A Function-Based Approach to Scriabin's Late Style

Brian Bartling

Much has been written in recent years regarding the “other” side of overdetermination:1

that the structure of certain materials used in music compositions have remarkable qualities that

are efficacious for harmony and voice-leading.2 Although it has often been asserted that

Scriabin, especially in his late style, has either arrived or is heading towards a serialistic or set-

based approach to his compositions,3 I claim that his late style is heavily indebted to a type of

tonality that exploits the former qualities. This tonality has roots in contemporary Russian music

theory, of which there is reason to believe that Scriabin was at least partially familiar with,4 and

complements modern Western music theory that is based upon neo-Riemannian theory.

The parallels with Russian music theory and neo-Riemannian theory have been explored,

albeit cursorily, in recent publications concerning the former topic,5 but I mention neo-

Riemannian theory because the theorists in this genre have been explicitly concerned with the

voice-leading-as-function approach to music analysis. That is, what chords or scales did the

1 Overdetermination, when applied in a musical context, refers to the robust and multifaceted nature of much of the musical material that has been popular in common practice. This is most commonly used to describe the major or minor triad, whereby the triadic structure is both consonant and has voice-leading efficiency. (Cohn 2012, 40-41)

2 This includes both specific analyses of pieces of music or chordal structures themselves, and the more general field of neo-Riemannian analysis. (Cohn 1997), (Tymoczko 2011)

3 Examples of this include George Perle, who felt that Scriabin was heading towards Duodecophany (Perle 1984); Kelkel, who argued for a twelve-note governing set, a claim for which Anthony Pople pointed out the reductio ad absurdum (Pople 1989); and Pople himself, who proposed a nine note governing set – the octatonic plus the major second (Pople 1989).

4 Scriabin was a discerning composer throughout his career, and was highly astute to his own harmony and voice leading practices. He composed “according to definite principle” but refused to tell anyone of methods, other than the time when he invited Sergei Taneiev and Alexander Goldenweiser to a demonstration of his principles, but left them sore-headed and unenlightened.

5 Russian Music Theory was a topic for the most recent publication (September 2014) of Music Theory Online. See (Bakulina 2014), (Bazayev 2014).

composer use as a basis for the composition in question, and how did the composer exhibit

motion between this musical material? As mentioned previously, these two approaches to theory

complement each other quite well, and are useful when analyzing some of the pieces in

Scriabin's later works.

A Brief Overview of Russian Music Theory

The central idea to Russian Music Theory is the concept of mode, or lad, which is a

scale-based approach to analysis that is different from a Western understanding of mode.6 The

term lad doesn't have a precise definition, rather the word is used to describe a number of

descriptive modal phenomenon. Yuri Kholopov, in his entry for mode (lad) in Music

Encyclopedia, describes three important features to the concept:

1. each mode is built on a scale,

2. pitches in the scale may be stable or unstable, and

3. each mode has an intonation, or an emotional, social, and historical connection.7

The concept of voice-leading is concomitant with lad8; movement in and around scalar

collections and scale degrees via chromatic steps is a central part to lad, and allows a theorist to

study highly chromatic or non-tonal music in a much clearer way than Western functional or set-

theoretic analysis. This is especially true in much of the Soviet composers, who, in keeping with

this idea of lad, established an orthographic principle whereby sharped notes resolve upwards to

a modal note, and flatted notes resolve downward.9

Another important concept in Russian Music Theory is the changing tonal center.

6 “The Russian concept of mode has no exact equivalent in Western music theory.” (Carpenter 1995, 76)7 (Bazayev 2014)8 Ibid.9 Orthographic pitch function is most easily manifest in the music of Roslavets (Bazayev 2013), but nevertheless

was an important concept for 20th century Russian music theorists (Bazayev 2014).

Flexibility of the tonal center is a long-time feature of Russian music: its roots are in Russian

folk and church music and it extended into Russian classical music. Implied motion between

two tonal centers occurs often in folk music – an example of which is given in Example 1 (Коса

ль моя косынька, or I Wear my Hair in a Plait). This excerpt contains a melody that implies a

motion between F Major and its relative D Minor.

Example 1. Tonal Flexibility in a Russian folk song. (Tchaikovsky 1949)

This flexibility of tonal center translated itself into the writings of many Russian music

theorists under the term mutability. Mutability is generally defined to be the gravitation or

fluctuation between two or more tonal centers. This is not modulation per se, instead it's a

flexible, fluctuating concept of closely-related modes. Originally, mutability was coined to

describe a system of diatonic and church modes in which unstable tones gravitate to stable ones

via single semitone displacements10, but overtime, among a broad collection of theorists, the

definition became much less universal, more abstract, and was used among a number of related

musical examples. The term now has a loose definition: it is used to describe the fluctuating

tonal center.11 The music theorist Igor Sposobin has classified mutability into two main types:

1. Relative mutability, in which the tonic of a diatonic collection shifts from major to its

relative minor or vice versa (this is the R relationship in neo-Riemannian lingo). This is

the type shown in example 1.

2. Other types, which exhibit a change in tonal center but don't imply an R relationship.

There are three such types:

10 (Ibid.)11 For an overview of the history of mutability, consult (Bakulina 2014)

◦ With a fixed tonic, the mode changes within its own major (Ionian, Mixolydian,

Lydian), or minor (Aeolian, Phrygian, Dorian) category.

◦ With a fixed tonic, the mode changes to its parallel minor (the P relationship).

◦ The tonic itself shifts within a fixed diatonic collection. Oftentimes this includes

the L relationship, or the leading-tone exchange in neo-Riemannian parlance.

Sposobin's classification of the types of mutability shows that there is an interesting

parallel between 20th century Russian music theory and neo-Riemannian theory. Specifically,

theorists from both camps are concerned with voice-leading, as it is an important and effective

theoretical tool when confronted with daunting concepts such as chromaticism, atonality, music

that doesn't have any sort of diatonic function, etc. Indeed, a brief comparison of the two camps

could point to their similarities.

In Russian music-theoretical parlance, a specific lad may create, sustain, and release

tension via modal mutability, which, diatonically speaking, conforms to two major types. The

latter of which has 3 subtypes. The orthography of the music itself often reflects this mutability

towards the lad: a chromatically altered note that resolves upwards by a single semitone is

sharped, and a chromatically altered note that resolves downwards by a single semitone is flatted.

Whereas in the past a lad would only refer to one of the eight diatonic church modes, theorists

have gradually began to alter the definition to encompass any set up to the 12 chromatic notes.

This allows Russian music theory to be continuous throughout its own history: a single

theoretical tool can be stretched far enough to encompass both diatonic music in the common-

practice era and highly chromatic music in the 20th century.

Neo-Riemannian theory, on the other hand, was originally formulated to analyze the

harmonic practices within the Late Romantic period marked by a high degree of seemingly

illogical chromaticism. Riemann himself conceptualized a system in which triads could directly

relate to each other under the guise of dualism, in which he believed that whereas major

sonorities were derived from the overtone series, minor sonorities could be derived from an

isomorphic undertone series.12 This concept was formulated with no scientific basis and has

since been thrown out of intellectual discourse, but it still points to an interesting harmonic

relationship between the major and relative minor chord types that have been explored

throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries. That is, these chords are inverses of each other

and exhibit a small amount of voice-leading work.13 It was then found that two other

transformations, the Parallel and the Leading-tone exchange, have similar characteristics, and a

combination of different transformations within this LPR group can give way to even more

functions. Although the connection between voice-leading and neo-Riemannian transformations

is contentious,14 the means of thinking about chromaticism in terms of function has opened up a

door to the topic of voice-leading in chromatic music. This has turned into countless analyses,

mathematical, graphical, or otherwise, and has led to extensions beyond triadic chord

progressions.

Both camps tend to treat voice-leading as a distinguishing feature of 20th century

harmony. Russian music theory does so from the perspective of chromatic alterations of a single

mode, and neo-Riemannian theory does so from a chord-first standpoint: movement between two

collections are transformations that can be measured in terms of voice-leading. I will now argue

that both of these camps may be used in combination to analyze some of the harmonic

12 (Rehding 2003)13 Voice-leading work is the sum of the magnitude of all voices connected to each other modulo 12. For a triad, the

smallest amount of voice-leading work is 1: a single voice in the triad moves by one chromatic tone. This happens to be the case for the Parallel and Leading-tone exchange transformations, but the Relative transformation requires two units of work. For more on voice-leading work see (Cohn 1997)

14 Dmitri Tymoczko points out that neo-Riemannian theory is unable to account for some of the common chord progressions in 19th century harmony. (Tymoczko 2009)

techniques employed by Scriabin in his later period.

An Analysis of the Late Music of Scriabin15

The late music of Scriabin has been a source of bafflement towards both critics and the

general public long after his death. It isn't difficult to find voices that bemoan and censure

Scriabin's musical direction later in his life; Herbert Antcliffe felt that much of his music,

especially the last set of five preludes, were “beyond the comprehension of a large proportion of

the most modern-minded musicians.”16 Alexander Brent-Smith posits that Scriabin's work is

“meaningless raving … Cacoethes Scriabini,”17 and Rollo H. Myers believes that Scriabin wrote

a “strange empty page of indeterminate tonality”18 when reviewing the fourth of the last five

preludes. I agree with Alfred J. Swan when he noticed that Scriabin used “absolutely unheard-of

scales, marvellously expressive and full of shrieking cruelty”19 in his late works, but I do not

accept that the inner logic of these compositions is beyond the scope of the modern-minded

musician, or that they are tonally indeterminate. In fact, I feel that Scriabin employed a

compositional logic that doesn't necessarily function in a diatonic fashion, but is still

commensurate with contemporary music theory. This was accomplished by a reliance on two

symmetrically-constructed sets20 – the whole tone and the octatonic set – and the tonal

15 I will borrow James Baker's analysis of Scriabin's career: the years 1903 to 1910 account for a transitional period in Scriabin's life which is marked by a heavy reliance on set 6-34, the mystic chord, and the years 1911 to 1914 is the late period in Scriabin's life when he showed a preference for 6-35, or whole tone and 4-28/8-28, or octatonic, sets. The very first piece that seems to have been written in this style, though, was completed in 1910:the Prelude Op. 59/2. Twenty short works span the period of 1911-1914, but here I will only analyze a small handful of them, with particular attention to his last work, Op. 74, a set of five short preludes. (Baker 1986)

16 (Antcliffe 1924)17 (Brent-Smith 1926)18 (Myers 1957)19 (Swan 1969)20 I use the term “symmetrically-constructed” because both of these sets are built using operations that imply

perfect evenness in some sense. That is, the whole tone scale is generated by a series of whole steps, which divides the octave perfectly evenly into six parts. The octatonic scale, on the other hand, alternates half-steps and whole-steps. This scale can be generated by coupling two perfectly-even fully diminished chords that lie a half-step apart; these fully diminished chords divide the octave into four equal parts. This is notable because, as governing sets, the whole tone and octatonic sets have the ability to spawn many chords that require minimal

relationships that occur among themselves.

Op. 45/2 Poéme fantasque

Scriabin had a fascination with these sets even during his transitional period (1903-1910),

especially the whole tone set, but he did not treat them as self-sufficient entities until later in his

career. This is manifest in his “Poéme fantasque” Op. 45/2 (example 2), written in 1905.

Example 2. Scriabin uses the whole tone scale as a planing effect.

The whole tone scale divides the octave perfectly evenly in six units, so there are only

two unique whole tone scales which are listed in example 3.

voice-leading work. These are called Generalized Weitzmann regions in Richard Cohn's terminology (Cohn 2012).

WTI C# D# F G A BWTII C D E F# G# A#

i ii iii iv v viExample 3. The whole tone scales.

Scriabin exploits these structures as a planing effect. That is, one set may be dominating the

other at any given moment in the composition, but at another moment the dominating set may

change to its complement, resulting in a complete shift of planes. These shifts, especially in this

composition, aren't crisp. They often occur gradually: WTI is the dominating set for measures 0

to 2, but the change to WTII comes definitely at the eighth-note chord on the first beat of

measure 3. In between, there are a certain number of spoilers of these sets: note the

orthographically suggestive G# in measure 0 and the D♮ in measure 1 and 2. Both of these notes

resolve upwards to a note in the WTI collection, and the C♮ in the bass of measure 2 helps to

initiate the change in whole tone plane. This C♮ is an example of Scriabin's use of mutability

among whole-tone planes. Measures 3-6 are an exact transposition of the opening material by a

perfect fifth, or seven half steps. Being an odd number of half steps, this allows the plane to

shift, resulting in music that is both different and similar. A full summary of whole tone shifts in

Op. 45/2 can be summarized as follows: WTI dominated measures 0-2, then a switch to WTII

occurred in measures 2-5. The plane then shifted back to WTI in measure 6, in the same way as

the beginning, then WTI acted as the dominating set for two more measure until measure 8.

Then similar musical material was stated in WTII for two more measures, but afterwards the

plane shifted back to WTI. This plane dominated the music for four measures until the end,

where a shift back to WTII implied an ending on the tonic.

At this point in Scriabin's career, he was still concerned with writing pieces in a

functionally tonal manner, which may account for some of the spoilers used in this piece. A

dominant-implied opening, a favorite of Scriabin's,21 results in a tonic C-major chord in first

inversion on the first beat of measure three, with a raised fourth and a lowered sixth. The

restatement of the opening material implies a secondary dominant that resolves to the dominant,

and the piece itself closes in a dominant to tonic relationship that resolves on a true C-major

chord in first inversion.

This is definitely a forward-looking piece in Scriabin's oeuvre, but it still holds up to the

scrutiny of Russian Music Theory: it was constructed with a whole tone lad in which the stability

of the lad's pitches conform to the respective tonality that was implied in the piece, but the piece

itself conforms to the dominating whole tone plane. A plane may dominate in a number of ways:

longer duration, doubling of chord members, exaggeration of pitches, repetition, or first

occurrence. Pitches that fall outside of the dominating whole tone collection oftentimes resolve

by half step, in an orthographically suggestive manner, or they imply mutability in a given

moment. That is, the chromatic notes show a change in the tonal center by a shift in whole tone

plane. There is also an important voice-leading feature of the whole tone scale: a single

collection has the ability to either imply a major chord, such as the first beat of measure three, or

perform a low-work voice-leading transformation to result in the true sonority, such as measure

fifteen. There is also a low-work voice-leading transformation that results in the complementary

plane shift (implied dominant-to-tonic relationship). Consult measures 2 to 3, whereby an

alternating semitone gesture moves the music seamlessly between planes. This is a favorite

move of Scriabin – he uses the same gesture, for example, to move between different collections

in “Feuillet d'Album,” Op. 58 (see example 4).

21 (Baker 1986)

Example 4. Scriabin uses a common semitone gesture to move between pitch collections. From“Feuillet d'Album,” Op. 58

Op. 69/1 Poéme

In his late period, Scriabin abandoned any sense of functional tonal logic in his pieces and

adopted the use of the symmetrical sets as his main compositional force. Sticking with the whole

tone example, this is salient in the first Poéme, Op. 69/1. Although this piece strongly centers

around C-major, the piece is developed strictly along whole tone relationships. The first four

measures of this piece, reproduced in Example 5, exhibit a strong domination of WTII with very

few spoilers.

Example 5. This music is heavily focused around WTII with very few spoilers.

In the first measure, the A, a note that falls outside of WTII, resolves upwards by

semitone into the Bb. The second measure, which contains the common semitone gesture,

resolves the Db into the C of the following measure, but the following measure still retains the

same whole tone plane. Also notice the last note of the example: the Eb here falls outside of

WTII. It is approached on both sides by a semitone, and it resolves into the E♮. It also has

another function: the Eb acts as a complementary, quasi-dominant relationship to the following

music, shown in Example 6. Since this piece doesn't have any diatonically functional

relationships, and since the I-V relationship belongs to the same pitch group, contrast is achieved

in this whole tone music by juxtaposing the two different scales onto each other. A brief glimpse

of WTI is followed by a restatement of the beginning transposed a major third. This is four

semitones, an even number, so we remain in WTII. Transposition by a major third is an

important structural component to Scriabin's whole tone music; it doesn't allow for “modulation”

into the other whole tone collection, rather, it infuses the music with continuation without a sense

of harmonic development.

Example 6. A restatement of the beginning, transposed up a major third.

Again, notice the E# at the end of the passage; the E# resolves by semitone into F#. The

music remains in WTII for another measure, but in this passage, reproduced in Example 7,

conflict is introduced by layering both whole tone collections on top of each other. Each

measure alternates dominating collections, building tension until a climactic release by a

virtuosic passage marked léger, brillant. Bringing this juxtaposition into one's pianistic

interpretation infuses the passage with increased vigor.

Example 7. Layering whole tone collections builds conflict and tension.

A further example of the tonal effects that result in juxtaposing these two whole tone

collections comes at the coda of this piece. Largely dominated by WTII, the final two measures

result in a cadence on a root position C-Major chord with an added minor seventh and ninth.

This comes largely from WTII, but with a change from F# to G resulting in one unit of voice-

leading work in order to close on a consonant C-major sonority. The penultimate measure

couple of measures, though, are completely in WTII with the exception of the bass notes Eb, Db,

and the highest note A. This gives a complementary, closing feel to the ending of the piece

similar to a tonic-dominant relationship, but was accomplished solely by layering the two whole

tone collections on each other.

Example 8. A satisfying closing accomplished by juxtaposing whole tone collections.

Although there are no true diatonic relationships written in this piece, Scriabin still

manages to sustain and release tension in a coherent manner. This is accomplished by asserting

stability upon certain notes in the lad and managing mutability by chromatically altering notes

and moving between planes via low-work voice-leading and spoilers. Since the whole tone

collections are crisp – either a note belongs to a collection or doesn't – Scriabin's whole tone

music in his late period is characterized by a black-and-white planar action, but movement

between the two in a gray area. This gray area expands greatly when considering his octatonic

music, since a single note could belong to multiple different collections. This is done in a

logical, tonally-minded way.

Although Scriabin first used the octatonic scale as a governing entity in the “Prelude” Op.

59/2, it wasn't until his Op. 74 set of preludes that relationships between octatonic sets came out

in full force. This set of preludes, the last set of Scriabin's compositions, garnered much

attention since its first publication in 1914. Perhaps the most notable of critics is George Perle,

who asserts that the governing set to these preludes is a “derived hepatatonic” scale (the first

seven notes of the octatonic) and its variant, the raised seventh step, which produces a whole-

tone subset.22 Perle justifies this claim by analyzing Scriabin's orthography, or “self-analysis,”

and pointing to its inclusion in his artificial set. There are multiple instances of deviant

22 (Perle 1984)

orthography, for which Perle points to Scriabin's distaste of excessive “pedantry.”23 I disagree

with Perle's analysis, especially with his inclusion of the extra note in the octatonic set. My

claim, which shall analyzed in the sequel, is that Scriabin used the octatonic scale in a way that

conforms to the theme of this paper: the full octatonic is the lad in which mutability and

“modulation” among itself is performed by low voice-leading work. The orthography itself

reflects these mutable or “modulation” changes. I believe that my interpretation of Scriabin's

musical material is not only clearer, since it accounts for virtually every note in these pieces, but

it also reflects the music theory of the time, which is probably more in line with Scriabin's own

thought process. Perle's attempt to use sets relies too heavily on the theory that emerges decades

after Scriabin's death.

However, Perle has provided us with an exceptional summary of the Op. 74 set as a

whole:

“In his careful and sensitive use of 'non-harmonic'tones in Preludes Nos 1 and 2 he confronts the problemof voice-leading in a system that makes no distinctionbetween the linear and harmonic implications of the scale.The intersection of different cyclic systems in PreludesNos 4 and 5 enlarges transpositional and formal possibilities...The central movement, in its simple and straightforwardsurface unfolding of the invariant relations inherent inthe basic octatonic scale, has the character of an axis ofsymmetry in the context of the work as a whole.”24

In the first and second preludes, Scriabin attempts to construct a coherent piece based

upon the voice-leading properties of the octatonic scale among its transpositions, whereas the

fourth and the fifth preludes are more ambitious in their formal scope. Here I will only analyze

the second and fourth preludes of the set. The third prelude, on the other hand, is a sort of

23 Ibid., p. 11124 Ibid., p. 116

introduction to the octatonic set as a governing relationship, which I will analyze first. Before

that, there are some observations that need to be made about the octatonic scale.

Like the whole tone scale, the octatonic scale is symmetrically-constructed, so only a few

transpositions are possible. The octatonic scale has three possible transpositions, and they are

listed on F#, G, and G# in Example 9.

OI F# G A Bb C C# D# EOII G Ab Bb Cb Db D E FOIII G# A B C D Eb F F#

i ii iii iv v vi vii viiiExample 9. The octatonic scales.

This harmonic system is much more complex and involved than its whole-tone

counterpart; of particular note is the symmetry inherent in this system. The “dominant” step, v,

lies exactly halfway between the octave “tonic” poles, and the “mediant” step, iii, lies exactly

halfway between the dominant and tonic steps. Much as the whole tone system has chordal steps

of a major third, this octatonic system has chordal steps of a minor third, and is capable of fitting

four notes, the fully diminished tetrad, within the octave. The i-v step describes a tritone, an

interval that Scriabin was very fond of, and there is no way to escape the 3-note diminished triad

or the 4-note fully diminished chord as chordal steps in this system. Another interesting feature

of these octatonic scales is their reversibility,25 that is, each fully diminished chord is equivalent

to another fully-diminished chord that is five scalar-steps away. For example, a “tonic” chord on

i is equivalent to a “dominant” chord on v, a iii chord is equivalent to a vi chord, etc. The

difference of these chord types relies only on the context of the music or the exaggeration of a

chordal member. So this symmetry, coupled with reversibility, results in a musical system that

can be static and, frankly, uninteresting. But by using interesting voice-leading techniques, and

25 This term was borrowed from (Elkins 1991).

by being put in Scriabin's hands, it can result in music that is exciting, haunting, and quite

dramatic.

Op. 74/3 Allegro drammatico

The opening of this piece underscores the screaming tension that is capable of

octatonicism, reproduced in Example 10.

Example 10. Tension wrought by octatonicism.

The major seventh leap at the beginning, the heavy chromaticism of the main theme, and

the tritone figuration in the bass all suggest music that is tense and dissonant. This is indeed true,

but a deeper analysis of this piece suggest a fairly straightforward harmonic structure. Much like

Op. 45/2, Scriabin introduces all of the harmonic material that he needs for the piece in the first

few measures; that is, the first measure introduces an F# diminished-seventh chord that moves

into a G diminished-seventh chord in the next measure. Both of these chords are derived from

OI, and, keeping in line with Example 9, are the v and vi diminished chords. The F#

diminished-seventh chord is the tonic in this piece, so I will refer to these as the i and ii chords.

Although both of these chords belong to the same OI collection, Scriabin still uses spoilers from

the i chord to imply mutability into ii. That is, the first measure is derived entirely from an F#

diminished-seventh chord, with the exception of the held A# and the chromatic G#,26 but the

second measure moves into ii, the G diminished-seventh chord. The A is retained from the F#

diminished-seventh collection, and the same bass figuration is held over. Along with implying

mutability in this context, retaining the A results in a smoother voice leading, resulting in only

three units of work needed to shift from i to ii instead of four.27 Also, the held A# during the first

measure implies a sense of backwards-mutability, and indeed simply underscores the dissonance

of the sonorities as a whole.

The process is then repeated in measure 3, transposed up a tritone, complete with the

dissonant interplay between A and A#. Measure 4 introduces a soprano A that has a raw,

shrieking quality to it, marked “comme un cri.” This is then followed by a subito p downward

melodic descent, still centered around the f# diminished-seventh, with an E that is derived from

the g diminished-seventh chord. This increases in intensity until the music devolves into a long

dominant pedal point, using tones from both collections, and the full octatonic scale is spelled

out from D# to E. This is reproduced in Example 11.

Example 11. The music turns into a dominant pedal point, then spells out O1.

26 The orthography of the G# may be explained by Scriabin's preference for sharps to define O1 and his use of octatonicism in this piece; no flats occur at all.

27 (F#, A, B#, D#) → (G, A, C#, E) is only three units of voice-leading work, as opposed to (F#, A, B#, D#) → (G, A#, C#, E), which is four.

Much like Op. 69/1, the second half of this piece is a repetition of the first, although this

time transposed at a tritone, but the coda contains an interesting summation of the work as a

whole. Again, Scriabin respells OI, but the final chord is a dissonance that is anchored in an F#

diminished-seventh chord. The non-chromatic tones include an E, which was used throughout

the piece to counterbalance the i sonority, and a G, which is the note that ends the octatonic scale

into the final chord. This final note further emphasizes the conflict between two harmonic axes –

the impetus that drives this piece of music.

Example 12. An octatonic scale resolves into a chord containing two conflicting harmonic axes.

To sum up, this prelude juxtaposes two chordal sonorities within a harmonic system in

which movement in the diatonic sense is impossible. These two sonorities are contained within

the same OI scale, and Scriabin moves in between them by means of an advanced form of

mutability – some notes are retained and stretched over in order to make the voice-leading

between the two chords much smoother and more palatable. The primacy of either harmonic

axis may be established in the same ways as the whole-tone sonorities: longer duration, doubling

of chord members, exaggeration of pitches, repetition, or first occurrence. Chromatic notes that

aren't included in a collection are resolved by semitone, and chord progressions are limited to the

octatonic scale, so they usually progress by minor third or tritone. In other pieces of this same

set of preludes, I will show that Scriabin not only used chord progressions, but moved in between

multiple octatonic scales.

Op. 74/2 Trés lent, contemplatif

Aurally, the two most striking features of this piece are its heavy amount of chromaticism

and its unrelenting ostinato figure. The only times that the ostinato doesn't appear are the

beginning and end, both include the main theme of the prelude. This theme is obviously a

member of OI and still employs F# as i. This is reproduced in Example 13.

Example 13. Note the plane shift from O1 to O3.

The ostinato also belongs to OI, but in measure 4 it ventures outside of the collection by

using a D. In the ostinato, the second beat of measure 4 moves to OIII, thereby exploiting the F#

by using it as a pivot between i in OI and viii in O3. This is mirrored by the chromaticism in the

top voice: the chromatic E# that occurs on top of the OI-dominated first half of measure four

functions in the same way as the G that occurs on top of the OIII-dominated second half. That

is, they both resolve to step viii in their respective collections. A change from OI to OIII occurs

three more times in this piece, and each time is marked by similar music from its surroundings,

but a jump in the dominating plane. This results in a much-needed color shift in octatonic music

that is otherwise static and reversible. The most salient location of this change occurs at the

climax of this piece, in which this plane shift occurs twice in a row, as seen in Example 14.

Example 14. The climax makes use of a coloristic plane shift.

The first two measures of Example 14 contain the actual climax of the piece, whereas the

next two measures function as an extension and a cooling down of the climax. The last three

measures are an exact restatement of the theme. Note that, although it is implied in the first

instance, the G# that initiates the chromatic descent to the E# in OIII holds the same place as the

F# that initiates the chromatic descent to the Eb in OI on the second half of the measure. This is

the same music that exists in a different plane: a novel feature of these symmetric scales that may

have sparked Scriabin's attention to them in the first place. Also notice that the theme,

reproduced perfectly in the last two measures of Example 14, is broken when it moves across

these shifting planes. The A# in the second measure of the example moves upwards instead of

down. This further underscores the influence of OIII on the otherwise OI-dominated music. A#

is not a chromatic note in OI but it is in OIII, which forces it to resolve upwards instead of

downwards, so as to keep with the line initiated by the A in the previous measure. This second

prelude illustrates a further technique that Scriabin used in his octatonic arsenal: harmonic

movement can be initiated not just by chord progressions, but by a complete shift in scale as

well.

Op. 74/4 Lent, vague, indécis

This piece has been notoriously difficult for analysts to wrap their head around, recall

Meyer's observation of a “strange, indeterminate tonality.”28 One such attempt was done by

Anthony Pople, who proposed two nine-note governing sets. These are 9-10, the octatonic scale

plus the second step D-natural, and 9-12, which is 9-10 but with a raised third and sixth step, or F

and G#. The interaction between these two sets is so extensive that, when approached this way,

the music seems to fall into a chromatic mess. Instead of analyzing this music from a set-based

angle, it is necessary to retain the same octatonic approach argued previously, but with increased

fortitude: this piece uses a triple axes among all the octatonic scales, whereby the harmonic

movement is rigidly determined, yet moves freely in the chromatic space that octatonicism

allows.

In order to facilitate the analysis, I will revisit Example 9 but with the note A acting as

the tonic i on OI.

OI A Bb C C# D# E F# GOII A# B C# D E F G G#OIII B C D Eb F F# G# A

i ii iii iv v vi vii viiiExample 15. The three octatonic scales.

The very first chord of this piece belongs to OI. This chord is interesting itself: it is an

inverted A chord, but both mediants are used, creating a bitonal harmonic bite. Bitonality would

be a suggestive road for any prospective analyst due solely to this chord, but soon the analyst

would be left astray. Instead, since we are venturing down the octatonic path, this opening chord

would suggest that Scriabin doesn't rely on chordal steps (i.e. diminished or fully-diminished

28 (Meyers 1957)

chords) in this piece, rather he favors close interval steps to construct his chords. Perhaps

Scriabin didn't want to write a piece that has a menacing, shrieking quality to it, which would be

in line with the rest of the piece in this collection, but rather a piece of quiet repose that still takes

advantage of the octatonic systems that are going through his brain. This quasi-bitonal path is

what he chose, then, which gives the piece this strange, otherworldly tonality that is markedly

different from the surrounding pieces.

Continuing the octatonic analysis, we find that the next measure already ventures out of

the OI realm, as shown in Example 16.

Example 16. Op. 74/4 exploits the voice-leading structure of octatonicism.

The first full measure of Op. 74/4 moves from OI to OIII quite suddenly, although voice-

leading work is kept at a minimum – the C is retained from OI, whereas the B and the G# emerge

by semitone. OIII dominates two full beats, then the music shifts back to OI, still keeping voice-

leading work at a minimum – the A is retained and the E is approached by semitone. Brief

glimpses into other octatonic sets occur throughout the passage: OIII occurs on the second beat

of the second measure, then promptly reverts back to OI. OII makes an appearance on the third

beat of the third measure, but with the spoiler note A which resolves to G# in the following

measure; notice the augmented second in the soprano and the voicing of the chords, a structural

equivalent to the previous two OI-dominated third beats. This is another instance of Scriabin's

penchant for putting the same music through multiple harmonic planes. With the exception of a

number of chromatic spoilers in the next measure – the G#s, the B, the D, and the F – the rest of

the music is retained in OI until a complete repetition in measure 5.

Scriabin not only uses all three octatonic planes in this piece, but he constructs and relates

them in novel ways. Not only are step-intervals stacked on top of each other, suggesting

bitonality, but the structure of the bass line is governed mostly by perfect fourths rather than the

tritone. Also, Scriabin moves between each of the three octatonic planes by means of common-

tone retention and efficient voice-leading. Notice the notes that Scriabin designates as tonics for

each of the planes that are visited in this passage. The OI collection retains A as the tonic, but

whenever the music visits the OIII plane, the note F, step v of OIII, takes its place. Based upon

the parallel construction mentioned previously, the note C#, step iii in OII, acts as the tonic when

OII is visited in this passage, since the C# occurs in the tenor voice. These steps describe a i-iii-

v relationship across the octatonic planes, and they themselves are an augmented triad. This is a

key to the structure of the piece: Scriabin uses symmetric chords within symmetric chords, which

makes the piece itself circular in terms of both pitch-collections and structure. We will see that

Scriabin further exploits this structure in the rest of the piece.

In order to stay in line with the secondary tonics mentioned in the previous paragraph, I

would like to reprint the octatonic scales again, but in the transpositionally correct ways that are

used by Scriabin in this prelude.

OI A Bb C C# D# E F# GOII C# D E F G G# A# BOIII F Gb Ab A B C D Eb

i ii iii iv v vi vii viiiExample 17. Scales used in Op. 74/4

These scales point to a notable aspect of this work, and indeed many of the other works

studied in this paper and Scriabin's repertoire. That is, chords that move to different planes often

exhibit chord equivalence.29 This is manifest in measure two, when the music moves to OIII on

beat two.

Example 18. Chord equivalence between OI and OIII.

The first beat of the measure is contained in OI, and exhibits the following scale steps in

OI: F#-7, A#-2, D#-5, A-1. The chord on the second measure is contained in OIII and exhibits

the following scale steps: F-1, B-5, D-7, Gb-2. The chord (1, 2, 5, 7) occurs together in different

planes, and effects a transition between the two. Aurally, this similarity can be determined by

their low work voice-leading and similar chord voicing. This also acts as a further way to exhibit

mutability between the two planes – here, Scriabin doesn't completely modulate to OIII. Rather,

this chord equivalence allows him to temporarily change the tonal center for coloristic effect.

Another example of chord equivalence in this beat occurs on two metrically similar points of

virtually the same music, but exist in different octatonic planes. The third beat of measure 1 is in

OI, while the third beat of measure 7, the last measure of Example 16, is in OII.

29 (Elkins 1991)

Example 19. Chord equivalence between OI (left) and OII (right).

The chord in measure 1 is based in OI and exhibits the following scale steps: C#-4, A-1,

E-6, C-3, D#-5. The chord in measure 7 is based in OII and exhibits the following scale steps: F-

4, Db-1, Ab-6, G-5, Fb-3, and the C is a chromatic spoiler that is resolved in the following

measure. The chord in this case, (4, 1, 6, 3, 5), holds a stronger form of chord equivalence –

transpositional chord equivalence. This means that both chords are composed of the same scale

steps and in the same order. Scriabin was concerned with voice-leading efficiency in Example

18, so he only chose to give those two chords chord equivalence. Example 19, on the other

hand, shows a greater concern for similar chord voicing, which drove Scriabin to give those two

chords transpositional chord equivalence.

The second section of this piece, beginning on measure 8, is highly repetitive and

contains a large amount of chromaticism, as shown in Example 20.

Example 20. Measures 8-17 of Op. 74/4.

OI gives way to OII as the dominating set for this second section. Measures 8-13 are

largely in OII, with the exception of brief glimpses of OIII on the third beats of measures 8, 10,

11, and 12, which act as anacruses to this OII material. There are also a number of chromatic

spoilers, especially in the inner voices, that give this section a crawling character. The final beat

of measure 13 is in OI, but with a single note D that resolves downward in the following

measure. This chord is similar to the one on the third beat of measure three in which a single

note is outside of the collection, but is resolved by half step in the next measure. The

chromaticism then continues into measures 14-17, which serve as a transition to the coda. The

coda is a broken, quasi-augmented version of the opening material, which ends on a firm yet

slightly incongruous A major chord.

Example 21. The coda of Op. 74/4.

In conclusion, Scriabin's late style is marked by a large amount of chromaticism and a

reliance on two symmetrically-constructed scales. By surveying a small collection of pieces in

his later repertoire, I have decided that using a set-based approach to analyzing these pieces is

not only uninformative, but also unenlightening, since Scriabin seems to have relied on function

more than frequency when selecting his pitches. Instead, I have argued for an approach that

favors a type of analysis that can be seen as an extension of Russian Music Theory. That is,

Scriabin has taken a classical conception of this approach, especially the concepts of lad and

mutability, and applied them in unique and novel ways to scales that have otherwise been met

with an air of caution and doubt. In addition to Russian Music Theory, I have included in this

paper a number of references to neo-Riemann theory since I've come across a number of

instances in which Scriabin used the type of functional relationships that have been written about

almost a century later. This is seen most often in instances where he exploits low work voice-

leading by moving between planes of either the whole-tone or octatonic collections, and by

chord equivalence. By applying these two disciplines of music theory to Scriabin's late works, I

hope that I could help shift the discussion about these works from pitch-collections to a much

more functional-oriented approach. This would not only help the music analyst but the

performer of these works as well, since this is a way of thinking that has holds more

consequences as to how the works are performed. I also hope that combining these two

disciplines of music theory could instill a more cross-disciplined and dialogic approach to future

analysis.

Bibliography

Antcliffe, Herbert. 1924. “The Significance of Scriabin.” Music Quarterly 10, 333-345

Baker, James M. 1986. The Music of Alexander Scriabin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Brent-Smith, Alexander. 1926. “Some Reflections on the Works of Scriabin.” Musical Times 67, 593-595

Bakulina, E. 2014. The Concept of Mutability in Russian Theory. Music Theory Online, 20(3).

Bazayev, Inessa. 2013. “Triple Sharps, Qnt Relations, and Symmetries: Orthography in the Music of Nicolaĭ Roslavets.” Music Theory Spectrum 35, no. 1: 111–31.

Bazayev, I. 2014. The Expansion of the Concept of Mode in Twentieth-Century Russian Music Theory. Music Theory Online, 20(3).

Carpenter, Ellon D. 1995. “Russian Theorists on Modality in Shostakovich’s Music.” In Shostakovich Studies, ed. David Fanning, 76–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cohn, Richard. 1997. “Neo-Riemannian Operations, Parsimonious Trichords, and Their Tonnetz Representations.” Journal of Music Theory 41, no. 1: 1–66.

Cohn, Richard. 2012. Audacious Euphony: Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature.New York: Oxford University Press.

Elkins, Eleanor. 1991. The Use of the Octatonic Scale in Scriabin's Preludes, Op. 74. Dissertation: College of Music of the University of Colorado.

Myers, Rollo H. 1957. “Scriabin: A Reassessment.” Musical Times 98, 17-18.

Perle, George. 1984. “Scriabin's Self-Analyses.” Music Analysis 3:2, 101-122.

Pople, Anthony. 1989. Skryabin and Stravinsky 1908-1914: Studies in Theory and Analysis. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.

Rehding, A. 2003. Hugo Riemann's moonshine experiment. In Hugo Riemann and the Birth of Modern Musical Thought (pp. 15-36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Swan, Alfred J. 1969. Scriabin. New York: Da Capo Press; first published in London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1923)

Tymoczko, Dmitri. 2009. “Generalizing Music Intervals.” Journal of Music Theory 53, no. 2: 227-54.

Tymoczko, Dmitri. 2011. A Geometry of Music. New York: Oxford University Press.