) indicated that an apparently successful private presentation of the color symphony accompanied by the Chromola took place at the Century Theater "about February 10th". Members of the distinguished audience included Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova and Mischa Elman. On that occasion, Millar (the inventor of the Chromola) was quoted by the New York Times as saying:
It was my dream to utilize an entire theatrical stage, hanging parallel curtains of thin diaphanous gauze from the proscenium, back to the rear wall of the theater, thus giving the light depth and
sufficient space to expand and create
atmosphere.
According to Luckiesh, others suggested that colors be projected onto loose folds of material that would be "kept moving gently by electric fans placed at a considerable distance" [20]. Had such solutions been adopted, the world premiere of Scriabin's Prometheus with color realization undoubtedly would have received a better press.
In the years following Altschuler's rendition of Prometheus with colored light, a great number of `color-organs' appeared. It may be difficult to prove a