Mysterious Forces and Liberated Spirits in Scriabin’s Music

Mysterious forces and liberated spirits in Scriabin’s music

Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872– 1915) was a controversial composer, his music faced repulsion and reception. As a music school student, I have strong aspiration to study Scriabin’s music and his philosophical thoughts.

Thesis:

Mysterious forces and liberated spirits did exist in Scriabin’s music, through studying the philosophical thoughts and the analysis of Scriabin’s harmony, forms, music language can we better interpret and perform Scriabin’s late piano works. Scriabin’s music have always been misunderstood or have been put incorrect understanding, sometimes have been treated as Vulgar or inferior music which are not objective and reasonable, it is imperative for me as a music student to clarify these fuzzy concept and argument within his music thoughts. So the using of the correct methodology to justify the unfair treatment in Scriabin’s music is very important.

Methodology:

Theosophical and Psychoanalytic

Music language analysis

1 Mystic chord

2 the octatonic

3 Motive

4 Eroticism, dance

Performance Analysis

Revival

Concluding

Annotated Bibliography:

Baker, James M. The music of Alexander Scriabin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986.

In this book the author James M. Baker uses many examples of Scriabin’s works to illustrate the details of Scriabin’s tonality in his transitional works, its procedures and structure. Also provides explanation of the tonality and atonality, the relations among music sets in Scriabin’s music works.  Those information will provide great help for my analysing of Scriabin’s music form and music language.

Cooper, Martin. Scriabin's Mystical Beliefs. Music and Letters, Vol. 16, No. 2 (April, 1935), 110-115.

This article talks about the social background of what Scriabin’s living times, the definition of mysticism and his mystical believe. Through reading I will better understand what philosophical thoughts of Scriabin and his colleague.

De Schloezer, Boris. Scriabin: Artist and Mystic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

The first half of this book talks about Scriabin’s personality through different ways, from three angles, as a person, as an artist and as a mystic and uncanny man. The second half of this book talks about his mystery inside his music works, about his Opera, the mysterium in his composition. Through this chapter, it will help me find out what is the mystic of Scriabin’s music and what is his philosophical speculation, what did Scriabin seek to achieve? What passion in his music? In what way display? In The Appendix, it talks some about the destiny of his music and what the author’s thoughts about his music language.

Garcia, Susanna. Scriabin’s Symbolist Plot Archetype in the Late Piano Sonatas. 19th-Century Music, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Spring, 2000), 273-300.

This article talks about Russian symbolism,  Scriabin’s mystic chord, music motive, how eroticism and feminine principle display in his works, and music plot in his late sonatas. Through studying this article, I can have some practical exploration of the details of his late sonata’s harmony, form, language and rules, it will be useful for my paper researching and analysing.

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