@@jaybeardmusic8074 I appreciate you humouring me! I'm very passionate about harmony and I get carried away writing when I have a chance to discuss it.
I love your videos. Years ago I did a masters degree in the adoption of Scriabin's harmonic language by the Soviet composer Nikolai Roslavets (both are so undervalued), and I had to figure what I could by myself. It was tricky! I'm grateful for your videos, they are excellent. Greetings from Australia, by the way.
Great lesson! I look upon the mystic chord as a superdensed dominant or 3-4 dominants stuck in one collection simultaneously. As Scriabin went into more freetonal or even atonal soundscape the mustic cord loose its dominant function and might be an independent tonic chord or even without a home tonic chord at all.. Fascinating development!He was a geniuos.
If you start with a key, C major, and modulate flat and sharp at the same time, Bb and F#, you get G melodic minor. Do it again, 2 keys both ways, adding Eb and C# and you get G double harmonic minor. This scale has a dom13b5 chord which might be similar to a #11. It was my first thought anyway.
Dernova's book analyzes Scriabin as tonal and not quartal. She discusses the primary importance of the v and w tones of the chord (#9 and 13) which are a tritone apart from each other. In her view there is no mystic chord. Every chord is just an added note chord.
“There is no mystic chord” is a funny take haha. It’s totally cool to analyze his early and middle era with traditional tonal theory. The problem is when you get to his late era or excerpts like Enigma shown in this video. You can slap a 13 label on the chord, but an explanation cannot be made as to how it fits into tonality or roman numeral analysis.
@@jaybeardmusic8074 Tonality can be established without traditional Dominant/Tonic relationships. It depends upon whether the listener hears resolutions and whether a specific note sounds like a tonal center to the listener. Hindemith had some interesting things to say about resolutions.
I don't see how using that scale degree sharp 1 as a lower neighbor to the dominant's fifth has anything to do with his later consonant use of the mystic chord. Clearly the neighbor note is contrapuntally derived and is not intended to be a chord tone--as you yourself say. There is no reason to think we are intended to hear that note as part of the dominant chord. I don't think these should count as mystic chord precursors.
Which example are you referring to? For my definition of the mystic chord, if 6 pitches that make up the 6-34 are sounding together (with no other pitches), then it’s the mystic chord. Others might eliminate pitches in their analysis, but I would argue that would be imposing our interpretation onto the music rather than analyzing it exactly as it is. Even if those pitches are intended to be non chord tones, I think it’s no coincidence that when you analyze it all, you often form sets like 6-34 and 7-34. I think it points to an even larger trend beyond Scriabin of extended harmony beginning as non chord tones or dissonance to be resolved, and then eventually they become chord tones used as a consonance.
I was referring to your first three examples (4th sonata, Opp. 32, 37). In all three of these examples, the lower neighbor note (of the chordal fifth) does not sound simultaneously with its resolution and is clearly not a chord tone. Your argument that eliminating pitches to identify chords imposes our own interpretation onto the music is fallacious. Western common practice up and through Scriabin is based in voice leading practice. You would have to show that Scriabin himself understood all vertical sonorities as chords and not as voice leading constructions for your statement to be true, otherwise considering all surface pitches as chordal would be an extreme distortion of the music. Furthermore, chromatic inflections of the diatonic scale should be interpreted as deviations from the diatonic scale and not as constituting a new scale (e.g. in the 4th sonata, you say he uses an acoustic scale. Scriabin and any other composer at that time would hear that passage as an altered diatonic scale and not that the music suddenly switched to being based on a completely different scale, as you suggest).
@@NKMedtner ALL chord tones are derived from voice leading practice. They are one and the same. Being that Scriabin eventually _did_ adopt just these notes as a chordal structure, he must at least have been aware that his earlier mystic-like harmonies _could_ be analyzed as such. If you had asked him when he wrote them whether they were meant to be chord tones, he very likely would have said no. But an innovation like reanalyzing contrapuntally-derived tones as chord tones both is entirely reasonable and has precedent. How do you think the 7th became a chord tone? Going even further back, how did a 3rd become a chord tone? Both started as degrees which were only acceptable in passing, and which gradually evolved to become valid or even expected in some chordal contexts. It's all a matter of nomenclature.
The 6 mystic pitches sound together when you use the pedal (though perhaps not for sonata 4). The evidence that Scriabin was thinking of the vertical sonorities in these passages includes the quote “Harmony is furled melody. Melody is harmony unfurled.”, and the fact that he starts using the mystic chord vertically later on. I agree, a typical analysis would omit the pitches you mentioned. Perhaps I’m going out on a limb, but I do think it’s valuable to consider the harmony of entire measures when the pedal is down in his middle era. It shows us that the mystic chord was present as a dominant before it was used all at once as a novel consonance. Without this perspective, you would have to say it’s a complete coincidence that Scriabin originally used the mystic set horizontally just before using it vertically.
Yes, I think the 7th chord is such a good example of this larger trend of intervals/harmony originally being considered dissonant (needing resolution), to being considered consonant. In Bach’s time, basically just triads we’re accepted as consonant. A 7th was sorta like a suspension that wants to resolve down to another triad. Yet nowadays blues uses dominant 7th chords for every chord of the progression, and Scriabin basically uses the 7th chord as a consonance (such as it being the last chord of his last opus). It’s fascinating that we see this trend play out within one composer’s life!
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I didn't expect to see my comment in a video!
Haha yea very glad you commented! It made me reevaluate Scriabin’s middle era and I learned a lot along the way! Cheers!
@@jaybeardmusic8074 I appreciate you humouring me! I'm very passionate about harmony and I get carried away writing when I have a chance to discuss it.
I love your videos. Years ago I did a masters degree in the adoption of Scriabin's harmonic language by the Soviet composer Nikolai Roslavets (both are so undervalued), and I had to figure what I could by myself. It was tricky! I'm grateful for your videos, they are excellent. Greetings from Australia, by the way.
Great lesson! I look upon the mystic chord as a superdensed dominant or 3-4 dominants stuck in one collection simultaneously. As Scriabin went into more freetonal or even atonal soundscape the mustic cord loose its dominant function and might be an independent tonic chord or even without a home tonic chord at all.. Fascinating development!He was a geniuos.
Love your videos, a video on op 32 no 1 would be great!
Thanks! I’m learning to play it now so I’ll have to make that video eventually! Cheers!
Спасибо✨
You are great, man
Excellent! not much I could add to that..
If you start with a key, C major, and modulate flat and sharp at the same time, Bb and F#, you get G melodic minor. Do it again, 2 keys both ways, adding Eb and C# and you get G double harmonic minor. This scale has a dom13b5 chord which might be similar to a #11. It was my first thought anyway.
In the example of C this would be A13b5. A C# Eb F# G. It also has a b9 for fun Bb.
Dernova's book analyzes Scriabin as tonal and not quartal. She discusses the primary importance of the v and w tones of the chord (#9 and 13) which are a tritone apart from each other. In her view there is no mystic chord. Every chord is just an added note chord.
“There is no mystic chord” is a funny take haha. It’s totally cool to analyze his early and middle era with traditional tonal theory. The problem is when you get to his late era or excerpts like Enigma shown in this video. You can slap a 13 label on the chord, but an explanation cannot be made as to how it fits into tonality or roman numeral analysis.
@@jaybeardmusic8074 You would find that book very interesting. I found an English =-language translation of it in my school library (U of Md).
@@jaybeardmusic8074 Tonality can be established without traditional Dominant/Tonic relationships. It depends upon whether the listener hears resolutions and whether a specific note sounds like a tonal center to the listener. Hindemith had some interesting things to say about resolutions.
I don't see how using that scale degree sharp 1 as a lower neighbor to the dominant's fifth has anything to do with his later consonant use of the mystic chord. Clearly the neighbor note is contrapuntally derived and is not intended to be a chord tone--as you yourself say. There is no reason to think we are intended to hear that note as part of the dominant chord. I don't think these should count as mystic chord precursors.
Which example are you referring to?
For my definition of the mystic chord, if 6 pitches that make up the 6-34 are sounding together (with no other pitches), then it’s the mystic chord. Others might eliminate pitches in their analysis, but I would argue that would be imposing our interpretation onto the music rather than analyzing it exactly as it is.
Even if those pitches are intended to be non chord tones, I think it’s no coincidence that when you analyze it all, you often form sets like 6-34 and 7-34. I think it points to an even larger trend beyond Scriabin of extended harmony beginning as non chord tones or dissonance to be resolved, and then eventually they become chord tones used as a consonance.
I was referring to your first three examples (4th sonata, Opp. 32, 37). In all three of these examples, the lower neighbor note (of the chordal fifth) does not sound simultaneously with its resolution and is clearly not a chord tone.
Your argument that eliminating pitches to identify chords imposes our own interpretation onto the music is fallacious. Western common practice up and through Scriabin is based in voice leading practice. You would have to show that Scriabin himself understood all vertical sonorities as chords and not as voice leading constructions for your statement to be true, otherwise considering all surface pitches as chordal would be an extreme distortion of the music. Furthermore, chromatic inflections of the diatonic scale should be interpreted as deviations from the diatonic scale and not as constituting a new scale (e.g. in the 4th sonata, you say he uses an acoustic scale. Scriabin and any other composer at that time would hear that passage as an altered diatonic scale and not that the music suddenly switched to being based on a completely different scale, as you suggest).
@@NKMedtner ALL chord tones are derived from voice leading practice. They are one and the same. Being that Scriabin eventually _did_ adopt just these notes as a chordal structure, he must at least have been aware that his earlier mystic-like harmonies _could_ be analyzed as such. If you had asked him when he wrote them whether they were meant to be chord tones, he very likely would have said no. But an innovation like reanalyzing contrapuntally-derived tones as chord tones both is entirely reasonable and has precedent. How do you think the 7th became a chord tone? Going even further back, how did a 3rd become a chord tone? Both started as degrees which were only acceptable in passing, and which gradually evolved to become valid or even expected in some chordal contexts. It's all a matter of nomenclature.
The 6 mystic pitches sound together when you use the pedal (though perhaps not for sonata 4).
The evidence that Scriabin was thinking of the vertical sonorities in these passages includes the quote “Harmony is furled melody. Melody is harmony unfurled.”, and the fact that he starts using the mystic chord vertically later on.
I agree, a typical analysis would omit the pitches you mentioned. Perhaps I’m going out on a limb, but I do think it’s valuable to consider the harmony of entire measures when the pedal is down in his middle era. It shows us that the mystic chord was present as a dominant before it was used all at once as a novel consonance.
Without this perspective, you would have to say it’s a complete coincidence that Scriabin originally used the mystic set horizontally just before using it vertically.
Yes, I think the 7th chord is such a good example of this larger trend of intervals/harmony originally being considered dissonant (needing resolution), to being considered consonant.
In Bach’s time, basically just triads we’re accepted as consonant. A 7th was sorta like a suspension that wants to resolve down to another triad.
Yet nowadays blues uses dominant 7th chords for every chord of the progression, and Scriabin basically uses the 7th chord as a consonance (such as it being the last chord of his last opus).
It’s fascinating that we see this trend play out within one composer’s life!