Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T00:32:20.147Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scriabin's Octatonic Sonata

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Cheong Wai-Ling
Cheong Wai-Ling*
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The first of an uninterrupted series of piano works to follow the orchestral Prometheus, op. 60 (1908–10), Scriabin's Sixth Sonata, op. 62 (1911), is a striking example of what may be termed an ‘octatonic sonata’. Indeed, the Sixth Sonata shows Scriabin experimenting with the octatonic at its most rigid and is unique in containing long spans of pure octatonic writing where not a single extraneous note is invoked. In contrast to the Fifth Sonata, op. 53 (1907), which is closely associated with the Poem of Ecstasy, op. 54 (1905–8), the Sixth Sonata has only loose ties with Prometheus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 121 , Issue 2 , 1996 , pp. 206 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The mystic chord shares with its maximally related octatonic hexad (set 6-Z49) five pitch classes (pcs). The remaining two- one from each hexad – are semitonally related and are very often articulated as a chromatic inflection with motivic significance. See, for example, bars 1–3 and 5–7.Google Scholar

2 That the Sixth Sonata is the most octatonic among Scriabin's sonata output is based on a survey of pure octatonic writing lasting four or more consecutive bars: of its 386 bars, 227 (58.8%) are purely octatonic in basis. The 343-bar-long Seventh Sonata, op. 64 (1911), comes next, with its gamut of pure octatonic passages adding up to 155 bars (45.2%). If we take into account Scriabin's entire oeuvre, however, Guirlandes, op. 73/1 (1914), impresses us as most astoundingly octatonic, for up to 48 (73.8%) of its 65 bars display sheer octatonicism.Google Scholar

3 Taruskin, Richard, ‘Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; or, Stravinsky's “Angle”’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 38 (1985), 72–142 (p. 99).Google Scholar

4 Taruskin, review of James M. Baker, The Music of Alexander Scriabin (New Haven and London, 1986), Music Theory Spectrum, 10 (1988), 143–69 (p. 160).Google Scholar

5 Both Claude Herndon, ‘Skryabin's New Harmonic Vocabulary in his Sixth Sonata’, Journal of Musicological Research, 4 (1983), 353–68, and Herbert H. Wise Jr, ‘The Relationship of Pitch Sets to Formal Structure in the Last Six Piano Sonatas of Scriabin’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1987), analyse Scriabin's Sixth Sonata. While the former focuses on the dominant quality of Scriabin's harmonies, the latter relies much on the use of ‘classical’ set theory. But neither of them thoroughly explores the relationship between Scriabin's use of the octatonic and his articulation of the sonata form – or even, indeed, the all-important structural role played by 8–28 in this work.Google Scholar

6 Scriabin, Alexander, Ausgewählte Klavierwerke, vi, ed. Günter Philipp (Leipzig, 1972), 29.Google Scholar

7 Tn and t–n indicate transposition up and down by n semitones respectively.Google Scholar

8 The interval class of two semitones is abbreviated as ‘ic2‘. In this study, interval classes will be specified by the number of semitones involved.Google Scholar

9 Collections I, II and III refer to the octads (1,2,4,5,7,8,10,11), (0,2,3,5,6,8,9,11) and (0,1,3, 4,6,7,9,10) respectively.Google Scholar

10 Taruskin notes that bars 64–127, 166–235 and 252–319 of the Sixth Sonata are ‘wholly referable to each of the three octatonic collections in turn’. However, bars 64 and 252 compose out the mystic chord and contain in them the non-octatonic A♭ and F♯ respectively. Bars 166–235, which draw mainly on collection II, employ a fair number of non-octatonic pcs. See Taruskin, ‘Chernomor to Kashchei’, 99.Google Scholar

11 Both statements of the second theme in exposition and recapitulation adhere to one collection, with the exception of brief digressions, while those of the third theme (exposition and recapitulation) remain strictly octatonic throughout.Google Scholar

12 The placement of a V–I-like progression at bars 13–14 and 29–30, unobtainable within one octatonic collection, has probably induced a transient display of collection III. Van den Toorn refers to this use of extraneous pitch material to facilitate the formation of a V–I-like cadential gesture as a kind of ‘terminating convenience’. See Pieter van den Toorn, The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New Haven and London, 1983), 332.Google Scholar

13 Apart from the coda, areas of pure octatonicism are saturated with Figure B1.1 and, to a lesser extent, figure A1.1.Google Scholar

14 The distinction, within an octatonic idiom, between ‘harmonic’ and ‘non-harmonic’ notes, unlike the segmentation of the surface of the music into literal aggregates, allows for the presence of non-set notes. See Reise, Jay, ‘Late Skriabin: Some Principles Behind the Style’, 19th Century Music, 6 (1983), 220–31 (pp. 225–6), and George Perle, ‘Scriabin's Self-Analyses’, Music Analysis, 3 (1984), 101–22 (pp. 102–5), for a similar reading of the normative status of 8–28 in Etrangeté, op. 63/2 (1911), and the Prelude op. 74/3 (1914) respectively.Google Scholar

15 Compare a similar retention of the exposition's tonal scheme in Schubert's well-known subdominant recapitulation.Google Scholar

16 A similar arrangement underlies the Seventh Sonata. Miniatures like Guirlandes and Etrangeté, among others, also set the three collections in rotation.Google Scholar

17 Dahlhaus, Carl, ‘Structure and Expression in the Music of Scriabin’, Schoenberg and the Nov Music, trans. Derrick Puffett (Cambridge, 1987), 201–9 (p. 206).Google Scholar

18 The coda's rotative use of the three octads also relates closely to a whole-tone transposition scheme. See section III below for a detailed discussion of this scheme.Google Scholar

19 The development restates the first and second themes (formerly associated with the prolongation of collections I and III respectively) at some length, though in reverse order and in support of a sustained adherence to the outstanding collection II.Google Scholar

20 Wailing, Chcong, ‘Orthography in Scriabin's Late Works’, Music Analysis, 12 (1993), 47–69 (pp. 49–56).Google Scholar

21 An octatonic referent is, in essence, an octatonic collection with a built-in hierarchy. One of its eight pcs assumes a tonic-like status to which others are subordinate. An important aspect of this hierarchy resides in its orthography – an asymmetric spelling pattern which singles out one of its four ‘triadic roots’ as the centre. The pattern arranges all seven letters as an ascending scale, with the same letter occupying the third and fourth positions, and thus alludes inevitably to the conventional major and minor scales. There are therefore only three octatonic collections but 12 octatonic referents and more if we include other enharmonic possibilities. To facilitate discussion, the eight members of an octatonic referent will be named degrees i, ii, iii, etc., and each of the 12 octatonic referents specified by i. For example, the octatonic referents (C♯,D,E,E♯,F✗,G♯,A♯,B) and (E,F,G,G♯,A♯,B,C♯,D) will be called 8-28 on C♯ and 8-28 on E respectively.Google Scholar

22 A passage (block E) composing out all eight pcs of an octatonic referent appears only in the coda (see Table 6).Google Scholar

23 Bars 92–101 constitute the second phase of the third theme (exposition). See section IV below for a discussion of its counterpart in the recapitulation.Google Scholar

24 This hexad is described as 6-Z49 ‘on i’ in order to distinguish it from its ic3. or ic6-related counterparts derivable from the same octatonic referent.Google Scholar

25 Forward drives as such arc repeatedly forged in this sonata by similar arrangement of t3s.Google Scholar

26 Figure B1.1, marked ‘le rêve prend forme’ when it first appears at bars 39–42, is, indeed, the figure most actively involved in fleshing out the sonata.Google Scholar

27 For a distinct use of octatonic referents in cases where such linkage with a transposition scheme is without its place, see also Cheong, ‘Orthography in Scriabin's Late Works’, 49–52.Google Scholar

28 This rigour is, however, coupled with much more relaxed rhythmic treatment; B1.1 appears as an arching melodic idea or, at times, a fast-moving figure, generating arabesques and accompaniment material. Compare the use of figure B1.1 in, for instance, bars 39–45, 126–7 and 170–4.Google Scholar

29 Only figure A1.1 shows a slight change in contour on two occasions when its first interval is expanded from ic2 (mod 12) to ic5 (mod 12). This altered version (henceforth A1.1′) makes possible the successive t3 of both A1.1′ and A1.2 (see Example 5).Google Scholar

30 See Bowers, Faubion, The New Scriabin (London, 1974), 149.Google Scholar

31 Keller, Hans, ‘Shostakovich's Twelfth Quartet’, Tempo, 94 (1970), 6–15 (p. 8).Google Scholar

32 Taruskin, review of Baker, The Music of Alexander Scriabin, 166.Google Scholar

33 The Z-type block consists of four variants (blocks Z, Z′, Z″, Z″′) which share similar melodic material. In Table 6 the suffixes'. 1′ and ‘.2’ are added to designate the opening ascent and closing hexad of a Z-type block.Google Scholar

34 See below for a discussion of this exception.Google Scholar

35 That a sextuplet rather than a quintuplet is articulated in the treble of block Z″ (subsection 2) is only a trivial difference. It is none the less of considerable interest that an interchange between this pair of blocks Z″ would have created a much more regular whole-tone relation among the Z-type blocks. This bit of ‘irregularity’, though, briefly relaxes the rather rigid scheme of repetition.Google Scholar

36 This juxtaposition helps to establish block E as a derivation of blocks X and Y. The tritonal and triadic material held in common by blocks X, Y and E are, for the first time, placed in proximity at the same pitch level; they even embrace the same spelling pattern.Google Scholar

37 Apart from the Sixth Sonata, 6-Z50 also appears in Poème-Nocturne, Poème, op. 71/1 (1914), and the Prelude op. 74/3 as an important punctuating chord, displaying a typical blend of triadic and tritonal material, though its significance has never been noted before.Google Scholar

38 The use of 8–28 on G in the first block E also sets up a notational boundary which clearly marks it off from the ensuing unfolding of 8–28 on D♭. Thus the 25-bar-long insistence on collection I centred in the coda splits into areas that are orthographically distinct.Google Scholar

39 See section II above for discussion of phase 2's counterpart in the exposition, i.e. bars 92–101.Google Scholar

40 An octatonic referent, however, acts more like a chord. For degree i is persistently deployed in the bass, engendering a typically slow harmonic rhythm.Google Scholar

41 Taruskin, review of Baker, The Music of Alexander Scriabin, 164.Google Scholar

42 For Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky's use of the octatonic, see for example Taruskin, ‘Chernomor to Kashchei’, 72–142, and van den Toorn, ‘Octatonic Pitch Structure in Stravinsky’, Confronting Stravinsky, ed. Jann Pasler (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986), 130–56.Google Scholar