A Theory of Orthography and the Fundamental Bass for the Late Oeuvre of Scriabin

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

David Nelson Tomasacci, B.M., M.M.

Graduate Program in Music

The Ohio State University

2013

Dissertation Committee:

Dr. David Clampitt, Advisor

Dr. Anna Gawboy

Dr. Thomas Wells

 UMI Number: 3673533

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 Abstract

The late œuvre of Alexander N. Scriabin (Op. 60–Op. 74, 1910–1914) constitutes

one of the most intriguing and perplexing bodies of early twentieth-century music, with

analytic and theoretic approaches toward this body of work ranging from the extendedly

tonal to set-theoretic approaches that place this music as atonal or post-tonal. This

dissertation seeks to demonstrate Scriabin’s late works as exemplifying an extendedly

tonal idiom by constructing a fundamental bass theory that takes into account both

transpositional symmetry and common-tone retention, and Scriabin’s idiosyncratic

orthographic preferences.

Chapter 2 surveys the literature of prominent theorists commenting on the

preferential sonorities and collections of Scriabin’s late works, and examines various

tonal and transformational relationships that obtain among these sonorities.

Transpositional symmetry and common-tone retention is posited as the primary logic

governing harmonic root motion. By invoking Rameau’s principle of root progression via

the constituent intervals of a klang, Chapter 5 synthesizes these results with those of

Chapter 3 to form a fundamental bass theory for the works of the late œuvre.

By extending Cheong Wai Ling’s concept of the octatonic referent, Chapter 3 of

this dissertation presents an idealized super-space summarizing Scriabin’s spelling

practices: the chromatic referent, which subsumes spelling practices adopted on both

surface level chord structures and deeper levels of chord-to-chord progression. Chapter 4

ii
offers a mathematically formalized look into the properties of this chromatic referent,

demonstrating its unique status within the space of over 354,294 distinct ways of notating

a chromatic scale within our conventional notational system of thirty-five

orthographically distinct notes.

Chapter 5 outlines the fundamental bass theory, which elevates root motions by

tritone, followed by motion by minor and major third, to the status of structural

progressions. The orthographic preferences of the chromatic referent are shown to govern

the later levels of chord-to-chord progression, and shown to extend as deeply as the total

space of “keys” in which the late works are cast. Each of the late works is shown to

compose-out a single referent root or tonic, with the large-scale structural progression

typically articulating a tritone transposition to the raised-fourth scale degree. An

extension of Rameau’s principle of interpolation is presented as a possible explanation

for those cases in which such tritone related harmonies are spelled on lowered fifth scale

degree roots, instead of the raised fourth scale degree predicted by the chromatic referent.

Chapter 6 provides selected analyses of preludes, etudes, poems, and dances from

the late œuvre by way of demonstrating the efficacy of the fundamental bass theory and

its associated chromatic referent.

iii
 Acknowledgments

I would first and foremost like to acknowledge two individuals who have served
as bookends to my investigations into the harmonic world of Scriabin’s late oeuvre, and
without whose guidance and insights, this dissertation would not be possible: Dr. Gregory
Proctor, who first introduced me to the intriguing world of Scriabin’s late music, and who
guided me through my early investigations; and my advisor, Dr. David Clampitt, whose
guidance, support, encouragement, and understanding have had a tremendous
professional, intellectual, and personal impact upon my life and research.
I would also like to thank Dr. Thomas Wells, whose guidance as my composition
teacher, and whose incentive and effort as Faculty Advisor for the New Music Collective,
has supported me throughout these years in both writing and performing the music that
interests me, and makes this all worth while.
I would like to acknowledge those teachers, friends, and colleagues who, over the
years, have contributed much to this research by lending an ear to listen to me wax
philosophic regarding Scriabin’s music; particularly, Dr. Anna Gawboy, whose
scholarship and discussions during many of our GTA meetings have helped to focus and
clarify my own thoughts, and whose research has permitted Prometheus to rise from the
ashes; and Dr. Blake Henson, Dr. Robert Lunn, Dr. Luis Obregon, Dr. Gabriel Miller,
Rocco Di Pietro, Anthony Vine, and especially Dr. Ben Williams, whose recent
encouragement, and past collaborations, make this work possible.
Finally, I thank my family for their love, support, encouragement, and
understanding throughout my life.

iv
 Vita

2002............................................................... Northwest Area Jr. / Sr. High School

Valedictorian

2006............................................................... B. M. Composition, Bucknell University

Magna Cum Laude

2008............................................................... M.M. Composition, The Ohio State

University

2006 - 2011 .................................................. Graduate Teaching Associate, School of

Music, The Ohio State University

2012………………………………………… Visiting Instructor of Music, Kenyon

College

2012 - present ……………………………….Adjunct Faculty, Columbus State

Community College

2012, 2013……………………………….... Lecturer, School of Music, The Ohio State

University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Music

v
 Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..…ii

Acknowledgments………………………………………..…………………...……….…iii

Vita………………………………………………………………………………………...v

List of Tables…………………………………………………………………….…….…ix

List of Figures………………………………………………………………………….….x

List of Examples…………………………………………………………...……….……xii

Chapter 1: Prerequisites for a Tonal Theory for Scriabin’s Late Oeuvre……….………...1

§1.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………..1

§1.1 The late Oeuvre Defined …………………………………………………….5

§1.2 A Tonal vs. Atonal Theory for the Late Oeuvre……………………………..9

§1.3 Anecdotal Evidence for a Fundamental Bass Theory……….……………...14

§1.4 The Role of Orthography……………………….…………………………..18

§1.5 The F.B. Theory: Compositional Determinate or

Perceptive Framework?.........................................................................................19

Chapter 2: Preferential Sonorities in the Late Oeuvre…………………………………...23

§2.0 Technik des Klangzentrums………………………………………………...23

§2.1 The Space of Preferential Sonorities………………………………………..25

§2.2 Transpositional Invariance …………………………………………………47

vi
 §2.3 Additional Relationships Among the Referential Sonorities…………...…..51

§2.4 Concluding Remarks……………………………………………………….66

Chapter 3: Orthography and Referents………………………….……………………….67

§3.0 Preliminary Conditions: L x M5 ……………………………………………67

§3.1 Orthographic Distinctions in an Equally-Tempered Oeuvre……………….73

§3.2 Perle’s Master Scales and Cheong Wai Ling’s Octatonic Referents……….76

§3.3 Extensions and Further Properties of the 8-28 Referent…............................84

§3.4 The 12-1 Referent Derived and Defined……………………………………91

§3.5 Chromatic Referent as Modal Amalgam………………………………….110

Chapter 4: Orthographic Spaces and Referent Structures: Some Formalizations……..116

Chapter 5: A Fundamental Bass Theory For The Late Oeuvre………………………...135

§5.0 Diagonal Music and the Fundamental Bass………………………………135

§5.1 The Surface……………………………………………………………..…141

§5.2 Chord to Chord Progression………………………………………………148

§5.3 The Later Levels: Transferred Structures…………………………………155

§5.4 The I-#IV-I Progression and other Background Structures……………….158

§5.5 Interpolation as an Explanation of bV in the Middle Levels……………...159

Chapter 6: Selected Analyses…………………………………………………………...163

§6.0 Forward……………………………………………………………………163

§6.1 Two Preludes Op. 67, No. 1………………………………………...……..163

vii
 §6.2. Two Poems, Op. 69 No. 1…………………...……………………………167

§6.3 Two Poems, Op. 71, No. 2……………………………………..………….169

§6.4 Vers la flamme, Op. 72…………….……………………………………...170

§6.5 Two Dances, Op. 73……………………………………………………….173

§6.6 Five Preludes Op. 74…………………...…………………………………179

§6.7 Concluding Remarks……….……………………………………………...190

References…………………………………………………………………………....199

viii
 List of Tables

Table 1-1. The “Late Oeuvre” Defined. ……………………..…………………………..4

Table 2-1. Dernova’s Space of Altered Dominants. …………………………...……….32

Table 2-2. Set-class Membership of Dernova’s Extended Dominants. ………...………36

Table 2-3. Prime Form and Interval Vectors of the Preferential Sonorities ………...….48

Table 3-1. The Space of 8-28 Referents in L x M5 ………………………………...…...85

Table 3-2. Orthographic Vector for the Octatonic Referent. ………………...…………88

Table 3-3. Unfoldable 8-28 Referents in LxM5. ………………………………...……...91

Table 3-4. The Space of 12-1 Referents within LxM5 ……………...……………...….107

Table 3-5. Global Referents (“Keys”) of the Late Oeuvre. ……………………………108

Table 3-6. Instances of Keys in the Late Oeuvre. ………………………………...…...109

Table 4-1. Orthographic Space (L x M5) ………………………………………………117

Table 4-2. Referent Family Representatives. ………………………………………….124

ix
 List of Figures

Figure 2-1. Callender’s Figure 8…………………………………………...……………42

Figure 2-2. S(2), S(6), and S(2,6) in WT0, OCT0,1, ac6, and ac0. ……...……………..42

Figure 2-3. Callender’s Figure 11. ……...…………………….………………………...43

Figure 2-4. Transpositional Invariance in the Space of Preferential Sonorities …...…...49

Figure 2-5. ANSAL2(Fr+6). ………………………...…………………………………..55

Figure 2-6. K(Fr+6) ………………………………..…………………………………...58

Figure 2-7. K(dd7) ………………………………………………...…...……………….59

Figure 2-8. K(5-28) ……………………………………………...……………………...60

Figure 2-9. K(5-33)………………………………………...…………………………... 60

Figure 2-10. K(6-34) …………………………………….……...………………………61

Figure 2-11. K(6-Z49) ……………….………………………...………………………..61

Figure 2-12. K’(6-Z49) ……………………………….………………………………...62

Figure 2-13. K(6-35) …………………………………………………………….……...63

Figure 2-14. T-arrows of K(AC) and K(7-31) …………………………...……...……...64

Figure 2-15. I-arrows of K(AC) …………………………………………………..…….65

Figure 2-16. I-arrows of K(7-31)…………………………………………………..…... 65

Figure 3-1. L x M7 ………………………………………………………………...……72

Figure 3-2. Cheong’s Table 4 ………………..…………………………………………81

x
Figure 3-3. 8-28 on C Orthographic Intervals Calculations ……………………...…….88

Figure 3-4. 8-28 on C “unfolded.” ………………………………………………..……90

Figure 3-5. Decaphonic Referent………………………………………………...……...95

Figure 4-1. Representatives of the Diatonically Scalar Referent Families. …………...125

Figure 4-2. The <2222211> Family of 12-1 Referents ..................................................129

Figure 4-3. A Tonnetz for the <2222211> Family. ……………………………………132

Figure 5-1. F.B. Structural Progressions. ……………………………………...………150

Figure 5-2. Minor-third Combination Patterns. …………………………...…………..152

Figure 5-3. Minor-third Cycles. …………………………………………...…………..153

Figure 5-4. bIII as VI of #IV. ……………………………………………...…………..154

Figure 6-1. Chromatic Descents in F# and C Windows……………………………….183

Figure 6-2. Chromatic Passing Tones in Op. 74, No. 3……………………………..…184

Figure 6-3. Ewell’s Example 16: “Kholopov’s Neotonality, C Tonic Center.”…….....193

xi
 List of Examples

Example 1-1. Two Preludes, Op. 67, No.1, measure 1. …………..……..………..……18

Example 2-1. Mystic Chord on A in Quartal Construction …………….……..………..25

Example 2-2. Hull’s “History of Harmonic Evolution.” …...………………………….26

Example 2-3. Dernova’s Example 2. ……………………...……………………………31

Example 2-4. Octatonic Departure and Derived Dominants. ………...………………...31

Example 2-5. Dernova’s Example 13A. ………………………………………...……...34

Example 2-6. Dernova’s Extended Dominants. ……...………………………………...35

Example 2-7. Schoenberg’s Example 272 …………………………...…………………37

Example 2-8. Callender’s Figure 1: Primary pc-collections. …………...……………....39

Example 2-9. S(0) and S(7) Relations. …………………………………………...…….41

Example 2-10. Transpositional Schemes as Constituent Intervals. ………………….…51

Example 3-1. Alkan, Etude Op. 39, No. 10, m. 291 …………………………...………69

Example 3-2. Reger, Sonata Op. 49, No. 2 Mvt. IV, mm. 89-91 ....................................70

Example 3-3. Roslavets, Piano Sonata No. 1 mm. 151-153 …………………..…....….70

Example 3-4. Perle’s Ex.8…………………………………………………..……...……78

Example 3-5. Perle’s Ex. 24a ……………………………………………..…...………..79

Example 3-6. Cheong’s Ex.9………………...…...……………………….……...……..82

Example 3-7. Cheong’s Ex.18………………………………………….…………….....83

xii
Example 3-8. Cheong’s Ex.14………………..……………………………...………….84

Example 3-9. Op. 65, No. 1 (mm. 1-2). ..…………………………………………...…..94

Example 3-10. Synthesis of Scriabin’s Spellings ……………………….……………...95

Example 3-11. Vers la flame: Poem Op. 72, measures 1-2. …………….……………...96

Example 3-12. Two Poems Op. 69, No. 1, measures 1-2. …………….………………..97

Example 3-13. Prometheus, measures 9-11. ……………………….……………….….98

Example 3-14. Two Preludes, Op. 67 No. 1, measure 15. ………….……………..……98

Example 3-15. Two Poems, Op. 71, No. 2, measures 37-38. ………………....………...99

Example 3-16. Two Preludes Op. 67, No. 1, measure 1. …………………………...…100

Example 3-17. Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 3, measure 1. ……………………...………100

Example 3-18. Flammes Sombres (Two Dances Op. 73, No. 2, measure 1). …….…...101

Example 3-19. Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 1, measures 1-2, with F.B. Analysis…...….102

Example 3-20. Five Preludes Op.74 No. 2, measures 3-4………………………..……103

Example 3-21. 12-1 on C …………………………………………………………...…104

Example 3-22. Orthographic Segmentation of Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2. …...……105

Example 3-23. Reduction and Orthographic Analysis of Op. 65, No. 1, mm. 1-2. ......106

Example 3-24. Chromatic Referent as Synthesis of Modal Inflection….……………..111

Example 3-25. Proctor’s Example 7. …………………………………….……………112

Example 4-1. 12-1 on C. …...………………………………………………………….120

Example 4-2. Dbb<525>……………………………………………………………….121

xiii
Example 4-3. Dbb<525>, Split ^2. ……………………………………………………121

Example 4-4. Dbb<525>, Split ^4. ……………………………………………………122

Example 4-5: Dbb <552>……………………………………………………………....123

Example 4-6. Diatonically Scalar Referent Representatives on Cbb. …………………126

Example 4-7. Prelude Op. 74, No. 2 (mm. 3-4). ………………………...……….…...127

Example 4-8. The <2222211> Family on C. ……………………………………..130-132

Example 5-1. G fundamental and Referent Root………………………………...…….137

Example 5-2. From Piano Sonata No. 6………………………………………...……..138

Example 5-3. From Piano Sonata No. 8……………………………………...………..139

Example 5-4. Piano Sonata No. 10, measures 84-86. ……………………………...…141

Example 5-5. Flammes Sombres, measure 1. ……………………………………...….143

Example 5-6. Flammes Sombres, measures 4-6. …………………………...……...….144

Example 5-7. The McGurk Affect in Flammes Sombres, measures 4-6…………........145

Example 5-8. Piano Sonata No. 10, measures 84-102. ………………………..…...…147

Example 5-9. F.B. Analysis, Piano Sonata No. 10, measures 84-102. ………………148

Example 5-10. Three Etudes Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2. ………...…………….…...153

Example 5-11. F.B., Three Etudes Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2……………...….……154

Example 5-12. F.B. for Piano Sonata No. 9, measures 1-14. …………………….…...155

Example 5-13. Piano Sonata No. 9, measures 1-14. …………………………….……157

Example 5-14. I-#IV-I Interruption and Recapitulation………………………….……158

xiv
Example 5-15. Possible Interpolations for bV. …………………………….………….160

Example 6-1. Middle Level F.B. for Op. 67, No. 1………………………………........164

Example 6-2. III  bIII……………...………………………………………………...165

Example 6-3. Late Level F.B. for Op. 67, No. 1…………..…………………………...166

Example 6-4. Middle Level F.B. for Op. 69, No. 1……………..……………………..168

Example 6-5. Late Level F.B. for Op. 69, No. 1……..………………………………...169

Example 6-6. Surface F.B. for Op. 71, No. 2…………………………………………..170

Example 6-7. Later Level F.B. for Op. 71, No. 2……………………………………...170

Example 6-8. Surface Level F.B. for Vers la flamme………………………………….172

Example 6-9. Later Level F.B. for Vers la flamme…………………………………….173

Example 6-10. Guirlandes, Background………………………………………….……174

Example 6-11. Whole-tone Unfolding in Guirlandes………………...………….…….174

Example 6-12. Transferred Fundamental Structures in Guirlandes………….………..175

Example 6-13. Surface F.B. Progression for Guirlandes………………….…………..176

Example 6-14. Middle Level F.B. for Flammes Sombres………………...……….......178

Example 6-15. Background F.B. for Flammes Sombres…………………...…………..179

Example 6-16. bIII Nesting in Op. 74, No. 1…………………………………………..180

Example 6-17. Surface Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 1………………………………….180

Example 6-18. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 1……………………………………...181

Example 6-19. Op. 74, No. 2, measures 3-5, Respelled………………...……..………182

xv
Example 6-20. Surface Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 3………………………………….184

Example 6-21. Two Readings of Op. 74, No. 3, measures 21-22……………………..185

Example 6-22. Op. 74, No. 3, measures 21-22 as T6(measures 9-10)……………...…185

Example 6-23. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No.3………………………………………186

Example 6-24. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 4, measures 18-24…………………...187

Example 6-25. Surface Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 5………………………………….188

Example 6-26. M3 Nested in Op. 74, No. 5……………………………………………188

Example 6-27. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 5……………………………………...189

Example 6-28. Kholopov’s “Central Element” for Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 68……...195

Example 6-29. Kholopov’s Analysis of Op. 74, No. 1………………………………...196

xvi
 Chapter 1: Prerequisites for a Tonal Theory for Scriabin’s Late Oeuvre

§1.0. Introduction.

The late oeuvre of composer Alexander Scriabin (born on Christmas [December

25, 1871 in the Julian calendar; January 6, 1872 in the Gregorian], and tragically passing

away shortly after Easter season [April 14, 1915 O.S., April 27, 1915 N.S.]), has endured

as one of the most intriguing and perplexing bodies of early twentieth-century music.1,2

Theoretic and analytic systems for this music have varied over a broad spectrum of

approaches, from those extendedly tonal, to quasi-tonal and quasi-atonal or set-theoretic,

to those purely atonal and set-theoretic.

This dissertation offers an absolutist theory of orthographic hierarchy and

fundamental bass progression for the late oeuvre of Scriabin. Historically, whether

couched within extendedly-tonal or atonal or set-theoretic terms, the primary global logic

and technique for the analysis of Scriabin’s late oeuvre has been the Technik des

Klangzentrums, in which one (or a small number of) central sonorities are identified as

governing a single composition via subsequent transpositional instantiations of the central

chord or sonority. However, as revealed in Chapter 2 of this dissertation, the space of

sonorities actually encountered in the late oeuvre forms a much larger space of sundry

1
Александр Николаевич Скрябин. Several transliterations are common; I utilize the Americanized
“Scriabin” throughout this dissertation.
2
Bowers 1973, 20-21.
1
and promiscuously inter-related sonorities, with any given composition seldom governed

by rigid transpositions of a single fundamental sonority.

Chapter 3 offers a larger all-encompassing logic to gather together and relate all

of the sonorities encountered in the late oeuvre: Scriabin’s idealized, preferential spelling

practices; his orthography. Extending the significant contributions to this research

offered by Perle and Cheong, in Chapter 3 I derive the “chromatic referent,” an

orthographic super-structure, as the synthesis of Scriabin’s preferred spelling practices in

the late works. Chapter 4 provides a formalized mathematical background for the

chromatic referent, demonstrating its unique status within the large space chromatic

referents possible within our current notational system. The orthographic distinctions

made possible by the chromatic referent provide criteria of status and inclusion, and

govern orthographic and harmonic structures at all levels or hierarchy.

Chapter 5 synthesizes Chapters 2 and 3, generating a fundamental bass theory of

idealized progressions, in which intervals of succession are spelled according to the

orthographic hierarchies of the chromatic referent, and Chapter 6 provides mutli-level

analyses of roughly half of the short works of the late oeuvre in demonstration of the

system.

As this dissertation offers a theory for the compositions of the late oeuvre, I must

first outline those works that constitute the “late oeuvre,” and thereby form the facts of

this theory. Generally speaking, most theorists and Scriabin scholars agree upon three

general stages of Scriabin’s works: the early, Chopin-esque works; the middle,

transitional works in which Mystic-chord related, and other often non-resolving extended

2
dominants begin to play a larger role; and the puzzling late works, those seen by some as

reaching towards a system of atonality. My partitioning of Scriabin’s oeuvre corresponds

most closely with Schloezer’s:

“The musical evolution of Scriabin is traditionally, and not unreasonably, divided

into three periods. The first comprises the early opus numbers (beginning in 1885,

when he was only thirteen years old), published in 1893, up to the Fourth Piano

Sonata, op. 30 (written in 1904); the second comprises Le Poème de l’extase, op.

54 (1908) and the Fifth Piano Sonata, op. 53 (composed in 1907 and published in

1911); the third goes from Prométhéé, op. 60 (1910), to the last opus numbers,

concluding with op. 74 (1914).”3

Table 1-1 on the following page provides a list of the works constituting the late oeuvre

examined in this dissertation.

3
Schloezer 1987 [1923], 326.
3
Symphonies

Symphony No. 5, Opus 60 1910

(Prometheus, Poem of Fire)

Piano Sonatas

Sonata No. 6, Opus 62 1911

Sonata No. 7, Opus 64 1911

Sonata No. 8, Opus 66 1912-1913

Sonata No. 9, Opus 68 1912-1913

Sonata No. 10, Opus 70 1913

Piano pieces

Poem-Nocturne, Opus 61 1911

Two Poems, Opus 63 1911

Three Etudes, Opus 65 1911-1912

Two Preludes, Opus 67 1912-1913

Two Poems, Opus 69 1913

Two Poems, Opus 71 1914

Vers la Flamme, Opus 72 1914

Two Dances, Opus 73 1914

Five Preludes, Opus 74 1914

Table 1-1. The “Late Oeuvre” Defined.

4
 § 1.1 A Tonal vs. Atonal Theory for the Late Oeuvre

Since their inception, the compositions of the late oeuvre have inspired vigorous

debate over their status as either inherently, if extended, tonal works, vs. evincing an

autonomous evolution or reaching towards a parallel system of atonal composition.4

Tyulin, in the forward to Dernova’s Garmoniia Skryabina, writes:

“Despite the novelties in his works, the persistent view of Skryabin as an

innovator is not really tenable. For Skryabin did not point out new paths in

musical style, but rather formed the culmination of a great Romantic era.”5

Tyulin’s placement of Scriabin’s music as deriving from earlier, more traditional

principles reflects the contemporary Russian aesthetic perspective. Later, he reiterates:

“Skryabin’s harmony, with all the innovations that so astonished his

contemporaries, seems more closely related to tradition, even to thoroughly

academic tradition, than to the harmony of Prokofiev, for example, or particularly

to that of Stravinsky.”6

Rudolph Reti, in his Tonality in Modern Music, similarly places Scriabin as an

extendedly-tonal composer:

4
“Parallel” and “autonomous” here meaning with respect to Schoenberg.
5
In Guenther 1979, 21.
6
Ibid., 25.
5
 “The development of the new state of tonality described above, was Debussy’s

autonomous achievement. Satie, by introducing free and sometimes discordant

harmonic progressions was (perhaps simultaneously with that fascinating yet

tragic figure, Scriabin) one of the pioneers of modern music. He weakened the old

chains as it were, but did not introduce a positive new concept.”7

We can see emerging a narrative strain whereby Scriabin, in his late works, extended the

principles of Late-Romantic chromatic tonality, but not past the mythologized “breaking

point” that demarcates twentieth-century atonality and post-tonality. This is reiterated by

Reti:

“Scriabin’s artistic path was somewhat blocked by inner and outer obstacles. His

aesthetic vision and the practical realization of his musical ideas were not as

balanced, clear and unified as were those of Debussy, nor as definite, bold and

revolutionary as Schoenberg’s work.”8

I will return to this notion – that of Scriabin’s late oeuvre compositional system as “not as

balanced, clear and unified” – later in this introduction.

More recently, Jay Reise has also reinforced an extendedly-tonal reading of

Scriabin’s late works. In his 1983 article, Riese aims to demonstrate that “the principal

7
Reti 1962 [1958], 47–48.
8
Ibid., 77.
6
elements of Skriabin's later style have their sources in the earlier functionally tonal

works…tonally derived whole-tone and octatonic scales are the exclusive pitch sources in

the later pieces; tones foreign to these scales are treated as "chromatic" notes and

resolved through careful voice leading into the scales…(and) Skriabin retained an

important structural tie with tonal music by constructing the formal design of many

works on transposition levels out- lining symmetrical chords of tonal music, the

augmented triad and the diminished seventh chord.”9

Reise reads most of the surface chord structures of the late oeuvre as primarily

whole-tone, octatonic, and Mystic chord harmonies in which pitches outside of these

sonorities are step-related and subsequently contrapuntally resolved to structural

members of said sonorities: “notes foreign to the scale are introduced as chromatic

elements, which are then resolved back into the given scale by half-step.”10 Thus, Reise

argues that Scriabin’s compositional system “cannot be accurately described as serial but

rather as chromatically modal.”11

Some theorists treat Scriabin’s late music as treading a boundary line between the

extendedly tonal and atonal; seeing these works as primarily extendedly tonal, but

evidencing a reaching towards, and infusion of, atonal or proto-set-theoretic aspects of

structure. Significantly, Eberle, in his Between Tonality and Atonality, traces the

historical evolution of the Mystic chord through Scriabin’s interest in symmetrical scales,

drawing salient commonalities and differences between Scriabin’s compositional system

9
Reise 1983, 220-221.
10
Ibid., 226.
11
Ibid., 227.
7
and that of dodecaphonic composition.12 Zofia Lissa, the first theorist to apply Hermann

Erpf’s concept of “Klangzentrum” to Scriabin’s compositional system, traces the

evolution of the Mystic chord from the “Chopin Chord” (a dominant seventh with added

13th in the uppermost register), but furthermore reads Scriabin’s compositional system as

a foreshadowing of dodecaphonic serialism.13

George Perle outlines a version of extended tonality embracing some principles of

atonal relatedness, into which he groups Scriabin’s late works:

“Scriabin’s parallel evolution, on the other hand, leads him not into ‘atonality,’

but rather into a new kind of ‘tonality’ in which symmetrical partitionings of the

semitonal scale by means of interval cycles generate new, totally consistent,

referential harmonic structures.”14

Yet later, when examining the Five Preludes Op. 74, as well as sketches for the Prefatory

Action of the Mysterium, Perle posits that “the composer of the Five Preludes must surely

have been well on the road to the discovery of the meaning of inversional equivalence.”15

He furthermore poses the question “would Scriabin’s experience in a post-diatonic

musical language also have led him, as Schoenberg’s eventually did, to the concept of a

pre-compositional structure embracing the totality of pitch classes – the twelve-tone

12
Eberle 1978.
13
Lissa 1963.
14
Perle 1984, 116.
15
Ibid., 119.
8
set?”16 He ends the article by answering this question in the affirmative: “It seems likely

that significant steps in the evolution of an autonomous and coherent twelve-tone tonal

system were long delayed because of his early death.”17

Conversely, some theorists and musicologists place Scriabin’s late music firmly

on the post-tonal or atonal side of the early twentieth-century divide. Most notable and

devoutly atonal among these theorists is James Baker, whose work provides a summary

of a possible argument for Scriabin’s late music as falling outside the span of tonality –

namely, that in the late works, one simply cannot find a structural Ursatz via Schenkerian

theory. Baker’s The Music of Alexander Scriabin provides Schenkerian analyses of

Scriabin’s music, marking the abandonment of the structural Ursatz in the late works as

the beginning of Scriabin’s atonal period. While Baker is able to find somewhat viable

upper-voice structures in what he terms the “transitional” works of 1903-1910, he relates:

“the remaining years of Scriabin’s career (1911-1914) are termed the atonal

period, a designation which implies that none of the compositions from this time

possess tonal Ursatz structures. There is not, to my knowledge, a means of

demonstrating unequivocally the presence (explicit or implicit) of an Urstaz

underlying any of the compositions written after 1910.”18

However, Baker acknowledges that this move to the purportedly atonal style of late

works is a continuous one:

16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., 121.
18
Baker 1986, 145
9
 “It is widely believed that he made a complete and abrupt break with traditional

tonal structures and procedures around 1910 adopting totally novel methods of

structure in Prometheus and later works. It is, however, difficult to imagine how

any composer firmly grounded in the craft of tonal composition could suddenly

and completely escape his musical past…his departure from tonality was not

sudden; rather, he made a gradual transition to atonality over a period of years,

beginning as early as 1903.”19

However, once this transition is accomplished, Baker firmly views the late works as

“unequivocally atonal.”20

While in Chapter 2 I will invoke several of Baker’s statistical set-theoretic results

in generating a space of preferential sonorities for the late oeuvre, Taruskin outlines

several seemingly insurmountable problems with Baker’s presentation, analyses, and

even his fundamental criteria for “tonal” vs. “atonal” music.21 Taruskin argues that “the

overall use to which the Ursatz model is put in [Baker’s] book is extremely

unconventional – perhaps unprecedented – and questionable…the Ursatz model is

operationally equated with tonality itself.”22 Taruskin later argues that Baker’s loose

definition of atonality contra tonality “is merely a negative definition…whatever does not

conform to the Ursatz is ‘atonal.’”23

19
Ibid., vii.
20
Ibid., ix.
21
Taruskin 1988.
22
Ibid., 152.
23
Ibid., 156.
10
 In application, Taruskin similarly finds Baker’s analytical technique lacking. He

argues that Baker sets up “a model of composition as analysis in reverse,” where “the

fundamental structure is not being deduced from the piece, it is being imposed on it.”24 In

Baker’s analyses of the transitional works, Taruskin finds fault with the author’s “ready

acceptance of the possible coexistence within one structure of tonal and atonal

elements…there is apparently no logical objection to the idea of something that’s both

tonal and atonal, provided the tonality and the atonality operate on distinguishable levels

of structure.”25

Taruskin’s criticism of Baker’s criterion of tonality-as-Schenkerian-structure is apt;

while Schenkerian theory offers a rich, broad, systemic and hierarchical theory for

perhaps the largest body of the tonal music of Bach through Brahms, it is not the end-all

prerequisite for “tonality” in general. Adorno, for example, explains how Schenkerian

theory fails to account for the extendedly-tonal principles of relatedness in Debussy’s

music, and is furthermore an example of a problematical and tautological system of

musical theory and analysis. 26 , 27 Similarly, Eugene Narmour’s Beyond Schenkerism

provides one of the most pervasive criticisms of Schenkerian theory to date.28 In a similar

vein, Taruskin criticizes Baker for missing apsects of hierarchical structure in Scriabin’s

late music due to his “dogmatic” devotion to his aforementioned Schenkerian

24
Ibid., 153.
25
Ibid., 157; [sic].
26
Adorno 1982.
27
Taruskin levels similar accusations against Baker’s application of “Fortean pc-set analysis,” arguing that
Baker’s approach results in “generating an endless array of not-false (true but irrelevant) data…” (Taruskin
1988, 157.)
28
Narmour 1977.
11
prerequisite, arguing that “indeed, there is a sense of hierarchy in this music; only it is

contextually produced rather than determined by a common practice.”29

By what criteria then may we clarify any distinction between tonality and atonality?

More particularly, which general principles of common-practice tonality can be identified

– if in an extended or idiosyncratic form – in Scriabin’s late oeuvre? Summarizing David

Cope, consider the following set of protocol statements for common-practice functional

tonality:30

i. [The Major – Minor System]. Tonal music is, in the first part, music based

primarily on the major-minor system of the diatonic scale. The tonic scale degree, and

its associated harmony, receives the highest structural status (see iii). A clear system

of keys and key relationships exist in which membership to one unique, global tonic

is required.

ii. [Consonance vs. Dissonance (Tension / Resolution)]. Triads (major and minor) are

structural consonant / restful chord structures; all other tertian harmonies exhibit

various degrees of dissonance / tension which must be resolved according to the rules

of functional progression, functional resolution, and voice-leading principles.

iii. [Hierarchical Status]. Hierarchical status relationships are embedded in all levels

of tonality. Tonic scale degree, triad, and key possess the highest status, and all other

scale degrees, harmonies, and key areas are subservient to the tonic status, as

governed by the functional paradigm T  P  D  T.31 Melodic hierarchies are

29
Taruskin 1988, 160.
30
Cope 1997.
31
Agmon 1995.
12
 defined in relation to chord-membership (embellishing tones, or non-harmonic tones)

and the principles of counterpoint and voice-leading.

In what sense, then, does Scriabin’s late oeuvre satisfy any of the protocol

statements above? In relation to (i), I will demonstrate that Scriabin’s music is spelled

according to a chromatic referent, which embodies tonal-spelling principles of the major-

minor system. Furthermore, the sonorities of the late oeuvre, while efficacious to post-

tonal set-theoretic explication, have been conceived and reckoned by many as tonal,

tertian harmonies. 32 The chromatic referent furthermore will be shown to establish

criteria of inclusion and hierarchy (iii), based on orthography, and fulfill an extended

application of “key” or global tone-center (i). The only principle which, in some form,

fails to obtain is (ii) – consonance / dissonance and functional resolution. However,

Chapter 5 offers an extension of Rameau’s earlier concept of tonal progression: that of

fundamental bass progression via the constituent intervals of a harmony, in place of (ii).

In this sense, I posit Scriabin’s music as more closely relating to tonality than to

atonality.

32
See Chapter 2, and the discussion of Dernova’s Garmoniia Skryabina.
13
 § 1.3 Anecdotal Evidence for a Fundamental Bass Theory

Anecdotal evidence offers tantalizing hints into the nature of Scriabin’s

compositional system in the late oeuvre. To begin with, I point out that Scriabin himself

at least hinted or suggested that there was such a system, though he never provided a

concrete demonstration of its constituents. Dernova recounts the following:

“It is known from the memoirs of A. Goldenweiser that Skryabin, in defending

himself from the friendly but nevertheless extremely venomous gibes of S.

Taneev, promised to explain to him in detail his system of harmony, which to

Skryabin was intuitive. ‘Skryabin repeatedly said that in his last works everything

was strictly based on laws, and that he could prove this; yet, he always postponed

a demonstration of these proofs. Finally, one day, he asked Taneev and me to visit

him…in order to explain his theory to us. However, when we had gathered he did

not get down to the matter for some time and he finally declared that he had a

headache and for this reason would have to postpone his explanation until another

time. This ‘other time’ never took place. Skryabin evidently feared the scathing

criticism of Sergey Ivanovich.’”33

Tyulin, in his forward to Dernova’s Garmoniia Skryabina, somewhat questions the

systemic nature of Scriabin’s purported system:

33
Guenther 1979, 81.
14
 “In this regard, no one could reproach Skryabin for arbitrariness. The careful

selection of his most characteristic harmonic techniques rested on a certain hidden

system, one which was felt in the music but yet did not lend itself to theoretical

demonstration. It is well known that Skryabin himself confirmed the existence of

this system and even promised to explain it. But obviously nothing came of this,

as one should expect, since the brilliant artistic intuition of the composer by no

means obliged him to be an astute theorist. In fact, Skryabin was completely alien

to any sort of a priori theoretical formulations (such as those of Schönberg, for

example). His system totally and spontaneously flowed from his works and was

guided by an unerring ear for the selection of harmonic techniques.”34

Despite the lack of any concrete demonstration of the late oeuvre system, much

can be drawn from the music of the late oeuvre itself in reconstructing what such a

system might have looked like. The tastiera per luce part of Prometheus: Poem of Fire

offers the closest approximation to a composer’s self-analysis available for any work of

the late oeuvre. As Gawboy elucidates, “analysis of the score reveals that pitches in the

luce part do indeed correspond to the mystic fundamental with remarkable consistency.

The faster-moving luce part, then, is Scriabin’s fundamental-bass analysis of his own

music.”35 Vanechkina’s earlier research supports this assertion, arguing that the luce line

“may be considered as the composer’s own documentation of his understanding of

34
Guenther 1979, 5-7.
35
Gawboy and Townsend 2012, 4.
15
Prometheus’ harmony.”36 Vanechkina further finds that the fast-moving luce line, long

thought to indicate the roots of Scriabin’s Mystic chords, satisfies this perspective in 581

of the 606 measures of the symphony.

In Prometheus we encounter even more direct evidence that Scriabin’s system for

the late works consisted of a fundamental bass system, that his Mystic chord has a root,

and that these chords correspond to tonalities that change over time, yet are also subject

to a larger-scale tonality.

In addition to the possible self-analysis represented by the tastiera per luce in

Prometheus, I have always assigned great value to the following final clue as to the

nature of Scriabin’s late oeuvre system as a fundamental bass theory:

“His manuscripts contain rows of empty measures with only a designation as to

their tonality or supporting harmonies. He specified so many blank measures

simply by count or number, to be filled in later with music. A framework was

vital to Scriabin.”37

What was Scriabin’s system for “designating” the pitch content of this framework? From

this example, I extrapolate the following facts:

i. Scriabin had a system in which the pitch content of an entire measure was

simply notated, leaving certain measures or portions of measures empty;

ii. These designations indicate a “tonality or supporting harmony”;

36
Vanechkina 1977, 5.
37
Bowers 1973, 149; emphasis added.
16
 iii. To designate such large passages in this manner, Scriabin must have had a

conception of the relatedness of these harmonies – a system governing

chord-to-chord progression over large musical time-spans.

Summarizing the above extrapolations, and in keeping with the role of the tastiera per

luce of Prometheus, we can fairly assume that Scriabin’s compositional system was a

form of fundamental bass theory, in which an entire harmony can be indicated by a single

designator (the fundamental bass), and which incorporates principles of harmonic

succession.

As Perle summarizes in “Scriabin’s Self-Analyses,” “yet even though they did

not give us analytical surveys of their compositions, the composers of an earlier age were

constantly making explicit and detailed analytical assertions, in the very act of writing the

notes down.”38 Whether approached intentionally or not, for the composer, every notated

event represents a particular choice made to the exclusion of multiple remaining options;

every note is a decision. In the case of Scriabin’s orthography in the late oeuvre, these

choices are nearly uniform across the totality of sonorities and progressions encountered,

conforming to a single, pervasive spelling protocol I term the “chromatic referent.” This

dissertation reconstructs a fundamental bass theory for Scriabin’s late oeuvre through

careful observation of the orthographic practices adopted by the composer.

38
Perle 1984, 101.
17
 § 1.4 The Role of Orthography

Consider, as an opening example, measure 1 of Two Preludes, Op. 67, No. 1,

reproduced below in Example 1-1.

Example 1-1. Two Preludes, Op. 67, No. 1, measure 1.

Of particular interest is the portion of this passage played by the left-hand thumb.

In the first left-hand trichord, the thumb plays pc 4 notated as an E, but in the second left-

hand trichord, the same pc4 is notated as an Fb. To what end does Scriabin make this

distinction? Perhaps, the reader thinks, pc4 needs to be spelled as an Fb in order to avoid

an undesirable augmented octave with the bass Eb. However, at least in the melodic

realm, we see that Scriabin has no problem with the very same Eb-E conflict, for it is

present in immediate melodic succession in the right hand, second and third eighth-notes.

Furthermore, this same conflict is present harmonically in the first chord (here, as

a diminished octave), between the left-hand thumb E natural pc4 and the Eb pc3 of the

second eighth note of the right hand; which, if the Eb-E conflict were, in Scriabin’s

system of orthography, to be avoided, could easily have been spelled as a D#, as no other
18
form of D is present to this point. The structural nature of this split third above the bass is

again seen in the second chord of the passage, in the right-hand G-Gb conflict.

We are left to conclude, then, that this E-Fb respelling is somehow structural; that

is, it evidences an intentional respelling reflecting some preference-choice relating to the

harmonic or compositional system at play. In Chapter 3, I synthesize observations of the

spelling practices adopted by Scriabin and form the “chromatic referent,” an idealized

spelling space governing spelling preferences at all levels of hierarchical structure. This

chromatic referent will provide a method of identifying chord membership and chord-to-

chord progression beyond the results of Chapter 2, which examines the central collections

of the late oeuvre in isolation.

§ 1.5 The F.B. Theory: Compositional Determinate or Perceptive Framework?

While both the chromatic referent proposed in this dissertation and its associated

fundamental bass theory derive from my own observations and studies of the

compositions of the late oeuvre, I must at this point draw a slight distinction and

articulate a number of caveats. While in most cases the idealized spellings advanced by

my chromatic referent will be seen as directly reflected in the spelling practices adopted

by Scriabin, there are, of course, a more-than-negligible number of counterexamples;

cases in which the spellings seen in passages examined do not correspond with those

predicted by the idealized chromatic referent.39

39
I add here the caveat that within a single harmonic window, or chord, the spelling practices dictated by
the chromatic referent are nearly universally valid. It is mainly in the following two cases where
discrepancies appear: first, the middle-level progression of windows (the spelling of the interval of root
19
 Such occasional cases of conflict – those between the generalized and idealized

system proposed herein and the occasional conflicting spellings encountered in some

passages – do not necessarily discount the efficacy of the theory or system expressed.

Ultimately, the theory of the chromatic referent and its associated fundamental bass

theory represent a prototype model for Scriabin’s preferred spellings, rather than an

exemplar based model.

Of course, any theory must draw primarily from observation of those practices

adopted in the passages under consideration. As articulated by Babbitt in his 1961 article

“Past and Present Concepts of the Nature and Limits of Music,” “a satisfactory theory is a

satisfactory explanation of aspects of the empirical domain with which the theory is

concerned.”40 Babbitt herein advocates an exemplar-based model for explanatory theory.

And, certainly, my chromatic referent is drawn primarily from my own empirical

observation of the spellings practices adopted by Scriabin in the late works (and, to some

extent, the middle works – those hailing from what Baker terms the “transitional

period.”)

However, the theory outlined herein is a prototype model for the spelling

practices and rules of progression for the late oeuvre; it is an idealized synthesis of the

normative spelling practices adopted by Scriabin.41 Jeffrey T. Dean, in “The Nature of

Concepts and the Definition of Art,” provides the salient distinction. A prototype is:

progression, and in this case almost universally the tritone spelled as an augmented fourth vs. a diminished
fifth), and the melodic-intervallic cases wherein a melodic interval is “misspelled” in order to preserve its
previously established melodic / harmonic context.
40
Babbitt 2003, 79.
41
For further background in prototype theory, see Posner & Keele 1968, the foundational article on the
subject. For further background on the application of prototype theory to category theory, see Rosch 1975,
the foundational article on the subject.
20
 “an internal representation that is the product of abstracting the statistically

predominant features of numerous tokens of a kind. Concrete instances of a given

kind – exemplars – act as sources of data from which these prototypes are

constructed.”42

Hampton provides further clarification:

“These schema representations are prototype models, in that a single

representation is used to store the central tendency and range of variation in the

category across relevant dimensions…”43

The chromatic referent and the fundamental bass theory are prototype models for

Scriabin’s late oeuvre; they represent the normative procedure and preferences, but do

not, and furthermore metatheoretically cannot, accurately explain every passage of the

late works. Whenever possible, in Chapter 6: Selected Analyses, I endeavor to provide

meaningful contexts for those moments in which a passage in question fails to uphold the

idealized predictions of the chromatic referent and fundamental bass theory. Babbitt

explains in “Contemporary Music Composition and Music Theory as Contemporary

Intellectual History,” (1972):

42
Dean 2003, 30.
43
Hampton 2003, 1255.
21
 “such distinctions between particularity and systematic generality, discoverable

often only by formal techniques, are manifestly useful – perhaps essential – in

defining the scope of a composer’s ‘style,’ his compositional particularities in

relation to a norm of generality.”44

Furthermore, Scriabin’s “system” for the late works did not flower into rigidity and

specificity overnight, if at all. His ever evolving and expanding space of closely related

fundamental sonorities is just one salient feature of the fact that his compositional system

– like that of all composers – was one in constant flux, itself evolving with each

subsequent new work. I conclude with a particularly apt summary from Schoenberg:

“What a composer believes in theoretically he may indeed express in the external

aspects of his work. With luck, only in the external. But internally, where the

instincts take over, all theory will with luck fail, and there he will express

something better than his theory and mine.”45

44
Babbitt 2003, 287.
45
Carter 2011 [1911], 396; emphasis added.
22
 Chapter 2: Preferential Sonorities in the Late Oeuvre

§2.0 Technik des Klangzentrums

The majority of the theoretic literature devoted to the harmonic system of the late

œuvre of Scriabin invokes what Lissa and Dahlhaus term the Technik des Klangzentrums,

or “chord-centre technique.”46 The specific nature of said centricity in Scriabin’s late

music, however, varies greatly over the spectrum of theorists writing thereof, differing

over such fundamental aspects as which sonorities or chords precisely form the space of

Scriabin’s preferential harmonic units, and whether these sonorities and chords are

subject to loosely or extendedly tonal rules of organization (as in the works of Dernova,

Cheong Wai Ling, and to some extent Perle), or evidence a more forward-looking

tendency to the atonal or post-tonal, as in the writings of Baker, Callender, and again,

Perle.

However, one particular aspect of these presentations is uniform across this

spectrum: the interest in those relationships that obtain among those sonorities posited as

central in the late œuvre. While different theorists interested in the harmonic system of

the late oeuvre have historically posited both differing sets of fundamental sonorities, and

46
Lissa 1963 and Dahlhaus 1987, 203.
23
different types and aspects of formalizations that relate them, an overarching narrative

emerges whereby the space of sonorities encountered in the late oeuvre forms a logical,

coherent space of connected and almost promiscuously inter-related klangs, whose very

inter-relationships provide a logic not only for their mutual coexistence in the late œuvre

but moreover, a new logic governing the harmonic progression from one harmony or

chord to the next.

This chapter examines selected writings of various theorists dealing with the late

œuvre of Scriabin, focusing upon generating a more-or-less representative set of

fundamental sonorities for the late œuvre; a space of chords which will form the

axiomatic harmonies of the theory outlined in this dissertation. After first enumerating

the space of sonorities commonly encountered in the literature, examining the

relationships obtained (as articulated by each theorist under examination), and in some

cases extending said relationships and articulating new ones, I will synthesize the results

of this investigation into a generalized suggestion for transpositional schemes which form

the preferential harmonic progressions for the late oeuvre; these being those

transpositional schemes which maximize common-tone retention. This material – in

combination with the orthographic studies of Chapter 3 – will be taken up further as the

basis for Chapter 5, which outlines the fundamental bass theory posited herein.

Furthermore, this chapter will show that the set of sonorities posited as central to

the late œuvre encompasses a much larger space than that usually garnered from passing

discussions of the Mystic chord and its relatives. However, as mentioned above, despite

the plurality of sonorities actually encountered in the late œuvre, the high degree of inter-

24
relationships obtained do evidence a readily accepted manageable set of fundamental,

structural sonorities.

§2.1 The Space of Preferential Sonorities

None of the preferential sonorities prevalent in Scriabin’s late oeuvre have

garnered more attention than the “Mystic” or “Prometheus” chord. This hexachord, a

member of set-class 6-34, forms the basis of Scriabin’s Symphony No. 5, Prometheus:

Poem of Fire. Historically, theorists have focused upon two facets of this, and other

Mystic-chord related harmonies: its seeming quartal construction, and its supposed

derivation from the upper partials of the overtone series (what Dernova terms the “theory

of ultrachromaticism.”47) Example 2-1 below shows the Mystic chord in its typical

quartal presentation.

Example 2-1. Mystic Chord on A in Quartal Construction

Swan provides a typical example of the “ultrachromatic” nature of the Mystic chord and

the related sonorities of the late oeuvre:

47
Guenther 1979.
25
 “This magnificent chord is derived from some of the more dissonant upper partial

tones of a sound (e.g. from the lower C the row of partial tones would be the

following: C – c g c’ e’ g’ b flat’ c” d” e” f sharp” g” a” b flat” b” c’”). The first

ten partial tones came to their rights – as dissonances and consonances – before

Scriabin.”48

Example 2-2 below, which reproduces an example from A. Eaglefield Hull, provides an

entertaining summary of the typical historical reading of the relationship between the

partials of the overtone series and the “history of harmonic evolution.”49

Example 2-2. Hull’s “History of Harmonic Evolution.”

It is, perhaps, not surprising that early theories concerning Scriabin’s late

harmonies depended on such “ultrachromatic” derivations. Nineteenth- and early

twentieth-century theory is replete with epistemologically fuzzy invocations of the

overtone series and the so-called “chord of nature.” The most acoustically absurd and

extreme example, of course, is Hugo Riemann’s undertone series.50 Both Schenker and

48
Swan 1969, 99.
49
Hull 1918, 115.
50
Riemann 1893.
26
Schoenberg similarly invoke the tunings of the overtone series. For Schenker, the upper

voice of the fundamental structure is a horizontalization of the chord-of-nature: “the

overtone series, this vertical sound of nature, this chord in which all tones sound at once,

is transformed into a succession, a horizontal arpeggiation…”51 However, he notes that

“these notes are no longer overtones: they are only images of the overtones.” 52

Schoenberg, in Harmony, derives the C-major scale from “the most important

components of a fundamental tone and its nearest relatives,” these being the first four

partials of the fundamental and scale root C, and the first four partials of the G a perfect

fifth above, and of the F a perfect fifth below this C.53 Such “ultrachromatic” derivations

of tonal phenomenon are a part of our musical-theoretic heritage; though this phase may

have terminated with the twentieth century. As Babbitt relates, “it becomes evident that

the overtone series has not functioned and, most probably, cannot function as the object

of a significant protocol statement in the formulation of triadic theory.”54

There is, however, ample anecdotal evidence in support of Scriabin conceiving of

his harmonies within an “ultrachromatic” context. Bowers records the following

comment from Scriabin, speaking to Sabaneef: “Tragedy is not in the minor key…Minor

is abnormal…Minor is undertone. I deal in overtones. Oh, how I want to break down the

walls of these tempered tones.”55

Similarly, Bowers reports the following curious passage from Olga Monighetti’s

memoirs, in which Monighetti and Scriabin discuss issues of tuning and the Mystic

51
Schenker 1935, 10.
52
Ibid., 12.
53
Carter 1978 / 2011, 24.
54
Babbitt 2003, 80.
55
Bowers 1969, 107.
27
Chord of Prometheus. For clarity, I have added (M) to denote passages of Monighetti

speaking, and (S) to denote Scriabin’s comments.

“(S): ‘Why do you like Db, is it different from other major keys?’ He seemed

amused, and I smiled. ‘But isn’t it all the same to call it C#?’ (M): ‘Oh no, quite

different!’ I even frowned. (S): ‘But my dear, it is enharmonic.’ He quickly took

my hand and led me to the piano. ‘Different?’ he asked me. ‘Now you will

understand why I must have another instrument. You still won’t admit

enharmonics?’ (M): ‘No, Sasha, I can’t admit it…but there is a difference

between C# and Db!’ (S): ‘There,’ Scriabin cried with joy. ‘I said so! And they

laughed at me, what kind of new music can it be if it demands a new and special

instrument! Come. Listen. Enharmony is only for the tempered instrument, the

piano. Yes? But it is arbitrary. It is incorrect. There is another tuning, and I hear

it. I am not alone. The orchestra could do it, but it is tied to too many tempered

instruments, and all musical literature is based on the tempered scale. But I must

have another.”56

Theories of the quartal construction of the Mystic chord, and of its supposed

ultrachromatic derivation, fall far short of any satisfactory theory for the sonorities of the

late oeuvre. I will begin by examining the first large, systemic theory for Scriabin’s late

works.

56
Bowers 1969, 202-203.
28
 In Varvara Dernova’s Garmoniia Skriabina, or “The Harmony of Scriabin,”57 the

sonorities posited as central to the music of the late oeuvre are inseparably linked (quite

literally) with the mechanism posited for the relationships between said sonorities:

enharmonic reinterpretation. As such, the discussion of the sonorities encountered in

Dernova’s Garmoniia Skriabina will be presented contemporaneously with the

explication of Dernova’s system of enharmonic reinterpretation from which many of

these sonorities derive.

The primary sonorities of interest to Dernova are altered dominant seventh and

ninth chords. As the author relates regarding Scriabin’s compositional system for the late

oeuvre: “A basic role in this system is played by the enharmonic equality of dominant

chords with lowered fifths, of a seventh chord and major and minor ninth chords.”58

Before proceeding further with the explication of Dernova’s system, one should

note that for Dernova, these altered dominant chords are traditional, late-Romantic tonal

altered dominant chords, in that she reckons their construction as fundamentally tertian,

as opposed to the earlier, and initially popular, construction of many of the same

sonorities as quartal harmonies. In the introduction to her dissertation, Dernova rejects

the theoretic quartal construction of Scriabin’s harmonies, first pejoratively stating that

“the theory of quartal construction had no particular author; that is, no one ever fully

explained it. But mention of the quartal harmonies is enough.”59 Dernova then clarifies

that this reading is “a matter involving great misunderstanding or inaccurate terminology.

For in reality the discussion does not concern the quartal construction but rather the

57
Translation from Guenther 1979.
58
Guenther 1979, 85.
59
Ibid., 39.
29
quartal distribution of chords.”60 I will return to the matter of Scriabin’s chord voicings in

Chapter 5.

Similarly, Dernova rejects the “ultrachromatic” theory of Scriabin’s harmonies:

“Despite its apparent scientific basis, the theory of ultrachromaticism was little more than

an amateur theory.”61 Dernova rejects the ultrachromatic derivations of the Mystic chord

on two grounds: first, Sabaneev’s imprecision in the theory, in that he variously invoked

“overtones from the eighth to the fourteenth and from the eleventh to the seventeenth”

when defining his “overtones of the highest order.”62 Secondly, Dernova rejects the

efficacy of an overtone-based derivation of Scriabin’s harmonies as ultimately bearing no

relevancy to the works of the late oeuvre, which, excluding Prometheus: Poem of Fire,

consists solely of works for the piano, an equally tempered instrument incapable of

reflecting the supposed non-equally tempered distinctions implicit in the ultrachromatic

construction of the Mystic Chord.

Denova’s systematic treatment of Scriabin’s late oeuvre harmonies can be

summarized as follows: given an altered dominant chord, this chord can be

enharmonically reinterpreted to spell a second altered dominant chord, whose root lies a

tritone away from the root of the initial chord. Example 2-3 on the following page

reproduces Dernova’s Example 2.

60
Ibid., 41 (emphasis in the original).
61
Ibid., 35.
62
Ibid.
30
 Example 2-3. Dernova’s Example 2.

Example 2-4 below offers an additional example not taken from the Garmoniia

Skriabina, in which an octatonic collection, as a tall extended altered dominant, can be

similarly enharmonically reinterpreted to form a tall extended altered dominant of the

same quality with root a tritone transposition away.

Example 2-4. Octatonic Departure and Derived Dominants.

In Dernova’s system, “the relationship of two enharmonically equal dominants a

tritone apart, forming the basis of this union and organically connecting two tonalities,

will be termed here the tritone link.”63 The first such altered dominant Dernova terms

63
Guenther 1979, 89.
31
“the initial dominant, or DA, and the second one the derived or the enharmonically

equivalent dominant, and, by analogy with the preceding, DB…”64

Dernova’s theoretic mechanism makes this enharmonic reinterpretation a

structural feature of Scriabin’s chord progressions, as explored in Chapter II of her

dissertation, “The Tritone Link and Functional Progression.”

Dernova examines numerous qualities of departure dominants, which in some

cases yield derived dominants of invariant tonal quality; in other cases, the tonal

construction of the derived dominant is radically different from that of the departure

dominant. Table 2-1 below summarizes the DA departure dominants, and the respective

DB derived dominants, encountered in Chapter I of Dernova’s dissertation.

DA DB

V7-5 V7-5 (Ex.2, pp.89)

V9-5 V7+5 /-5 (Ex.3, p.91)

V-9-5 V75/-5 (Ex. 4, p.91)

V9+5 /-5 V9+5 /-5 (Ex.6A, p.95)

V-95 /-5 V-95 /-5 (Ex.6B, p.95)

V95 /-5 V-9+5 /-5 (Ex.11, p.105)

Table 2-1. Dernova’s Space of Altered Dominants.

64
Ibid., 91.
32
 The table above omits three examples of altered and extended dominant structures

in Dernova’s Chapter 1, for reasons of their problematical construction, both those

recognized, and problematical constructions unrecognized, by the author. The first such

problematical extended dominant is the 11th, presented on page 105 in Examples 11 and

12. I reject Dernova’s treatment of the dominant 11th due to her requirement that the 11th

be perfect in quality, rather than augmented (as is decidedly the case in Scriabin’s

preferred chord constructions), and due to her arguably strained derivation of the V11+5 as

a descending major third transposition of the derived dominant of the dominant ninth

with lowered and perfect fifth. The second, and more curious omitted case is found in

Example 16 on page 115, where Dernova re-derives the dominant minor ninth with

lowered and perfect fifth as the union of two major triads whose roots lay at a tritone

transposition away.65

The third set of tritone-linked dominants omitted from Table 2-1 above exhibits a

problematical construction for Dernova herself: the dominant with the added sixth, and

its subsequent derived dominant with both augmented and lowered fifth, and natural and

lowered third. In Dernova’s presentation, the added sixth of the DA dominant, labeled v,

becomes the lowered third of the DB derived dominant, labeled w, as shown on the

following page in Example 2-5, which replicates Dernova’s Example 13A.

65
Dernova regularly makes special note of the minor ninth dominants, treating them (and their derived
dominants) as special cases, since their construction lies outside the essentially whole-tone nature of her
idealized system.
33
 Example 2-5. Dernova’s Example 13A.

As her theory is seated in examinations of extended dominant harmonies not

exceeding cardinality seven, Dernova does not include the octatonic collection as a

structural sonority of the late œuvre. Rather, Dernova demonstrates the octatonic

collection, or for her, the “semitone-tone scale,” as “the melodic aspect” of the “minor

enharmonic sequence of dual polarity.”66 The semitone-tone scale for Dernova is not

taken as a structural a priori, but rather as an after the fact melodic consequent or

possibility of chains of enharmonic reinterpretations. Dernova similarly demonstrates

how a major enharmonic sequence (a whole-tone scale supporting chains of extended

dominants in tritone-links) can yield, melodically, a chromatic scale. However, neither

the octatonic nor the chromatic scale are structural features of her theory; rather, they are

merely surface-level-consequences of the working out of progressions in her system.

Returning to the sonorities outlined in Table 2-1, Example 2-6 on the following

page provides an account of the extended dominants encountered in Dernova’s

Garmoniia Skriabina, and Table 2-2 which follows it summarizes the set-class

membership and prime form of the same. The extended dominants that form the

backbone of Dernova’s enharmonic theory cover a space consisting of one tetrachord (the

66
Guenther 1979, 357, 361.
34
French Augmented Sixth Chord), two pentachords, and three hexachords. Two of these

three hexachords (sc6-34, and sc6-35) will be discussed further in a subsequent section

on Clifton Callender’s parsimonious voice-leading transformations. Baker posits that set-

class 6-30 plays a relatively minor role in the late works, while I will have recourse to

invoke sc6-30 in §2.3, “Additional Relationships Among the Referential Collections.”

Example 2-6. Dernova’s Extended Dominants.

35
 DA / DB SC Prime Form

V7-5 (4-25) [0268]

V-9-5 , V75/-5 (5-28) [02368]

V9-5 , V7+5 /-5 (5-33) [02468]

V-95 /-5 (6-30) [013679]

V95 /-5 , V-9+5 /-5 , Vv, Vw (6-34) [013579]

V9+5 /-5 (6-35) [02468t]

Table 2-2. Set-class Membership of Dernova’s Extended Dominants.

Dernova’s theory, couched in extended dominants, echoes the theoretic interest in

these altered chords by theorists of the early twentieth century; specifically, Schoenberg

devotes considerable discussion of these sonorities in Harmonielehre. 67 In Chapter

XVIII, “A Few Remarks Concerning Ninth Chords,” after waxing theoretic on the

structural status of ninth chords in the tonal theory of the era, Schoenberg asserts that

ninth chords can be subjected to “all those alterations that are customary with seventh

chords…”68 Example 2-7 on the following page reproduces Schoenberg’s Example 272.

Note the implicit parsimonious relationships by which Schoenberg organizes this

example.

67
Carter 1978 / 2011.
68
Ibid., 348.
36
 Example 2-7. Schoenberg’s Example 272

In Chapter XIX, Section 1, “Alterations of Triads, Seventh Chords, and Ninth

Chords,” Schoenberg gives numerous additional examples of altered dominant seventh

and ninth chords, providing several possible resolutions. Schoenberg further addresses

the whole-tone collection in Chapter XX, “The Whole-Tone Scale and Related Five and

Six Part Chords.” While never mentioning Scriabin in the Harmonielehre, Schoenberg

does partially attribute the prevalent compositional use of the whole-tone scale to “the

modern Russians or the French (Debussy and others).”69 However, Schoenberg’s Chapter

XX is interesting in that he triply-derives the whole-tone scale by way of demonstrating

his counter-claim that “the whole-tone scale has occurred to all contemporary musicians

quite of its own accord, as a natural consequence of the most recent events in music.”70

Schoenberg first derives the whole-tone scale as the amalgam of whole-step

melodic motion filling in each major third of the augmented triad, then, via similar

melodic passing motion on the root, third, and fifth of a dominant seventh chord with

raised fifth. Finally, and most directly relatable to Dernova’s extended dominants,

Schoenberg gives, in his Example 321, “a chord that contains all six tones of the whole-

69
Carter 1979 / 2011, 390.
70
Ibid.
37
tone scale.”71 This chord is identical to Dernova’s V9+5/-5. Schoenberg, however, then

provides its functional resolution to tonic.

So far, we have examined three derivations of Scriabin’s late oeuvre sonorities:

the “ultrachromatic” explanations of said sonorities as deriving from invocation of

increasingly remote partials of the overtone series, the loosely defined quartal

construction of the Mystic chord and its relatives, and the enharmonic reinterpretations of

extended dominant sevenths and dominant ninth chords in Varvara Dernova’s Garmoniia

Skriabina. To wit, these discussions have been couched within tonal theoretic means;

Dernova’s extended and derived dominants are tertian harmonies typical of the late

Romantic era, albeit in Scriabin’s music, subjected to new laws of progression and

unshackled from the functional resolutions of the Common-Practice Era.

We now, however, move on to survey those writings that examine the sonorities

of the late oeuvre through the lens of post-tonal or atonal theory; wherein we shall speak

of collections, sets, and set classes, as opposed to chords and harmonies. However, this

change in perspective does not, necessarily, evince an argument in support of Scriabin’s

music as inherently post-tonal or atonal, merely because of the efficacy of examining his

pitch collections through this mechanism. Both the sommelier and the chemist, upon

examining the contents of a bottle of Chianti, are able to confirm or refute the presence of

grape thaumatins. In this vein, we may encompass the results of post-tonal and set-

theoretic results into our investigations of the space of sonorities encountered in the late

oeuvre, as well as the pertinent transformations that relate them, keeping in mind always

71
Ibid., 392 (emphasis in the original).
38
the caveat that an a posteriori interpretive framework does not an a priori compositional

determinant make.

In Clifton Callender’s 1998 “Voice-Leading Parsimony in the Music of Alexander

Scriabin,” six primary pitch-class collections are identified with the late oeuvre, as shown

below in Example 2-8, which reproduces Callender’s Figure 1, “Primary pc-

collections.”72

Example 2-8. Callender’s Figure 1: Primary pc-collections.

Two of these six sonorities – sc 6-35 and sc 6-34 – we have seen in Dernova as extended

dominants. I shall note now in passing the differences in orthographic choices made by

Callender, who spells the structural pc6 as F#, as opposed to Dernova’s Gb’s above C

roots in dominant sevenths and ninths with lowered and split fifths. I shall discuss the

importance of this difference in Chapter 3.

As Callender relates, “in order to fully understand the close relation of these

collections and their usefulness for Scriabin, it is necessary to determine the properties

which bind these collections together, rather than to simply provide an aural description

72
Callender 1998, 220.
39
of each collection taken in isolation.”73 Over the course of his article, Callender defines

and examines three different relationships that obtain between the six primary pitch-class

sets shown in Example 2-8 above: the inclusion relation (⊂), the P1-relation, and the S

relation.

The inclusion relation covers three pairs of set-classes in this space of collections;

sc 6-34 is a subset of sc 7-34, sc 6-Z49 is a subset of sc 7-31, and sc 7-31 is itself a subset

of sc 8-28, the octatonic collection. Callender’s P1-relation is isomorphic to Douthett and

Steinbach’s P1, 0 relation.74 P1-relations “correspond to altering a single pitch-class by a

half-step ‘up’ or ‘down.’”75 Three pairs of set-classes in Callender’s space of collections

are related by P1: sc 6-35 and sc 6-34, sc 6-34 and sc 6-Z49, and sc 7-34 and sc 7-31.

The final parsimonious voice-leading transformation invoked in Callender’s

article is the S-relation, where “S” connotes “splitting.” Callender’s S-relation

encompasses both a single pitch-class p splitting to pitches (p−1)mod12 and (p+1)mod

12, and the reverse process, wherein two pitches q and r (such that r = (q+2)mod 12)

“fuse” into pitch (q+1) = (r−1). Callender provides the formal construction:

“Definition 3. Let X and Y be pcsets such that ⏐X / Y ⏐= 1 and ⏐Y / X ⏐= 2. X

and Y are S(x)-related (written X S(x) Y or Y S(x) X) if for x ∈ X/Y and every y ∈

Y/X, x-y ≡ ±1(mod 12).”76

73
Ibid., 219.
74
Douthett and Steinbach 1998. P1,0 was furthermore first presented in the literature as “DOUTH1” in
Lewin 1996.
75
Callender 1998, 220.
76
Ibid., 224.
40
Example 2-9 below provides an example of Callender’s S-relation. In Example 2-9A,

pc0 splits into pce and pc1 via the S(0) relation, and in Example 2-9B, pc6 and pc8 fuse

into pc7 via the S(7) relation.

Example 2-9. S(0) and S(7) Relations.

The S-relation strongly relates the whole-tone, acoustic, and octatonic collections.

For any pc x, an element of a whole-tone collection, there exist acoustic and octatonic

collections all related to the given 6-35 member by the relations S(x), S(x+6), and S(x, x+6).

This property is shown in Figure 2-1 on the following page, which reproduces

Callender’s Figure 8, “Network of split relations between set classes 6-35, 7-34, and 8-

28.”77 Figure 2-2 which follows provides an example of this property, relating WT0, ac6,

ac0, and OCT0,1 via S(2), S(6), and S(2, 6).78

77
Ibid., 226.
78
Here, I adopt the common designation of the whole-tone collection {02468t} as WT0, and the octatonic
collection {0134679t} as OCT0, 1, as presented in Straus 2005. The designations “ac6” and “ac0” stand for
“the acoustic collection on pitch-class 6 {68t0134}” and “the acoustic collection on pitch-class 0
{024679t},” and follows the convention of Callender 1998, 228.
41
 Figure 2-1. Callender’s Figure 8.

Figure 2-2. S(2), S(6), and S(2,6) in WT0, OCT0,1, ac6, and ac0.

Callender summarizes the P1, inclusion (⊂), and S-relations that obtain between

Scriabin’s primary collections in his Figure 11, “Relational network of Scriabin’s

42
preferred pitch collections,” which is reproduced as Figure 2-3 below.79 The author

argues that the “completed network structure explicitly shows the acoustic collection as

an important mediating sonority between whole-tone and octatonic sonorities.”80 I find

this observation interesting in that the progression or evolution of sonorities implied

follows, generally speaking, that found in the late works. In §2.3, I will return to the idea

of modeling the progression or evolution of the preferential collections over the course of

the late oeuvre.

Figure 2-3. Callender’s Figure 11.

Callender’s research demonstrates strong connections between six of the

commonly encountered preferential collections of Scriabin’s late works. In both

Callender and Dernova’s theories, we have seen a relatively small space of chords or

79
Callender 1998, 227.
80
Ibid.
43
collections bound together by a small number of fundamental relationships; for Dernova,

enharmonic reinterpretation, and for Callender, two parsimonious voice-leading

transformations and the inclusion relation. In both cases, the space of sonorities examined

is relatively small, though covering those sonorities most universally recognized as

central to the late works.

In contrast, James Baker’s The Music of Alexander Scriabin provides a more

detailed, statistical account of every significant sonority encountered in the middle to late

works.81 In the introduction to his text, Baker repeats the observation made in this

chapter, namely, that the preponderant interest in the “Mystic Chord” and its relatives

“has impeded adequate consideration of the great variety of sonorities in Scriabin’s

music.”82

In his analysis of the works of 1911-1914 (which he terms the “atonal period”),

Baker finds that on average, a typical atonal period composition features an average of

15.5 distinct sets, of which approximately 25% are significant to the composition’s

structure.83 Baker expounds upon the plurality of set-classes encountered in the late

oeuvre in the following passage:

“In the atonal period Scriabin expanded his overall vocabulary of sets (even

though on average fewer sets are used in each work than were used in the

transitional period). Twenty-five (86 percent) of the twenty-nine four-element sets

are used in this period, whereas only twenty-three (79 percent) occur in the music

of 1903-10. Similarly, twenty-nine (76 percent) of the thirty-eight five-element

81
Baker 1986.
82
Ibid., xi.
83
Ibid., 146.
44
 sets are found in the atonal works, compared to twenty-eight (74-percent) in the

transitional music. Thirty-one hexachords (62 percent of the fifty) are represented

in the atonal works, but only twenty-eight (56 percent) are used in the transitional

works. In spite of the enrichment of Scriabin’s repertoire of sets after 1910,

however, the number of significant sets of four elements (24 percent) are

significant, compared to ten (34 percent) in the earlier period. Eleven five-note

sets (29 percent) are significant after 1910, fourteen (37 percent) in the

transitional period. Twelve hexachords are used significantly in each period.”84

Consider, for example, the Prelude Op. 74, No. 3, a work almost universally

treated as based on the octatonic collection. While this is certainly verifiable when

looking at the totality of pitch content, an examination of the actual chord constructions –

most of which are tetrachords and pentachords–reveals a much larger space of set-classes

encountered. Baker’s Example 90, which provides instances of set usage in all the

compositions of Op. 61-74 examined in his text, demonstrates that this prelude contains

at least two instances each of set-classes 4-25, 4-28, 5-10, 5-19, 6-Z3, 6-5, 6-Z28/6-Z49,

6-Z29/6-Z50, and that set-classes 4-12 and 5-31 (set-classes we have not even

encountered in our discussion of the collections of the late oeuvre) play a significant role

in this prelude.85

In a similar vein, Baker relates that set-classes 4-18, 4-27, 5-26, 5-31, which we

have not previously encountered in our examinations of the late oeuvre preferential

84
Ibid., 147.
85
Ibid., 149-151.
45
sonorities, along with set-classes 6-Z49 and 6-34, which we have, play a significant role

throughout the atonal period.86 Furthermore, Baker posits a space of twenty-seven set-

classes (tetrachords, pentachords, and hexachords) which play a significant structural role

throughout the late oeuvre; in addition to the octatonic collection, or set-class 8-28, which

“plays a much more important role in the atonal than in the transitional period.”87

While Baker outlines a much larger space of set-classes and atonal sets for the late

oeuvre than one may have previously suspected, he offers two fundamental relationships

tying most of these sets together. The first, we have seen previously in Callender, if in a

weakened or looser version: inclusion. Baker ties many of the above outlined preferential

set-classes together via the stronger K and Kh inclusion relations. The K and Kh relations

establish “set-complexes,” or webs of sets related by the inclusion relations K or Kh.88

Given two sets S, and T, and their respective complementary sets Sc and Tc, we can

define K as follows:

SKT iff: [(S∧Sc) ⊂ (T∨Tc)] ∨ [(T∨Tc) ⊂ (S∨Sc)]

The Kh relation is stronger yet, requiring inclusion in both a set and its complement:

SKhT iff: [(S∧Sc) ⊂ (T∧Tc)] ∨ [(T∨Tc) ⊂ (S∧Sc)]

Baker’s Examples 107 and 108 outline the K and Kh set-complexes induced by the set-

classes of the atonal period.89 Significantly, he finds that “the most likely candidate for a

primary nexus set for a complex of all these sets is 6-34, the mystic chord, which is also

86
Ibid., 154.
87
Ibid., 154-55.
88
Forte 1973, 210.
89
Baker 1986, 167-168.
46
the primary nexus set for the transitional period. Set 6-34 is related in Kh to nine other

sets (more than any other hexachord) and is also the hexachord most widely used

throughout the atonal period.”90

The second aspect of relatedness that Baker finds in the sets of the late oeuvre is

the property of pitch-class invariance under transposition, or transpositional symmetry; I

shall take up this property in §2.2.

§2.2 Transpositional Invariance

Table 2-3 (on the following page) gathers together what we may now deem

Scriabin space, that is, a set of sonorities we have encountered repeatedly throughout this

chapter. Table 2-3 gives an accounting of the set-class membership of these sonorities,

the prime form of each set-class, and, germane to this section, the interval vectors of each

sonority. We have seen that this space of chords is tightly bound by a plurality of

relationships, both tonal and post-tonal or transformational. I now expand upon two

further features binding these sonorities together, first introduced in the discussion of

Baker’s statistical analysis of the late works: their transpositional symmetries.

90
Ibid., 166.
47
 SC Prime Form Interval Vector

(4-25) [0268] <020202>

(5-28) [02368] <122212>

(5-33) [02468] <040402>

(6-30) [013679] <224223>

(6-34) [013579] <142422>

(6-35) [02468t] <060603>

(6-Z49) [013479] <224322>

(7-31) [0134679] <336333>

(7-34) [013468t] <254442>

(8-28) [0134679t] <448444>

Table 2-3. Prime Form and Interval Vectors of the Preferential Sonorities

The following data (in Figure 2-4 on the following page) indicate those set-classes from

Table 2-3 above that are capable of transpositions that retain at least half of the set’s

pitch content as common-tones91:

91
In Figure 2-4, each “Tn” may be taken as standing for both Tn and T(12-n), which of course invokes the
same common-tone retention as its complementary Tn.
48
 The French Sixth:

4-25: transpositional invariance at T6; two common-tones at T2, T4

Pentachords:

5-33: four common-tones at T2, T4, T6

Hexachords:

6-30: transpositional invariance at T6; four common-tones at T3

6-34: four common-tones at T2, T6

6-35: transpositional invariance at T2, T4, T6

6-Z49: four common-tones at T3, T6; three common-tones at T4

Septachords:

7-31: six common-tones at T3, T6

7-34: five common-tones at T2

Octatonic:

8-28: transpositional invariance at T3, T6; four common-tones at all other levels.

Figure 2-4. Transpositional Invariance in the Space of Preferential Sonorities

Baker relates that “since the only category from which every set is used is

complete invariance under transposition, this property is probably an especially important

determinant of structure in the atonal music.”92 Furthermore, the idealized property of

complete transpositional invariance, possessed only by the French Sixth, sc 6-30, and the

Whole-tone and octatonic collection at the T2, T3, T4, and T6 levels, is reflected in the

remaining levels of transposition which preserve half-or-more of the pitch content of the

92
Ibid., 147.
49
remaining sets. As Baker indicates, “the exploitation of invariance properties of

significant sets (whether predominantly whole-tone or not) remains an important

procedure throughout Scriabin’s music.”93

We have seen that, through a plurality of relationships, the preferential collections

of the late oeuvre form a unified web of harmonic possibility, in which the lines of

distinction between the properties and characteristics of the predominantly whole-tone

versus predominantly octatonic collections gradually fade amidst said promiscuous

relatedness. Similarly, taken as a web or totality, the collections as a whole possess

common-tone retention at T2/T10, T3/T9, T4/T8, and T6. Example 2-10 on the

following page demonstrates these transpositional levels; given a C-rooted harmony, we

can expect to see Scriabin progress to harmonies on D, Eb, E, F#, Ab, A, or Bb.94

Furthermore, in Ramellian fashion, the example demonstrates how these intervals of

progression relate to the intervallic constituency of the sonorities themselves. Chapter 5

extends these results into a fundamental bass theory of progression for the late oeuvre.

93
Ibid., 165.
94
These spellings come from the chromatic referent defined in the subsequent chapter.
50
 Example 2-10. Transpositional Schemes as Constituent Intervals.

§2.3 Additional Relationships Among the Referential Sonorities

As articulated in the introduction to this chapter, investigations of the sonorities

present in the late œuvre are presented contiguously with examinations of those

relationships that obtain among said sonorities. We have seen so far four such governing

relationships: Dernova’s enharmonic equivalence relations, Callender’s parsimonious

voice-leading transformations, and in Baker, transposition schema maximizing common-

tone retention, and the inclusion relations K and Kh.

However, the examination offered in §2.1 is by no means exhaustive. Numerous

additional theorists and musicologists have offered examinations of the sonorities of

Scriabin’s late oeuvre. Dahlhaus, in the same vein as Dernova, describes the Mystic

chord as a dominant seventh chord with flat fifth and added sixth.95 Hull, as early as

1918, examines a wide array of Mystic-chord related harmonies in Chapter 9 of his

95
Dahlhaus 1987.
51
pseudo-biography.96 Furthermore, transformational and Neo-Riemannian theory offer a

veritable plethora of relationships which obtain between the octatonic, acoustic, whole-

tone, and other symmetrical collections, were I to extend this investigation to the realm of

musica speculativa. For example, Clampitt 1999 demonstrates that the whole-tone (sc 6-

35), Mystic chord (sc 6-34), and sc 6-Z49 each exhibit related properties derived from an

application of Ramsey theory and the two-colored graph (or “party”) problem.97

Keeping with tradition, I now offer two additional types of transformational

relationships, or readings, relating some of the sonorities we have synthesized as the

more or less axiomatic space of the late oeuvre sonorities.

Musicologists and theorists alike tend to recognize a gradual progression in

Scriabin’s music from the French Augmented Sixth Chord (Fr+6 hereafter) in the middle

period, to the Mystic Chord (6-34) and related harmonies (6-Z49) of the late middle and

early late period, to the octatonic collection in the extreme late period, particularly, Piano

Sonata No. 6 (1911), and the Five Preludes Op. 74 (1914). While three of these set-

classes (4-25, 6-Z49, and 8-28) have been encompassed and related, many times over, in

the literature, I offer now a more transformational-historic reading which attempts to

provide a philosophic logic for the reasoning behind this progression. Namely, through

only two subsequent applications of a compositionally oriented algorithm for extending

sonorities, the Fr+6 chord can be extended to two characteristic set-classes of the late

oeuvre, set-classes 6-30 and 6-Z49; each of which, via the second application of the

algorithm, extends to 8-28, the octatonic collection.

96
Hull 1918, 101-115.
97
Clampitt 1999, 64-68.
52
 This two-line algorithm, “ANSAL” (for “Alexander N. Scriabin Algorithm”) is

defined as follows. Given a starting sonority or referential collection:

i. Insert one new pc, forming an ic1 relationship, adjacent to a single pc of

each of the largest dyadic spans of the sonority;

ii. In doing this, avoid the chromatic trichord (3-1) (prime form [012]).

This latter condition, the [012] constraint, is a commonly acknowledged

constraint separating tonal versus atonal or post-tonal sets. In “Scale Networks and

Debussy,” Tymoczko examines the scalar and harmonic attributes of music of the early

twentieth century, positing a series of constraints that establish limits navigating the

interplay of diatonic and chromatic writing in this era. 98 One such constraint is

Tymoczko’s NCS, or “no consecutive semitones” constraint: “a set satisifies the NCS

constraint only if it does not contain [012] as a subset.”99 Tymoczko further asserts that

“insofar as avoidance of [012] and its supersets was indeed an aspect of early twentieth-

century harmonic practice, and insofar as some of these composers were interested in

treating every scalar subset as a potential harmony, it is natural that NCS might come to

have an influence on the choice of scales themselves.”100

98
Tymoczko 2007
99
Ibid., 224.
100
Ibid., 224-225.
53
 Consider the Fr+6 chord formed by C, E, F#, and Bb. Applying the algorithm,

ANSAL({C, E, F#, Bb}) results in four possible hexachords:

C, Db, E, F#, G, Bb

C, Db, E, F#, A, Bb

C, Eb, E, F#, G, Bb

C, Eb, E, F#, A, Bb

Applying ANSAL to each of these resultants, we arrive at an interesting result: ANSAL

of each of the above four hexachords results in C, Db, Eb, E, F#, G, A, Bb – the octatonic

collection, set-class 8-28. Figure 2-5 on the following page presents a diagram of this

algorithm. The Fr+6 is the generating sonority. One application of ANSAL results in two

6-30 members, but significantly, two 6-Z49 members.101 A second application of ANSAL

results, in all four cases, in 8-28.

I recapitulate these results: via a simple two-line algorithm, whose arguments

concern only a logical method of extending sonorities, and the avoidance of the decidedly

non-tonal set-class 3-1, only two applications are needed to derive the octatonic

collection from the French Sixth. Furthermore, ANSAL(Fr+6) produces as two of the

four possibilities 6-Z49 members, a Mystic Chord relative prevalent in the first part of the

late works. And, the ordered distribution of these sonorities, as given by the ANSAL

algorithm, corresponds with Scriabin’s preference for and usage of the same in his

progression through the mid-to-late oeuvre.

101
Baker notes that in the pieces of Op. 61 through Op. 74, there are only three pieces (Op. 67, No.1, Op.
73, No. 2, and Op. 74, No. 2) which feature set-class 6-30 as a structural referent on some level, and in only
two of these (Op. 67, No. 1 and Op. 74, No. 2) are the uses significant. (Baker 1986, 150-151). However, I
have demonstrated previously that Dernova’s extended dominants include members of set-class 6-30.
54
Figure 2-5. ANSAL2(Fr+6).

55
 After reaching 8-28 as ANSAL^2(Fr+6), the ANSAL algorithm can no longer be

applied, because of the maximally-tonal characteristic of the octatonic collection.102

However, if we as such eliminate line ii of the algorithm, and allow [012], then we notice

that ANSAL’(8-28)  12-1, the chromatic dodecachord of the Mysterium sketches.

Hence, taken together, ANSAL, and its line-two omitted version ANSAL’, together in

only three iterations progress from the Fr+6, to 6-Z49, to 8-28, to 12-1, following

Scriabin’s preference for the same collections over the course of the mid-to-late works.

Klumpenhouwer networks have not played a significant role, if any, in relating

the sonorities of Scriabin’s late works. This is perhaps partially due to the majority of

these sonorities being of cardinality six and seven, necessitating increasingly complex

Klumpenhouwer network graphs beyond the overwhelming predilection for

interpretations of trichords and tetrachords in the K-net literature. Nevertheless, I will

now offer K-net readings of some of the set-classes discussed so far in this chapter,

demonstrating network isographies that obtain between like-sized sets.

To begin with, I must note that while much of the K-net literature tends to treat K-

nets within specific analytical contexts (i.e., providing K-net interpretations for specific

chords taken from passages under analytical consideration), I will present here more

abstract pitch-class set K-net interpretations. In his foundational K-net article,

“Klumpenhouwer Networks and Some Isographies That Involve Them,” David Lewin

proposes a method by which, given an original K-net interpretation of some pc set, a new

K-net may be constructed that is isographic to the original K-net.103 Elsewhere, I have

extended this method to prove what I term the “set-class consistency of K-net isography,”
102
The octatonic collection (8-28) is the set-class of highest cardinality that avoids any instances of [012].
103
Lewin 1990, 86.
56
namely, that if any two given K-net interpretations of pc sets X and Y are isographic

under some automorphism of the T/I group, then any members of the set-classes of X and

Y will have (once adequately constructed) K-net interpretations which are themselves

isographic. 104 I invoke these results in the discussion that follows, in that I will

demonstrate K-net isography between K-nets for arbitrarily chosen set-class

representatives for each sonority, namely: pitch-class sets at the zero-transpositional

level.

In this section, I assume in the reader a basic familiarity with the mechanisms and

machinery of Klumpenhouwer networks and K-net isographies.105 A Klumpenhouwer

network is a well-formed transformational network consisting of both T-arrows and I-

arrows. Lewin defines AUT(T/I), the space of automorphisms constituting K-net

isographies, as the set of mappings <u, j> where:106

u = 1, 5, 7, or 11 (mod 12), j ∈ Ζ12, and

<u, j>: Tn  Tun, In  Iun+j

The mapping <1, j>, or <Tj> is termed “positive” isography, and the mapping <11, j>, or

<Ij> is termed “negative” isography.107

I begin with two tetrachords that feature prominently in both surface level

gestures, and as subsets of many of the fundamental sonorities of the late works: the

104
Unpublished paper in preparation for publication, “On the Set-Class Consistency of K-net Isography.”
(2012).
105
For an introduction to K-nets, see Lewin 1990 and Lewin 1994.
106
Lewin 1990, 88.
107
The positive isography <1, 0> or <T0> is further termed “strong isography.” For an in-depth exploration
of the special case of strong isography, and the subsequent derivation of the space of K-classes (the space
of pc sets and set classes which have strongly isographic K-net interpretations, given an initial or a priori
K-net interpretation, see O’Donnell 1998.
57
French Sixth chord (set-class 4-25, which will be represented by pitch-class set {046t}),

and the fully-diminished seventh chord (set-class 4-28, which will be represented by

pitch-class set {0369}). Figure 2-6 (below) gives a fully-connected K-net interpretation

for the Fr+6 chord, in which the ic6 related dyads are interpreted as transpositionally

related, and the ic4 related dyads are treated as inversions. I will label this K-net K(Fr+6).

Figure 2-6. K(Fr+6).

Figure 2-7 (on the following page) gives a fully-connected K-net interpretation (whose

graph shares the same configuration of nodes and arrows as the K-net graph in Figure 2-

6) for the fully-diminished seventh chord, in which the ic6 related dyads are interpreted

as transpositionally related, and the ic3 related dyads (of the horizontal edges) are treated

as inversions. I will label this K-net K(dd7).

58
 Figure 2-7. K(dd7).

The T6-arrows of both graphs are invariant, and the indexes of their I-arrows

differ by one; hence, K(Fr+6) <T11>K(dd7); that is, K(Fr+6) is positively isographic to

K(dd7) by <T11>. This result foreshadows the K-net isographies that will be outlined in

the following discussions. Here, the parsimonious downward slide (or, T11 transposition)

of the (4, 10) dyad of the Fr+6 chord to the (3,9) dyad of the dd7th chord is reflected in

the <T11> isography that obtains between the two tetrachords.

Dernova’s pentachords V-9-5 and V75/-5 are members of set class 5-28, and her V9-5

and V7+5 /-5 are members of set class 5-33. Figure 2-8 on the following page and Figure

2-9 which follows it provide K(5-28) and K(5-33), K-net interpretations of sc5-28 as

represented by pc set {0146t}, and of sc5-33 as represented by pc set {0246t},

respectively. K(5-28) and K(5-33) share the same configuration of nodes and arrows, and

have identical T-arrow indexes. The I-arrow indexes differ by one; hence, K(5-28) is

positively isographic to K(5-33) by <T1>. While this pair of pentachords was not

addressed in Callender 1998, we again see that his parsimonious P1-relation not only

obtains, but is furthermore again reflected in this isographic pair of K-net interpretations.

59
 Figure 2-8. K(5-28)

Figure 2-9. K(5-33).

In the hexachords, the same result holds for the K-net interpretations of the

“Mystic Chord” and set-class 6-Z49 shown below in Figure 2-10 and Figure 2-11,

respectively. Representing the Mystic chord with pc-set {02469t}, and labeling its K-net

interpretation K(6-34), and representing 6-Z49 with pc set {01469t}, and labeling its K-

60
net interpretation K(6-Z49), we see that Callender’s parsimonious P transformation, in

which the pc 2 of the Mystic Chord slides down by one half step (or T11) to the pc1 of

6-Z49, is again reflected in the <T11> isography of K(6-34) and K(6-Z49); K(6-34) is

positively isographic to K(6-Z49) by <T11>.

Figure 2-10. K(6-34)

Figure 2-11. K(6-Z49)

61
 In order to demonstrate the <T11> isography of K-net interpretations of the Mystic

Chord and the whole-tone collection, I invoke a second K-net reading of the Mystic

Chord, which I label K’(6-Z49). The necessity of this is due to the fact that in this case, a

different pair of pitch classes, pc8 and pc9, exchange between the two collections. The

simplest way of ensuring that two K-nets will be positively isographic, when all but one

pitch class is common to both, is to isolate the differing pitch classes in the I-related

arrows of the graph, thusly ensuring that this will result in all T-arrow indexes remaining

fixed, and the difference in I-arrow indexes reflecting the offset between the differing

pitch classes. Figure 2-12 below shows K’(6-Z49), which interprets the Mystic chord,

again represented by pitch-class set {02469t}.

Figure 2-12. K’(6-Z49)

62
 Figure 2-13 below provides K(6-35), a K-net interpreting the whole tone

collection, as represented by pitch-class set {02468t}. K’(6-Z49) is again positively

isographic to K(6-35) via <T11>; the T-arrow indexes remain fixed, and each I-arrow

index of K(6-35) is one less than that of K’(6-Z49), again reflecting Clifton Callender’s

P1-relation.

Figure 2-13. K(6-35)

Finally, the two septachords sc7-34 (the accoustic collection), represented by

pitch-class set {024679t} and sc 7-31, represented by pitch-class set {014679t}, can

similarly be interpreted by K-nets which are positively isographic under <T11>. Due to

the increased complexity of any seven-node K-net, I will present the T-related nodes of

K(AC) (the K-net interpretation for the acoustic collection) and K(7-31) (the K-net

interpretation of pc set {014679t}), which will hold invariant, separately from the

63
respective I-related nodes of the networks. Figure 2-14 below shows the T-related nodes

of both K(AC) and K(7-31).

Figure 2-14. T-arrows of K(AC) and K(7-31)

Figure 2-15 and Figure 2-16 which follow show, respectively, the I-related portions of

K(AC) and K(7-31). The reader can easily confirm that two well-formed K-nets are

formed when each is overlaid atop the T-related network shown above in Figure 2-14.

Isolating pc2 and pc1 in the I-related arrows of each K-net assures that the desired <T11>

positive isography obtains, again reflecting Callender’s parsimonious P1-relation.

64
Figure 2-15. I-arrows of K(AC)

Figure 2-16. I-arrows of K(7-31)

65
 §2.4 Concluding Remarks.

Chapter 3, in some ways, negates the need for this chapter and its emphasis on

quality distinctions. As we shall see in Chapter 3, Scriabin’s idiosyncratic and meticulous

orthography renders in most cases quality distinctions irrelevant; his orthography is so

precise, and so nearly consistent (once fathomed), that one may determine the root of a

harmony or chord by inspection of the orthography alone, without reference to the quality

or set-construction thereof.

While we have demonstrated that numerous theorists have developed a growing

body of transformations and properties relating Scriabin’s preferential sonorities, the

majority of these relations have been set-theoretic, focusing upon relating intervallic

properties between the chords as set-classes or sets of pitches.

Dernova, Perle, and Cheong Wai Ling, however, incorporate a crucial, additional

perspective – the role of orthography within both the space of possible harmonies, and for

the relationships governing their progression. However, in each case, these theorists have

operated within a somewhat limited, or rather focused, space; for Perle and Cheong Wai-

Ling, orthography in the octatonic works, and for Dernova, altered dominants. In Chapter

3, I offer an extension of Cheong Wai Ling’s octatonic referent into a super-space

covering the spelling practices governing all sonorities of the late oeuvre: a chromatic

referent that summarizes the spelling practices adopted across the entirety of the space of

sonorities in the late works.

66
 Chapter 3: Orthography and Referents

§3.0 Preliminary Conditions: L x M5

This chapter explores the role of orthography in Scriabin’s late oeuvre – initially,

as advanced in the writings of Cheong Wai Ling in her 1993 paper “Orthography in

Scriabin’s Late Works,” and her applications of these theories to Scriabin’s Piano Sonata

No. 6, Op. 62 in her subsequent 1996 paper “Scriabin’s Octatonic Sonata.” After an

examination of some general comments and research into the role of enharmonicism

related by Bowers, Dernova, and Perle, and an extension of Cheong’s 8-28 or octatonic

referent, §3.4 presents an extension of Cheong’s concept of “referents” into a larger

structure I term the 12-1 or “chromatic referent,” a super-space covering and containing

all possible generated referents for the idealized spellings of the collections central to

Scriabin’s late oeuvre.

In any investigation of orthographic practices, it is necessary to first define the

larger space in which said orthographic practices operate. For the purposes of this

investigation and theory, I will restrict our attention to the common contemporary space

of thirty-five orthographically distinct notes. This space is the result of the usual seven

diatonic letter names inflected by five distinct accidentals – the double flat (bb), single

flat (b), the natural sign, the single sharp (#), and the double sharp (x).

67
 In his 2007 article “Enharmonic Systems: A Theory of Key Signatures,

Enharmonic Equivalence and Diatonicism,” Julian Hook defines several orthographic

spaces: L, or “letter space,” which is simply the space of the seven diatonic letter names

(L = {C, D, E, F, G, A, B}); M, the infinite (countable) space of modifiers (accidentals);

and L x M = L*, or “signed letter space.”108 For the purposes of this investigation, I

restrict our attention to the five accidentals common to our notational system, and label

this space L x M5.

Furthermore, while in the course of such orthographic investigations one might

inquire into the possibilities of triple-or-more sharps and flats, I do not address these as

part of the theory’s system herein for two simple reasons: first, Scriabin at no point

resorts to more than double-sharps and double-flats. Naturally, this reason alone dictates

the extraneousness of such multiple-accidentals to any theoretic system for the late

oeuvre of Scriabin. Second, such instances of triple, yet alone quadruple or more,

accidentals are exceedingly rare in music of the twentieth, or any other, century.

The small number of commonly identified exceptional composers who have

ventured into the realm of triple sharps and triple flats are Charles-Valentin Alkan,

Nikolai Roslavets, and Max Reger. Citing Byrd’s 2006 “Extremes of Conventional

Musical Notation,” Hook relates:

108
Hook 2007, 99-101.
68
 “Triple sharps occur in Valentin Alkan’s Etude, Op. 39, No. 10 (1857), m. 291,

and Max Reger’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 49, No. 2 (1900), fourth

movement, m. 91. Triple flats occur in the Piano Sonata No. 1 (1914) of Nikolai

Roslavets, mm. 152-153.”109

Example 3-1. Alkan, Etude Op. 39, No. 10, m. 291

As shown in Example 3-1 above, the triple sharp employed is F#x (F-triple-

sharp). Alkan resorts to the F#x as part of a series of contextual leading tone micro-

tonicizations in the left hand (which tonicize the root, third, and fifth of the E# Mm7

seventh chord composed out in this measure. This process appears inverted in the right

hand, with contextual lowered-submediants tonicizing the same E# dominant seventh

chord’s fifth, third, and root).

109
Ibid., 101 (footnote).

69
 Example 3-2. Reger, Sonata Op. 49, No. 2 Mvt. IV, mm. 89-91

Interestingly, in the Reger Sonata for Clarinet and Piano excerpt shown in

Example 3-2 above, the same triple-sharp (but here, orthographically notated as Fx#, i.e.,

with the order of the # and x reversed with respect to the Alkan excerpt) is again

employed in the context of a local level micro-leading tone tonicization of the right-hand

Gx. Also of interest is the conflict between the embellishing right-hand Fx# and the

structural left hand bass F# (m.91 composes-out an F# Major chord).

Example 3-3. Roslavets, Piano Sonata No. 1, mm. 151-153

70
 In the Roslavets excerpt shown on the previous page in Example 3-3, we see both

a liberal use of double-flats and the use of a triple-flat (Bbbb). The left hand arpeggios of

measure 151 articulate a Gbb-Dbb dyad; the Bbbb-Fbb dyad of measures 152-153 is a

clear continuation in a typical Late-Romantic minor third transposition scheme. These

tonally related Gbb-Dbb and Bbbb-Fbb dyads support another common Late-Romantic

harmonic idiom: the composed-out augmented triads of the right hand (Abb+ in measure

151, to Cbb+ in measures 152-153; these augmented chords are of course related as well

by a T3 or minor third transposition scheme). One should also note Roslavet’s unusual

notational choice to beam-together the stems of all double and triple flats; a practice

adopted throughout the Sonata.

It is perhaps also interesting to note that these three commonly cited examples of

triple accidentals – the F#x and Fx# of Alkan and Reger (respectively) and the Bbbb of

Roslavets – do not fall far outside of the space of L x M5. In fact, these two triple-

accidentals would be the “first” such triple sharps and flats in L x M7 (the space of seven

letter names inflected by up to triple sharps and flats) with “first” referring to an ordering

of orthographic space by the circle of fifths – an ordering Hook examines and terms the

“prime” ordering of signed letter space.110 Figure 3-1 on the following page shows the

center and acute and grave extremes of the prime ordering of L x M5 extended to show

the first members of the prime ordering of L x M7, namely, Bbbb on the graver side of the

ordering and F### on the acuter side.111

110
Ibid.,100.
111
In Hook 2007, “grave” and “graver” refer to the leftward direction of the prime ordering of signed-letter
space (i.e., the flat-side of the circle of fifths), while “acute” and “acuter” refer to the rightwards direction
(i.e., the sharp side) of the ordering. (p.101)
71
 (Fbbb),…Bbbb / Fbb, Cbb,…Bb, F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F#,…, Ex, Bx / F###,…(B###)

Figure 3-1. L x M7

It should be noted that while only ten years his senior, Scriabin and his music had

a significant impact on Roslavets (1881-1944). It is perhaps arguable that Roslavets’

considerably “thorny” orthography evolved out of his desire to extend the perceived

system of organization for Scriabin’s late oeuvre (a system whose components were

related, as he understood them, by Sabaneef) – a system that Roslavets would descry in

the 1920’s as “overly-simplified,” and that he extended into a nonaphonic and

dodecaphonic system of “synthetic chords,” very similar in construction to the Technik

des Klangzentrums outlined herein and elsewhere for Scriabin’s late oeuvre.112

While I have briefly examined the implications of the scant examples of triple-

accidentals, and their role within L x M7, for the purposes of this theory and

investigation, I restrict my attention to the properties of Scriabin’s orthographic practices

within the orthographic space of L x M5, that orthographic space in standard use today

and, more to the point, the orthographic space within which Scriabin’s late (and entire)

oeuvre is constructed.

There are several mathematical formalizations of interest, and moreover

necessity, in constructing any orthographic theory: formalizations and properties

pertaining to definitions and structures of an orthographic space in general,

formalizations of the orthographic space L x M5 under consideration here; definitions,

structures, properties, spaces, and formalizations of a “referent” in general; and spaces,

112
Lobanova 1997.
72
properties, and structures of the “12-1 Chromatic Referent” defined in §3.4 of this

chapter. As much as possible, I have relegated the mathematically formal aspects and

presentations of such material to Chapter 4: “Orthographic Spaces and Referent

Structures: Some Formalizations.” Significant formulations from this material is

presented in the text of Chapter 3 on a basis of necessity: fundamental results central to

the development or elucidation of Scriabin’s orthography and the theory thereof are

presented as data, with the formalization and derivation of most of these results relegated

to Chapter 4. The reader may then choose to explore the formalization and derivation of

these results in a more rigorous manor in Chapter 4.

§3.1 Orthographic Distinctions in an Equally-Tempered Oeuvre

In his 1969 biography of the composer, Bowers refers to Scriabin’s “erratically

enharmonic spelling.”113 This criticism is taken a step further in his 1973 The New

Scriabin: Enigma and Answers:

“Scriabin made less than might be expected of enharmonic spellings. His

orthography does not explain. The piano, of course, cannot differentiate in sound

between say an F# and a Gb.”114

The above passage touches upon two key “problems” underlying any discussion of

enharmonicism in Scriabin’s late oeuvre.115 The latter point that the piano, as an equally

tempered instrument, is incapable of producing any audible difference between two

differently spelled, yet enharmonically equivalent pitches is a legitimate one. Several

113
Bowers 1969, 335.
114
Bowers 1973, 147; emphasis added.
115
And, more generally, in any body of music, as explored subsequently.
73
composers and theorists have dealt with the questions of enharmonic equivalence, equal

temperament, and the audibility and performability of the distinction between two

different spellings of identical pitch classes. In the first of his “Three Lectures to

Scientists,” J.K. Randall provides a discussion of the above mentioned F# / Gb

distinction:

“In the context of the music we all know best, a succession of G flat – F sharp is

both an identity of pitch and an inferable scalar descent. Furthermore, a violinist,

for example, in playing a succession G flat – F sharp might actually play two

noticeably different pitches in order to articulate the local function of each: and

yet the harmonic context would undoubtedly require that we interpret these two

distinct pitches as representatives of the same pitch. To make matters even worse,

the violinist might legitimately play the F sharp slightly higher than the G flat; so

that an inferable scalar descent might actually and legitimately be played as an

ascent in pitch.”116

As belabored by Randall above, the different spellings of F# and Gb, despite their

enharmonic equivalence, can lead to a host of subtle perceptual problems. However, at

least the violin and most non-keyboard instruments are capable of providing some form

of audible frequency distinction between these two spellings; and frequency distinctions

that ideally relate to the “harmonic context” of each spelling.

116
Randall 1967, 128.
74
 Kurt Stone, whose research revolves around notational idiosyncrasies in

twentieth- century music, relates the following in an early Perspectives of New Music

article:

“Pitch – in this domain, conventional notation was able to reflect, through proper

chromatic spelling, the subtlest inner harmonic workings of music of the tonal era.

This established system of notation lends itself to even more sensitive pitch

specifications than our well-tempered instruments can reproduce. In the harmonic

language of extended chromatic functionalism (Debussy, Hindemith, etc.) a

considerable degree of ‘logical’ spelling was still possible, though discrepancies

between music and notation became increasingly apparent. A soon as the twelve

notes are treated as equal, independent pitch elements, however, the availability of

four different ‘accidentals’ (#, x, b, bb), and of three different spellings for most

pitches117 (D#, Eb, Fbb) – indeed, that we have accidentals at all – becomes

irrelevant. In much of today’s music the traditional system of accidentals is no

longer the tool of harmonic precision that it once was; instead it has become an

often misleading encumbrance.”118

Stone’s comments above touch upon several key issues underlying any discussion of

orthography and enharmonicism. Three key points can be extracted from this discussion:

first, that our system of enharmonic notation was aptly suited to account for harmonic

hierarchy and status in tonal music; second, that around the time of the Late-Romantic,

Post-Tonal, or Impressionist composers of the late nineteenth- through the early

117
In fact, eleven out of the twelve pitch-classes can be written with three distinct spellings. The only pitch-
class that does not obtain three distinct spellings is pc 8, which can only be written in two distinct ways:
G#, and Ab, in our current system of four accidentals.
118
Stone 1963, 10.
75
twentieth- centuries, a dichotomy between conceptualized and notated music (or, between

the harmonic function / status of pitches, and their convenience-driven enharmonic

notation) evolved; and third, this dichotomy resulted in a breakdown in the mid-to-late

twentieth century of the harmonic implications of enharmonic spelling. These latter two

points are in line with Bowers’ previously discussed criticism of Scriabin’s supposed

enharmonic ambiguity.

Several researchers and theorists have attempted to show that the opposite of the

above oft-cited claims is true in the late music of Scriabin: that Scriabin’s orthography

and enharmonicism is directly related to the compositional and harmonic system at play,

and furthermore serves to clarify and articulate his harmonic intentions. As we saw in

Chapter 2, Dernova’s entire theory of Scriabin’s music is based upon the concept of

enharmonic reinterpretation:

“In Skryabin’s harmonic language everything is stipulated, everything is thought

out, and everything is firmly rooted in the enharmonic principles he discovered in

the altered dominant.”119

Since Dernova, two other theorists have elevated Scriabin’s idiosyncratic orthographic

practices to the status of structural features of his compositional technique in the late

oeuvre.

§3.2 Perle’s Master Scales and Cheong Wai Ling’s Octatonic Referents

The emphasis upon the structural role that is played by orthography and

enharmonicism is taken up in Perle’s 1984 paper “Scriabin’s Self-Analysis.” This paper,

119
Guenther 1979, 419.
76
and the discussion of Scriabin’s orthographic practices in the music of the late oeuvre, is

taken as Cheong’s point of departure for her own orthographic discussion in her 1993 and

1996 articles. Perle explains Scriabin’s careful enharmonic notations as follows:

“For Scriabin… a diatonic scale of functionally differentiated notes was replaced

by a semitonal scale of functionally undifferentiated notes. The notational system

was not replaced, however, and the new music, based on the material of the

universal set of twelve pitch classes, had to make do with only seven degree-

names and the ‘accidental’ signs that permit us to modify their signification….

Scriabin… tried to establish consistent and uniform rules for the continued

employment of the traditional notational means.”120

Perle’s paper examines the spelling practices adopted by Scriabin in the Five

Preludes Op. 74 (1914), Piano Sonata No. 7, Prelude Op. 67, No. 1, and Prometheus.

Perle’s approach in this paper is to create a “master-scale” of the pitch class spellings

used in each piece under examination; to form a scale “spelled ‘diatonically,’ that is, so

that successive notes unfold successive letter-names as in the diatonic system.”121 These

super-scales are described using Perle’s notation for octatonic collections as cyclically

generated constructions, and partitioned into distinct scale segments each of which relates

specifically to a portion of the work or passage under examination. Example 3-4 on the

following page reproduces Perle’s Ex.8 on page 104 of the article, which shows three

such “master-scales” that obtain in his discussion of the Seventh Sonata.

120
Perle 1984, 102.
121
Ibid.
77
 Example 3-4. Perle’s Ex.8.

While Perle’s 1984 paper is a crucial first step in drawing our attention back to

the structural aspects of Scriabin’s spelling practices, several features of Perle’s

presentation must give us pause. First, Perle’s master scales form too large a space; he

does not draw out those salient features which underlay the orthographic choices and

properties of the unique segments of the master scale themselves, erecting rather multiple

large structures which are not related to the simpler structure common to them all (this

being what will be revealed as Cheong’s octatonic referent, and my 12-1 chromatic

referent).

Second, in their application in his analyses, Perle similarly often reverts to

invoking several such master scale segments in the analysis of brief passages, invoking

different segments when no such orthographic change is needed; and, conversely,

reckoning too large a partition within a single master scale segment when the

orthographic implications clearly change. Take, for example, Perle’s Ex.24a, which

78
analyzes the recapitulation of Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 4, and is reproduced in Example

3-5 below.122

Example 3-5. Perle’s Ex. 24a.

Perle invokes his C31,3, C30,2 to read this passage. However, as will be revealed by the

properties of my chromatic referent, no change in orthographic structure is needed in the

first measure of this passage, which is all subjected to the A-referent:

A B C C# D# E F G#

Furthermore, Perle does not indicate a change in orthographic structure on the first chord

of the second bar of this passage. The presence of the A# in the left hand changes the

harmonic and orthographic world, and derives from a referent structure on F#:

F# A A# D# E

Similarly, it is a mistake to recon both eighth-note chords of beat 2, bar 2 as subjected to

the same orthographic structure (C30,2 in Perle’s analysis). The first tetrachord is spelled

122
Ibid., 114.
79
according to an F-natural referent structure, and the second, a D-natural referent

structure:

F Gb B D

and

D F G# A

In her 1993 paper “Orthography in Scriabin’s Late Works,” Cheong proceeds to

investigate a further possible clarification of the role and nature of Scriabin’s enharmonic

spellings. As she asks in the beginning of the paper:

“…the question remains how the use of a particular segment of the master series

in a specific block is determined. In other words, are all the respellings a matter of

mere orthographic convenience? Is this kind of orthography purely visual in

nature? Or is it in any way related to Scriabin’s use of the octatonic

collection?”123

Cheong soon arrives at her first significant result: “the progressive change in Scriabin’s

orthography… coincides with the change of bass trichords and hence the change of

‘roots’.”124 Adopting the “chord centre technique,” or the Technik des Klangzentrums

discussed in Chapter 2 of this dissertation, Cheong determines that the changing

orthographic notation of the pitch-classes of the three octatonic collections encountered

in Scriabin’s Sixth Sonata hinges upon a single, uniform “tonal” spelling of the octatonic

collection, and the “root” of this tonally-spelled octatonic collection.125

123
Cheong 1993, 49.
124
Ibid., 51.
125
Here, I reproduce Cheong’s hesitancy to commit to the idea of the octatonic collection as concretely
rooted (rather than “rooted”) as evidenced by the tonal (rather than “tonal”) spelling of the octatonic
80
 Cheong terms her construction of a ‘tonally’ spelled octatonic collection,

reflecting a single, hierarchized ‘tonal root’ as an “octatonic referent.”126 In her 1996

paper, Table 4 on page 214 of her article provides a list of twelve127 octatonic referents,

and their idealized spellings. Cheong’s Table 4 is reproduced in Figure 3-2 below.

Figure 3-2. Cheong’s Table 4.

Cheong posits a tonal spelling of the octatonic collection, an “octatonic referent,”

which can be described in terms of tonal solfege as follows: Do, Ra, Me, Mi, Fi, Sol, La,

Te. This spelling preference is shown clearly in Cheong’s Ex.9 from her 1993 paper; this

example is reproduced in Example 3-6 on the following page.

collection or scale. This hesitancy to commit to this idea of 8-28, tonally spelled, as an extendedly viable
tonal structure is one of the issues that I shall take up later.
126
Ibid., 56.
127
The problem with this Table is immediately obvious, and will be addressed presently.
81
 Example 3-6. Cheong’s Ex.9.

A few further details and notations in Cheong’s 1993 presentation are also shown in

Example 3-6. Cheong refers to the “eight pcs of each octatonic referent (or 8-28(s)) as

scale-degrees i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii and viii respectively; the four interlocking tritone

structures (I-IV)…”128 Finally, after establishing her concept of the octatonic referent and

its aliquot spellings, Cheong contrasts her results with those of Perle’s 1984 article:

“…the concept of an octatonic referent, together with its associated orthographic

pattern,… is incompatible with the series of consecutive letter-names posited by

Perle. Even though Perle touches on the idea of an orthographic pattern closely

related to that suggested here, he interprets it as being subservient to the master

series and consequently plays down its importance.”129

The remaining sections of Cheong’s 1993 paper are devoted mostly to a

discussion of the relationship between the 6-Z49 Mystic Chord and the 8-28 octatonic

collection, Scriabin’s orthography of the Mystic Chord in relation to the maximally-

related octatonic referent, and analyses of passages relating to these concepts.

As Cheong relates, “if we take both pc content and orthography into

consideration, the ‘mystic’ chord cited by Sabaneiev… is maximally related to the

128
Cheong 1993, 56.
129
Ibid., 57.
82
octatonic referent 8-28 on C.”130 This C-D-E-F#-A-Bb mystic chord is maximally related

to the 8-28 referent on C: C – Dd- Eb – E – F# - G – A – Bb, sharing five of its six

pitches with the 8-28 on C referent. Example 3-7 (below), which reproduces Cheong’s

Example 18 on page 64, shows four ic3 related mystic chords, their maximally-related

octatonic referents, and points out that these four maximally-related octatonic referents

are in fact enharmonically equivalent octatonic collections.131

Example 3-7. Cheong’s Ex.18.

Cheong’s further discussion of the role of Mystic chord constructions in otherwise

octatonic-based compositions revolves around the “pentachordal subset ‘P’” which

Scriabin often employs and makes reference to in both Mystic chord and octatonic

compositions. Example 3-8 on the following page shows part of Cheong’s Ex.14, which

gives an Eb rooted Mystic chord, and its P subset.

130
Ibid., 61.
131
Collection III, in the notation of Cheong 1996.
83
 Example 3-8. Cheong’s Ex.14.

Finally, Cheong relates the following:

“That the spelling of the ‘mystic’ chord follows a distinct pattern closely related

to that of the octatonic referent, and that the pcs held in common by the ‘mystic’

chord and its maximally related octatonic referent have similar structural roles,

suggest an evolutionary link between these two structures.”132

This is a particularly striking possibility: a relationship between spelling practices

adopted across the totality of Scriabin’s late oeuvre referential sonorities. After a further

examination of Cheong’s octatonic referent in §3.3 below, and an extension of some

properties thereof, in §3.4 I will present such a super-referent covering the orthographic

preferences adopted across the entirety of the late oeuvre collections: the 12-1, or

chromatic referent.

§3.3 Extensions and Further Properties of the 8-28 Referent

I turn now to a problematical aspect of Cheong’s presentation. Consider once

again her Table 4, as replicated in Figure 3-2 previously. In this table, Cheong presents

twelve octatonic referents, the roots of which derive from tonally-spelled fully-

132
Cheong 1993, 61.
84
diminished seventh chords on pitches C, C#, and D. This seems, to me, an oversight in a

paper dedicated to orthographic precision in Scriabin’s, or any, music. As mentioned in

the introduction to this chapter, there are thirty-five distinct spellings of pitches possible

in our notational system of LxM5. Only pitch-class 8 is incapable of supporting three

distinct enharmonic spellings, obtaining only G# and Ab in the system. Table 3-1 below

provides a list of all twenty-four 8-28 referents possible within the orthographic super-

space of our investigation, L x M5.

pc 0 B# C# D# Dx Ex Fx Gx A#
C Db Eb E F# G A Bb
pc 1 C# D E E# Fx G# A# B
Db Ebb Fb F G Ab Bb Cb
pc 2 D Eb F F# G# A B C
Ebb Fbb Gbb Gb Ab Bbb Cb Dbb
pc 3 D# E F# Fx Gx A# B# C#
Eb Fb Gb G A Bb C Db
pc 4 E F G G# A# B C# D
Fb Gbb Abb Ab Bb Cb Db Ebb
pc 5 E# F# G# Gx Ax B# Cx D#
F Gb Ab A B C D Eb
pc 6 F# G A A# B# C# D# E
Gb Abb Bbb Bb C Db Eb Fb
pc 7 Fx G# A# Ax Cx Dx E#
G Ab Bb B C# D E F
pc 8 G# A B B# Cx D# E# F#
Ab Bbb Cb C D Eb F Gb
pc 9 A Bb C C# D# E F# G
Bbb Cbb Dbb Db Eb Fb Gb Abb
pc 10 A# B C# Cx Dx E# Fx G#
Bb Cb Db D E F G Ab
pc 11 B C D D# E# F# G# A
Cb Dbb Ebb Eb F Gb Ab Bbb

Table 3-1. The Space of 8-28 Referents in L x M5

85
Note that the equivalence classes for the 8-28 referents in L x M5 rectify or balance out

the pitch-class 8 conundrum. Each pitch-class can support exactly two orthographically

distinct, enharmonically equivalent 8-28 referents. The “missing” 8-28 referents in L x

M5 are those which would have roots, or tonics:

Dbb Bx Cx Fbb Dx Gbb Ex Abb Gx Cbb Ax

Note that the commonality here is not, in fact, these missing referent roots being spelled

as double-accidentals; for, as counterexamples, 8-28s on Ebb, Fx, and Bbb exist within

our orthographic space. Rather, each of the eleven “missing” 8-28 referents listed above

fails to allow either scale degree ii (or, b^2) in the case of the missing double-flat

referents, or v (#^4) in the case of the missing double sharp referents.

Note furthermore that the letters C, D, G, and A each appear three times in this

space, in each case (for some L’ ∈ LxM5) inflected as 8-28 referents on Lb, L, and L#.

However, letters E, F and B each appear chromatically inflected in four orthographically

distinct 8-28 referents: Ebb, Eb, E, E#; Fb, F, F#, Fx; and Bbb, Bb, B, and B#.

I will now address the efficacy of the spelling preferences indicated by Cheong

Wai Ling’s octatonic referent in determining unique chord-membership. These results

have evolved in response to a question in the oral portion of my 2010 candidacy exams; a

question posed by Dr. Anna Gawboy that at the time partially stumped me. Dr. Gawboy

inquired if, absent the augmented prime between the minor and major third of the

octatonic referent (scale degrees iii and iv in Cheong’s notation), there was still sufficient

information yielded by the octatonic referent to establish a referent root for a given

collection or passage. I can now speak in greater detail on this matter.

86
 Richmond Browne, in “Tonal Implications of the Diatonic Set,” establishes the

tritone as the most “significant interval” of the diatonic collection, positioning the ic6

related pitches of sc 7-35 as unique “pointers.”133 We have examined the interval vector

of the octatonic collection previously in Chapter 2, and while the plethora of ic3 and ic6

related dyads do not serve the same aural role as unique identifiers for the octatonic

collection, Scriabin’s unique spellings of the members of the octatonic referent do serve

to establish, uniquely, referent membership.

While the augmented prime between Cheong’s scale degrees iii and iv (or b^3 and

^3) is indeed the only instance of the distinctive augmented prime, it is not the only

singly encountered orthographic interval; the augmented third between scale degrees ii

and v (or b^2 and #^4) is also unique among the orthographic intervals encountered in the

octatonic referent. After these, three pairs of orthographic intervals are somewhat

uniquely identifying, instancing only twice in the referent: the A2/d7 between scale

degrees ii and iv (or b^2 and ^3) and iii and v (or b^3 and #^4) (which are Db-E, and Eb-

F# respectively in 8-28 on C); the M3/m6 between scale degrees i and iv (or ^1 and ^3)

and iii and vi (or b^3 and ^5) (C-E and Eb-G, respectively); and the d4/A5 between ii and

vii (or b^2 and ^6) and v and viii (or #^4 and b^7, Db-A and F#-Bb, respectively).

Figure 3-3 on the following page shows the calculation of these orthographic intervals

(using 8-28 on C), and Table 3-2 which follows it provides an “orthographic vector” of

sorts for the octatonic referent.

133
Browne 1981.
87
C-Db m2 Db-Eb M2 Eb-E A1 E-F# M2 F#-G m2 G-A M2

C-Eb m3 Db-E A2 Eb-F# A2 E-G m3 F#-A m3 G-Bb m3

C-E M3 Db-F# A3 Eb-G M3 E-A P4 F#-Bb d4

C-F# A4 Db-G A4 Eb-A A4 E-Bb d5 A-Bb m2

C-G P5 Db-A A5 Eb-Bb P5

C-A M6 Db-Bb M6

C-Bb m7

Figure 3-3. 8-28 on C Orthographic Intervals Calculations

A1 m2/M7 M2/m7 A2/d7 m3/M6 M3/m6 A3/d6 d4/A5 P4/P5 A4/d5

1 3 4 2 6 2 1 2 3 4

Table 3-2. Orthographic Vector for the Octatonic Referent.

It should be clear from the previous passages that in her discussion and notation of

octatonic referent scale degrees, Cheong inadvertently sets up a notational dichotomy

between scale-degrees as spelled, and scale-degrees as notated. Recall that Cheong

provides the notations i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, and viii for the successive, tonally spelled

scale degrees of the abstract octatonic referent. The numerology involved in this notation

is in direct conflict with the scale-steps or scale degrees, as reflected in the tonal-spelling

of the octatonic referent, after scale degree iii. Take, for example, 8-28 on C. Is it truly

more apt to posit via notational convention that the E represents scale degree iv rather

than ^3, that F# is scale degree v, rather than ^#4, etc? The idealized spelling of the

abstract referent induces a split-third scale degree; one minor third, and one major third

88
above tonic, the abstraction of these scale steps as two distinct scale degrees may be in

keeping with the octatonic collection, but not its mapping into the octatonic referent via

the heptad of the diatonic gamut. This oversight is once again surprising, given Cheong’s

later commentary on this exact issue, when she reiterates her construction of the octatonic

collection “as hierarchically related, an interpretation which turns a symmetrical

octatonic collection into an asymmetrical one.”134 Cheong posits a tonal spelling in her

octatonic referent that implies scale degrees as shown below, and which I have adopted

previously for clarifying the obfuscating nature of Cheong’s i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, and vii:

^1 ^b2 ^b3 ^3 ^#4 ^5 ^6 ^b7

Extending the properties of this space of 8-28s in LxM5 further, I now address a

theoretic abstraction that bears a remarkably close relationship to the music of the late

oeuvre: what I term the space of “Unfoldable” 8-28 referents. This space is defined as the

set of 8-28 referents whose scale degrees each in turn support an 8-28 referent in LxM5.

For example, 8-28 on C is “unfoldable,” since each of its scale degrees are also tonics of

8-28 referents in LxM5, as shown on the following page in Figure 3-4:

134
Cheong 1993, 58.
89
 8-28 on C: (8-28 referents on each successive scale degree):

C (C Db Eb E F# G A Bb)

Db (Db Ebb Fb F G Ab Bb Cb)

Eb (Eb Fb Gb G A Bb C Db)

E (E F G G# A# B C# D)

F# (F# G A A# B# C# D# E)

G (G Ab Bb B C# D E F)

A (A Bb C C# D# E F# G)

Bb (Bb Cb Db D E F G Ab)

Figure 3-4. 8-28 on C “unfolded.”

Applying this criterion of “unfoldability” to the space of 8-28 referents, we arrive at the

space of “Unfoldable” 8-28 referents, a space of thirteen referents in which each letter

name appears as an 8-28 referent tonic precisely twice, expect for G, which appears only

once as 8-28 on G. Furthermore, eleven of the twelve pitch-classes support exactly only

one octatonic referent, with pitch-class 1, which is tritone related to the singly spelled 8-

28 on G referent, being the only exception, supporting both an 8-28 referent on C# and an

8-28 referent on Db. The space of Unfoldable 8-28 referents in LxM5 is shown on the

following page in Table 3-3.

90
pc: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ref: C C# D Eb E F F# G Ab A Bb B
Db

Table 3-3. Unfoldable 8-28 Referents in LxM5.

What is remarkable about this space is three of its properties: first, with the exception of

the doubly-spelled pc1, and eliminating the C# 8-28 referent which results from this

double-covering, the space of unfoldable 8-28 referents corresponds precisely with the

12-1 chromatic referent defined below. Secondly, this space (and the chromatic referent

itself) corresponds furthermore with the totality of referent roots, or “keys,” of the late

oeuvre works – evidencing the multi-level efficacy of these referent structures. Finally,

the space of Unfoldable 8-28 octatonic referents is exactly the same as the space of

Unfoldable chromatic referents.135

§3.4 The 12-1 Referent Derived and Defined

As discussed previously in Chapter 2, despite the emphasis in much of the

Scriabin literature on the “Prometheus” and other such “Mystic” chords, the totality of

sonorities encountered in the late oeuvre of Scriabin’s music ranges over a much larger

spectrum of set-classes. Indeed, despite the collective predilection towards analyzing

Scriabin’s later music via the Technik des Klangzentrums, it is often difficult, if not

135
This should come as no surprise, as the 8-28 referent is a subset of the 12-1 chromatic referent.
91
highly unlikely, for one to pinpoint exactly one single central sonority upon which the

piece under examination is based.136 As related by numerous theorists and Scriabin

scholars, including Gawboy, “segmentation and set identification are notoriously

problematic in Scriabin’s late music.”137

We have seen in Chapter 2 how Scriabin’s late oeuvre consists of numerous

closely inter-related sonorities, each exhibiting salient features and characteristics of the

other; most notably mimicking the transpositional symmetries of one another. While

historically the Technik des Klangzentrums has been utilized in the harmonic analysis of

the late works, by way of identifying a single structural sonority governing an entire

work, this chapter moves beyond this approach by embracing the orthographic

distinctions evidenced by the chromatic referent derived and defined below as the

primary indicator of chord root and referent membership. While in Chapter 5 I draw

principles of fundamental progression from the intervallic consistency of the preferential

sonorities, in the manner of Rameau, it is necessary to conceive of the space of

preferential sonorities as a totality – a singular-multiplicity of sound possibility. This

conception furthermore resonates with Scriabin’s own philosophic views:

“The world is pluralistic. Why? The answer is this: If there existed but a single

entity, then nothing would exist. The act of creation is an act of discrimination. To

create something is to delimit something by something else. It is possible to create

only a multiplicity.”138

136
With the exception of, perhaps, Prometheus; as a starting point for the system of the late oeuvre, it is
perhaps understandable that Scriabin began with a relatively straightforward application in this vein.
137
Gawboy and Townsend 2012, 5.
138
Schloezer 1987, 198.
92
This totality of sound possibility is governed primarily, in this theory, by the orthographic

hierarchies posited by the chromatic referent.

I propose an extension of Cheong Wai Ling’s octatonic referents into a broader,

all-encompassing super-structure within which all commonly encountered sonorities of

the late oeuvre may be made aliquot: the chromatic referent, or the 12-1 referent.

Cheong’s octatonic referent provided an idealized orthography for Scriabin’s spellings of

octatonic material. The 12-1 referent proposed herein is not meant, however, to represent

an idealized spelling for any chromatic scale / chromatic dodecachord encountered in

Scriabin’s late oeuvre.

To the contrary, the sole instance of a literal surface-level chromatic scale in the

late oeuvre of Scriabin at first seems to contradict the idealized spelling proposed anon.

The opening bars of Op. 65 No.1 offer one of the few instances of a literal, surface-level

and complete chromatic scale passage to be found in Scriabin’s late oeuvre. An

examination of the orthographic practices adopted in this chromatic passage will provide

a useful comparison to the construction of the 12-1 referent presented in this theory.

Measures 1-2 have been reproduced on the following page in Example 3-9. However, I

shall return to this example after explicating the structure and properties of the 12-1

referent, at which point the efficacy of the 12-1 referent in relation to this example will be

revealed.

93
 Example 3-9. Op. 65, No. 1 (mm. 1-2).

The 12-1 or chromatic referent is a super-space which gives the idealized spelling

for any sonority encountered in Scriabin’s late oeuvre. It is an amalgamation of the

idealized spellings of those sonorities commonly encountered in Scriabin’s late music;

equivalently, it can be defined as the referent super-space of which any less-than-twelve-

note referent is a subset. Example 3-10 on the following page shows referential spellings

for the commonly encountered sonorities outlined in Chapter 2 (and using the spellings

given in Figure 1 of Callender 1998) all built upon the same C “root” or “tonic,” and

then shows the 12-1 referent as the super space that results from the synthesis of these

spelling preferences.139

139
Callender 1998, 220.
94
 Example 3-10. Synthesis of Scriabin’s Spellings

Synthesizing Scriabin’s typical spellings as found in his commonly used sonorities, we

arrive at a decaphonic referent offering the following spellings for pitch-class set

{012346789t} shown below in Figure 3-5:

^1 b^2 ^2 b^3 ^3 #^4 ^5 b^6 ^6 b^7

- or -
Do Ra Re Me Mi Fi Sol Le La Te

Figure 3-5. Decaphonic Referent

95
Let us examine some examples in support of the spellings predicted by the chromatic

referent. The 12-1 referent dictates that the Fench+6 chord at the core of most of the late

oeuvre sonorities is universally encountered as Do-Mi-Fi-Te, or ^1-^3-#^4-b^7. In a

chord built on an E root, the 12-1 referent predicts that this tetrachord is spelled as E-G#-

A#-D. Example 3-11 below demonstrates that we encounter precisely this spelling in the

opening two bars of Vers la flamme (Op. 72).

Example 3-11. Vers la flamme: Poem Op. 72, measures 1-2.

In any harmony built on a C root, the chromatic referent predicts the French Sixth

core to be spelled as the pitches C-F#-Bb-E; Example 3-12 on the following page, which

reproduces Two Poems Op. 69, No. 1, measures 1-2, verifies this prediction. The C

Mystic chord harmony of measure one spells the French-Sixth members of the chord as

C-F#-Bb-E.

96
 Example 3-12. Two Poems Op. 69, No. 1, measures 1-2.

The example from Two Poems Op. 69 No. 1 above furthermore provides evidence

of the chromatic inflection or splitting of scale degree two: Ra-Re, or b^2, ^2. In measure

two of Example 3-12 above, the D natural of the C Mystic chord is inflected downwards

to Db, and this oscillation continues for the rest of the bar. Scriabin utilizes a similar

process in the introduction to Prometheus, as shown on the following page in Example

3-13, which provides the horn theme of measures nine through eleven, and a reduction of

the orchestra’s inverted A Mystic chord. The horns’ B natural, which is ^2 within the A

Mystic chord, is here again inflected downwards to Bb, or b^2.

97
 Example 3-13. Prometheus, measures 9-11.

Example 3-14 below reproduces Two Preludes, Op. 67, No. 1, measure 15. Here,

we see the splitting of scale degree two as both a melodic succession and as a vertical

simultaneity. This harmony is built on an E root and hence subject to the 12-1 on E

chromatic referent’s spelling preferences. The F# ^2 in the upper voice sounds

simultaneously with the F-natural b^2 in the left hand; the upper voice melody then takes

up this lowered b^2 in the end of the bar.

Example 3-14. Two Preludes, Op. 67, No. 1, measure 15.

98
In the final gesture of Two Poems, Op. 71, No. 2, we similarly see this downward

inflection of ^2 to b^2; here, within the context of a 12-1 on D-referent, this succession is

realized as the inflection of the right-hand E-natural ^2 of measure 37 downward to the

left-hand Eb (b^2) of measure 38. This passage is reproduced below in Example 3-15.

Example 3-15. Two Poems, Op. 71, No. 2, measures 37-38.

The example above furthermore supplies confirmation of the chromatic referent’s

splitting of scale degree three into b^3 and ^3 (or Me, Mi). In Op. 71, No. 2 measure 38

(shown above), the final chord includes both an F# and F-natural; ^3 and b^3 within the

context of this D-rooted harmony. Returning to the opening example of this dissertation,

the first measure of Two Preludes, Op. 67 No. 1 further supports this scale degree three

split: the Eb-E melodic succession of the C referent in the first chord, and the G-Gb

melodic succession of the Eb-referent in the second chord. This passage is reproduced in

Example 3-16 on the following page.

99
 Example 3-16. Two Preludes Op. 67, No. 1, measure 1.

The Five Preludes Op. 74 are replete with examples of split third spellings.140

Example 3-17 below reproduces the first measure of No. 3, which is based almost

entirely on an 8-28 on F# referent, and includes both A and A# as b^3 and ^3. However,

it is more apt to describe this prelude as based on the 12-1 referent on F#; non-octatonic

pitches are still spelled according to the dictates of the chromatic referent on F#, as

evidenced by the G# passing tone in the example below.

Example 3-17. Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 3, measure 1.

140
Prelude Op. 74, No. 4 offers numerous examples, and will be taken up in Chapter 6.
100
 Flammes Sombres (Two Dances Op. 73, No. 2) offers clear examples of the

chromatic inflection of scale degree six as Le and La, or b^6 and ^6. In a similar fashion

as we have seen with chromatic inflections of scale degree two, Scriabin often will begin

with La (^6), and then inflect this pitch downwards to Le (b^6). Example 3-18 below

reproduces measure one of Flammes Sombres.141 In this passage, the D-Db melodic

succession of the right hand projects ^6 – b^6 in the F-referent world of this chord; the

subsequent tritone transposition to a B referent results in the same gesture spelled as the

succession G#-G.

Example 3-18. Flammes Sombres (Two Dances Op. 73, No. 2, measure 1).

I will conclude our confirmation of the validity of the chromatic referent’s

spelling preferences with an example encompassing instances of b^2, ^2, b^3, ^3, b^6,

and ^6, as well as introducing evidence for the chromatic inflections of scale degree

141
A complete fundamental bass analysis of Flammes Sombres, as well as Guirlandes, is provided in
Chapter 6.
101
seven to round-out the orthography of the chromatic referent. Example 3-19 below

reproduces Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 1, measures 1-2.

Example 3-19. Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 1, measures 1-2, with F.B. Analysis

I have included, below the grand staff, a bass staff indicating the referent roots for

each harmony of this passage. The excerpt invokes only three ic3 related referents: F#, A,

and C. In the F# harmonies (the upbeats to measures one and two), the right hand invokes

both the b^2, ^2 and b^3, ^3 inflections as G, G# and A, A#. In the A harmonies (beats

one and two of measures one and two), the alto voice articulates the b^6, ^6 inflection

spelled as expected: F, F#. This b^6, ^6 inflection is similarly encountered in the C

harmony of beat three of measure two, where the upper voice of the right hand projects

Ab-A.

Note furthermore that in both of the F# harmonies, Scriabin spells an E natural in

the left hand (the b^7 of the French Sixth core) against an E# in the upper voice of the

right hand. This E#, in an F# referent, is Ti, ^7. The first A harmony of this passage
102
(beats one and two of measure one) further more reflects this orthographic preference;

after the F#-F scale degree six inflection, the alto voice proceeds upwards chromatically,

spelled as G-G#, or Te-Ti (b^7-^7) in an A referent. Finally, the reverse case is found in

the chromatic descent in the right hand inner voice during the C harmony; here, B-Bb, or

Ti-Te (^7-b^7). We may therefore posit the chromatic inflection of scale degree seven as

b^7, ^7 to round out the first of the final two remaining referent members.

We have confirmed the efficacy of the decaphonic referent shown in Figure 3-5

with regards to the chromatic inflections of ^2, ^3, and ^6, and have hinted at the

incorporation of ^7 into this structure. This decaphonic referent falls two pitch classes

short of a chromatic referent; pc’s 5 and e above a pc0 root are unaccounted for via this

derivation (that of the synthesis of idealized spellings for the common sonorities of the

late oeuvre). The case of the spelling of pce, or the “ti” ^7 a M7th above the referent root

is amply supported by numerous passages in the literature, as we have just seen above in

Example 3-19. Example 3-20 below reproduces measures 3-4 of Five Preludes Op. 74,

No. 2.

Example 3-20. Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 2, measures 3-4.

103
 In this passage, the alternating (F#-C#) and (C-G) dyads in the left hand articulate

an alternation between referents on F# and C, respectively). The right-hand chromatic

descents B#-B-Bb and E#-E-Eb offer evidence for splitting scale degree 7 into ti and te.

The right hand pc0 of measure 3 enters within the window of the F# referent, and hence

must be spelled as a #^4 “fi.” With the change to the C referent on beat 4 of the bar,

Scriabin spells pce and pct as B and Bb; now ti and te within this referent’s window. In

measure 4, the descending chromatic line, now transposed up a P4th, enters on pc5,

spelled as an E#, which is again “ti” or ^7 in the window of the now governing 12-1 on

F# referent. With the change to the 12-1 on C referent on beat 2, the continuation of the

chromatic descent, pitch-classes 4 and 3, is spelled as the succession E-Eb, now mi-me or

^3-b^3 in the window of the 12-1 on C referent.

The case of pc5 in a pc0 referent, or a P4th above the referent root or tonic, is

ultimately irrelevant; in no instance does any structural central sonority in Scriabin’s

oeuvre contain the interval of a P4th above the root, and cases of this pitch as a passing or

neighboring tone to otherwise structural chord members are rare almost to the point of

non-existence. I posit the spelling of this pitch as a “fa” or a P4th ^4 above the root as

based upon evidence offered in §3.5, “Chromatic Referent as Modal Amalgam.”

Gathering together these results, Example 3-21 below shows the complete 12-1

or chromatic referent, here reckoned on a C root.

Example 3-21. 12-1 on C

104
 Returning to the earlier example of a literal surface level chromatic scale (the

opening two bars of Op. 65, No. 1, shown in Example 3-9), we can now provide an

explanation of the particularly thorny spelling of the chromatic scale used by Scriabin in

this passage. Example 3-22 below partitions measure 1 into four collections of pitches

(one harmony per beat), and measure 2 into one harmony and its aliquot pitch content.

Example 3-22. Orthographic Segmentation of Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2.

This passage progresses via an ic3 cycle of referent roots, one of the most typical bass

patterns we will encounter in Chapter 5. Here, the referent roots of the ic3 progression are

are spelled as Bb  C#  E  G  Bb. The “ninths” of this etude, which give rise to

105
the parallel ascending chromatic scales in the right hand, are in fact chromatically

inflected scale degree sixes (b^6, ^6), sevens (b^7, ^7), and tonic, as shown in the

reduction provided in Example 3-23 below.

Example 3-23. Reduction and Orthographic Analysis of Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2.

The space of 12-1 referents possible within our notational system of LxM5

corresponds with that of the 8-28 referents; that is to say, the referent roots capable of

supporting 8-28 referents in LxM5 are the same as those capable of supporting 12-1

referents.142 I refer the reader back to the discussion of the space of 8-28 referents in

LxM5, since they are equally applicable to the space of 12-1 referents. Table 3-4 on the

following page lists the twenty-four chromatic referents possible within our notational

system.

142
The 12-1 referent adds ^2, ^4, b^6, and ^7 to the scale degree content of the 8-28 referent. The addition
of these scale degrees does not invoke spellings from too far along the graver or acuter side of LxM 5, even
in those cases when the referent root is already positioned at the extremes of the grave or acute side.
106
 pc0 B# C# Cx D# Dx E# Ex Fx G# Gx A# Ax B#
C Db D Eb E F F# G Ab A Bb B C
pc1 C# D D# E E# F# Fx G# A A# B B# C#
Db Ebb Eb Fb F Gb G Ab Bbb Bb Cb C Db
pc2 D Eb E F F# G G# A Bb B C C# D
Ebb Fbb Fb Gbb Gb Abb Ab Bbb Cbb Cb Dbb Db Ebb
pc3 D# E E# F# Fx G# Gx A# B B# C# Cx D#
Eb Fb F Gb G Ab A Bb Cb C Db D Eb
pc4 E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E
Fb Gbb Gb Abb Ab Bbb Bb Cb Dbb Db Ebb Eb Fb
pc5 E# F# Fx G# Gx A# Ax B# C# Cx D# Dx E#
F Gb G Ab A Bb B C Db D Eb E F
pc6 F# G G# A A# B B# C# D D# E E# F#
Gb Abb Ab Bbb Bb Cb C Db Ebb Eb Fb F Gb
pc7 Fx G# Gx A# Ax B# Bx Cx D# Dx E# Ex Fx
G Ab A Bb B C C# D Eb E F F# G
pc8 G# A A# B B# C# Cx D# E E# F# Fx G#
Ab Bbb Bb Cb C Db D Eb Fb F Gb G Ab
pc9 A Bb B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A
Bbb Cbb Cb Dbb Db Ebb Eb Fb Gbb Gb Abb Ab Bbb
pct A# B B# C# Cx D# Dx E# F# Fx G# Gx A#
Bb Cb C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb
pce B C C# D D# E E# F# G G# A A# B
Cb Dbb Db Ebb Eb Fb F Gb Abb Ab Bbb Bb Cb

Table 3-4. The Space of 12-1 Referents within LxM5

Similarly, the space of “Unfoldable” 12-1 referents in LxM5 also corresponds

exactly with the space of “Unfoldable” 8-28 referents shown previously in Table 3-3,

where it was shown that this space consists of those referents with roots:

C, C#, Db, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, Ab, A, Bb, B

Apart from the possibility of the unfoldable C# referent, this space is yet again a higher-

level instance of the chromatic referent itself. Furthermore, this space corresponds with
107
the space of global referent roots for the late oeuvre itself. Table 3-5 below lists each

piece of the late oeuvre, with the global referent root posited for each work shown. As the

reader will note, this space – that of the global referent roots, or “keys” of the late works,

corresponds yet again exactly with the spelling preferences of the chromatic referent.

Prometheus, Opus 60: A (or F#)

Poem-Nocturne, Opus 61: Db

Sonata No. 6, Opus 62: G

Two Poems, Opus 63: No.1 A No. 2 C

Sonata No. 7, Opus 64: C

Three Etudes, Opus 65: No.1 Bb No.2 Db No.3 G

Sonata No. 8, Opus 66: A

Two Preludes, Opus 67: No.1 C No.2 C

Sonata No. 9, Opus 68: G

Two Poems, Opus 69: No. 1 C No. 2 Db

Sonata No. 10, Opus 70: C

Two Poems, Opus 71: No.1 Eb No.2 D

Vers la flamme, Opus 72: E

Two Dances, Opus 73: No.1 A No. 2 F

Five Preludes, Opus 74: No. 1 F# No. 2 F# No. 3 F#

No. 4 A No. 5 Eb

Table 3-5. Global Referents (“Keys”) of the Late Oeuvre.

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Table 3-6 below gathers the information of Table 3-5 above into a list showing the

number of works composed in each global referent, or “key.”

C Db D Eb E F F# G Ab A Bb B
6 3 1 2 1 1 3 3 0 5 1 0

Table 3-6. Instances of Keys in the Late Oeuvre.

Scriabin most commonly composes in a global C-referent, reflecting again the

nested hierarchies of the chromatic referent defined in this dissertation. The theoretically

unfoldable C# referent, which is not the preferential spelling of pc1 in a C-referent, is

never encountered as a global referent for any of the late works; rather, Db is preferred.

Any composition in Ab is curiously absent; however, the global referent of A is the

second most common “key” of the late oeuvre. F# and G global referents instance as

frequently as the Db global referents, though compositions in Db and G – which are

spread across Op. 62 through Op. 69 – seem to thereby form a more “universal” feature

of preferential keys (as opposed to all three instances of F# occurring within the Five

Preludes Op. 74).

C and G are each encountered twice as keys of piano sonatas, with the remaining

key of Piano Sonata No. 8 being A, again the second most commonly preferred global

referent. No single composition is composed in a global B referent, which reflects the

non-structural harmonic status of scale degree ^7 in most of the structural sonorities.

109
 §3.5 Chromatic Referent as Modal Amalgam

In §3.4, I defined the 12-1 referent as a super-space of Scriabin’s orthographic

practices, as derived from a careful observation of his spelling preferences for each of the

commonly used sonorities and harmonies outlined in Chapter 2. Here, I demonstrate the a

posteriori property of the 12-1 referent as encapsulating the tonal spelling practices of the

Modal system. I submit that the 12-1 referent’s use of strictly bipartite scale-degree

splitting - and that only on scale degrees ^2, ^3, (^4), ^6, and ^7 – is a significantly and

inherently tonal characteristic.

Ignoring, for the sake of exposition, the post-Schenkerian tripartite taxonomy of

primary, secondary, and double mixture, we may draw a correlation between the

orthographic practices of the 12-1 referent defined herein and the differences in scale-

degree inflections of Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian

modes. Example 3-24 on the following page shows the correlation between the inflected

scale degrees of the 12-1 Referent and the same scale degree inflections in the “Church

Modes.”

110
 Example 3-24. Chromatic Referent as Synthesis of Modal Inflection.

This derivation, and the chromatic referent itself, is similar to Proctor’s derivation of the

“harmonic major” mode, which is the synthesis of chromatic inflections via simple

mixture. Proctor’s Example 7 is reproduced on the following page as Example 3-25.143

143
Proctor 1978, 4.
111
 Example 3-25. Proctor’s Example 7.

The chromatic referent, in this reverse-engineered derivation, encapsulates the

tonal chromatic inflections of the Modal system. Any sonority in Scriabin’s late oeuvre

built on a C root must spell pc3 as Eb, pc8 as Ab, etc., in order to retain the more familiar

implications of the tonal system. Significant is the retention of the un-split tonic and

dominant scale degrees (^1 and ^5). While the harmonic system of the late oeuvre is a

radical extension of the principles of the Late-Romantic, and indeed does abandon

several of the primary conditions of functional tonality – chief among these being the

functional resolutions of extended dominants and the upper voice of the Schenkerian

fundamental structure – he retains that most basic, initial point of contact with tonal

implications: the hierarchical status of pitch content as established by orthography.

Goldwire remarks of Scriabin: “however daring his new harmonic system was, his works

are cast in a nineteenth-century mold.”144

Simply put, I cannot conceive of Scriabin, a composer of the late-nineteenth

century, whose first period music is decidedly tonal, and whose middle period music is

still more-or-less Schenker-tonal, being able to single-handedly cast off a life of tonal

spellings in the music of his last four years. As Dr. Gregory Proctor aptly states in the

subtitle of his unpublished paper, “the Twentieth Century did not fall off a turnip

144
Goldwire 1984, 48.
112
truck.”145 Scriabin’s compositional output prior to the late oeuvre significantly entrained

him in the art of tonal spellings. And Schoenberg, who more decisively attempted to

construct a new notational system for the express purposes of escaping the tonal

implications of our notational system, had difficulties doing so; despite this being all the

more imperative for Schoenberg than Scriabin.

Often throughout this chapter I have had occasion to refer to a member of the 12-

1 referent as a “scale degree.” First, I offer a few comments in defense of my use of this

terminology. In Chapter 2, I posited the idea of Scriabin’s late music as “diagonal

music,” music in which a single harmonic structure is projected both vertically as chord

and linearly as melodic material. The association of these central sonorities or chords

with their “roots” depends chiefly on the orthographic practices Scriabin adopted. And

we have seen that the chromatic referent, which is the summary of these orthographic

practices, is an inherently tonal spelling protocol. I have also referred to global referents

as representing a sense of “key.” Similarly, in the conclusion of her 1996 paper, Cheong

Wai Ling relates the following:

“In this sense, 8-28 on G assumes a key-like function, with G acting as ‘tonic,’

and the sonata-form layout of this piece is articulated ‘tonally’ through a

systematic exploration of the hierarchical possibilities inherent in the octatonic

domain.”146

In like fashion, earlier passages which reflect this idea of almost-a-tonality abound in

both papers:

145
Proctor 1978.
146
Cheong 1996, 227.
113
 “Scriabin’s use of an orthographic pattern that has tonal implications, together

with his superimposition and / or juxtaposition of idiosyncratically notated triadic

material at the foreground, ensures that his so-called ‘post-tonal’ idiom contains

prominent tonal gestures….the evolution of ‘an autonomous and coherent twelve-

tone tonal system’ was surely hindered above all by his faithful adherence, in the

cultivation of a ‘post-tonal’ idiom, to the idea of chordal ‘roots.’”147

In Chapter 5, I adopt these contentions in the affirmative sense, and offer a

fundamental bass theory that elevates Scriabin’s sonorities to the status of tonally rooted

chords. The identity of a chord’s root is governed primarily by the referential spellings

adopted, thereby relegating qualitative distinctions between chord content to secondary

status. The tonal spelling implications of the chromatic referent are demonstrated to apply

not only to the next higher level of chord-to-chord progression (which is also governed

by an extension of Rameau’s principles of fundamental root movement), but furthermore,

the spelling preferences of the chromatic referent provide a logic for making subsequent

levels of hierarchical grouping, in which harmonies and groups of harmonies (via the

transferred structure of the idealized fundamental bass progressions) compose out scale-

step harmonies of the global referent or “key” of a composition. And as we have seen in

this chapter, the global referent roots, or “keys,” encountered in the late oeuvre

furthermore reflect the spelling preferences of the chromatic referent, even on this

deepest level of structure.

147
Cheong 1993, 66.
114
 Prior to Chapter 5, however, Chapter 4 explores the foundational properties and

characteristics of the chromatic referent in a more rigorous, mathematically formalized

fashion. Chapter 4 demonstrates that the chromatic referent is a decidedly unique choice

for spelling any chromatic collection; representing merely one of 354, 296 distinct ways

of notating a chromatic ascent within LxM5. The chapter continuously boils down this

large space of possible chromatic referents, invoking two salient features of any possibly-

tonal spelling of a chromatic scale: first, scalar diatonicism – the preference for chromatic

referents which contain each of the seven diatonic letter names. This criterion narrows the

space of possible chromatic referents to a still large space of several hundred possibilities.

The second criterion is that of at maximum dual inflections of scale degrees; the

preference for splitting scale degrees at most into two distinct chromatic inflections. This

criterion results in a space of twenty-one possible referents (the <2222211> family) of

which the chromatic referent proposed in this dissertation is a member.

115
 Chapter 4:

Orthographic Spaces and Referent Structures:

Some Formalizations.

This chapter provides some mathematical formalizations of the salient features at

play in Chapter 3 of this dissertation: namely, a deeper look into the orthographic space

L x M5, a formalization of the concept of “referent,” and an examination of the unique

properties and status of the 12-1 chromatic referent advocated herein, within the much

larger space of possible chromatic referents possible in L x M5.

I begin with L x M5. In this discussion, I do somewhat risk “putting the cart

before the horse.” While, of course, the total space of orthographically distinct notes

evolved slowly over time (from neumes, through the Greater and Lesser Perfect systems,

through ficta and increasing numbers of chromatic pitches in the Renaissance, and so

forth), I am, in this construction, taking the current notational system as-it-is as an a

priori assumption or axiom, from which I derive a large space of possible chromatic scale

spellings. I point out that within the constructs of meta-theories, this is not a logical error;

I am simply assuming certain later “facts” of the system-as-currently-evolved in order to

generate a new, broader theory of enharmonic and orthographic structures.

Table 4-1 on the following page shows what I term “orthographic space,” that is,

L x M5: the enharmonic and / or orthographic gamut within our notational system of 7

116
letter names modified by five standardized accidentals within equal temperament (the

usual natural, flat, sharp, and double flats and sharps).148

pc x # b bb
0 B# C Dbb
1 Bx C# Db
2 Cx D Ebb
3 D# Eb Fbb
4 Dx E Fb
5 E# F Gbb
6 Ex F# Gb
7 Fx G Abb
8 G# Ab
9 Gx A Bbb
10 A# Bb Cbb
11 Ax B Cb

Table 4-1. Orthographic Space (L x M5)

The table above shows each pitch-class with all of its possible enharmonic

representations when read on the horizontal. First, take note of some of the properties

elucidated by this table of the orthographic space. This space is the result of the space of

seven diatonic letter names (L) crossed with the space of the five accidental qualities (or

“modifiers,” M) possible within the conventional notational system. Hence, orthographic

space, in our conventional notation, has cardinality 35. Notice that this is co-prime with

12, the number of distinct pitch-classes (gcd(12, 35) = 1). This results in one of the pitch

classes – specifically pitch-class 8 – being “short changed,” or having only two distinct

enharmonic representations (pc8 can only be written as a G# or an Ab). Each of the

remaining eleven pitch-classes can be represented by three distinct, yet enharmonically-

148
See Chapter 3, §3.0: Preliminary Conditions:LxM5, and Hook 2007.
117
equivalent notes. For example, pitch-class 4 can be written enharmonically as either Dx,

E, or Fb.

Conversely, one should note the obvious, yet important property which will shape

the following discussion: each letter name when inflected by each of the five accidental

qualities covers a chromatic span of 5 pitch-classes; this property is seen when reading

Table 4-1 on the diagonal from lower-left to top-right. For example, Abb, Ab, A, A#, and

Ax can represent pitch-classes 7, 8, 9, t, and e, respectively. One letter name, through its

five possible accidental or chromatic inflections, can be mapped to five of the twelve

pitch-classes.

In order to investigate the uniqueness of properties exhibited by the 12-1

chromatic referent advanced in this theory, I begin with an investigation and derivation of

all possible orthographically distinct 12-1 referents within our orthographic space. To

begin with, the seven letter name or “scalar” / “diatonic” nature of the 12-1 chromatic

referent advanced is not in fact a necessary feature of any abstract orthographic

representation of the chromatic scale. There are 2⋅311 = 354,294 possible ways of notating

an ascending chromatic scale within the space of LxM5.149

Three, four, five, six, and seven letter-name chromatic referents are possible

within our orthographic space. (To clarify, I mean here chromatic scale referents spelled

with only three, four, five, six, or seven distinct letter names, plus their chromatic

inflections). This is possible since each letter name, when inflected by any one through

149
Of the twelve distinct pitch-classes in an arbitrary chromatic scale, eleven of them can be written in
three orthographically distinct ways, and pitch-class 8, in precisely two. Hence, any ascending scale can be
written in 2⋅311 = 354,294 different ways. Many of these orthographic structures, however, are rotations and
permutations of one another, which I will address in the subsequent discussion of “referent families.”
118
all five of its chromatic / accidental inflections, can map onto one through five distinct

pitch-classes, respectively, as shown in Table 4-1 above, and as discussed previously.

Before proceeding, I shall define the orthographic nature of a chromatic referent

more precisely. One can represent a referent for the chromatic scale as any unique

spelling of the chromatic scale exhibiting the following properties as defined: A

chromatic referent is an ordered spelling <s1, s2, …sn> such that:

• i. Each si = 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (representing the number of distinct chromatic

inflections of a single letter name);

• ii. ∀si = x (where x = 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, as above), x corresponds to the

number of pitch-distinct, chromatically inflected versions of the same

letter name . In other words, x-many adjacent pitch-classes in ascending

mod12 order; if some sj = y, meaning that there are y distinct pc’s

represented by y-many chromatic inflections of letter name L (labeled L1,

L2,…Ly), then:

L1  pc p, L2  pc(p+1), …Ly  pc (p+y-1)

• iii. ∑(sn) = 12

• iv. n = 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7.

Note that in order to modify this definition to strictly define chromatic referents of

cardinality 8, 9, 10, or 11 (ie, chromatic-octatonic 8-1, chromatic-enneatonic 9-1, etc.),

the only modification needed would be to definition iii, which would read ∑(sn) = 8, 9,

10, or 11, respectively. Similarly, modifying rule ii above, eliminating the consecutive

mod12-order pitch-class constraint, and mapping the structure onto any collection or

sonority desired (and then modifying rule iii so that ∑(sn) = c, the cardinality of the pc set
119
or collection being represented), one may generalize the conditions above to cover any

possible referent structure for any collection or pc set. For example, Cheong’s octatonic

referent (the 8-28 referent), would read <1121111>.

Rule iv above derives from the result that chromatic referents exists which consist

of only 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 distinct letter names, a fact I will explore in greater detail shortly.

Consider again the 12-1 chromatic referent advanced in this dissertation, shown

on C in Example 4-1 below. This specific referent for the 12-1 chromatic scale would be

represented within this notation as <1222122>. Recasting some of the properties

addressed previously, we note that in this specific 12-1 referent, the largest splitting used

is a binary one into two chromatic inflections of distinct letter names. Furthermore, it is a

12-1 referent that is diatonically scalar – using each of the letter names of the diatonic

space.

Example 4-1. 12-1 on C.

As mentioned above, three, four, five, six, and seven “letter name” 12-1 referents

are possible within the constraints of our orthographic space. (In the notation for referents

above, <s1, s2, …sn> where n=3, 4, 5, 6, or 7). As an extreme case, consider the following

12-1 referent, <525>, shown on the following page in Example 4-2:

120
 Example 4-2. Dbb<525>

In this example, we see that the Dbb<525> referent includes a quintuply-split first

and fifth scale degrees, and a dually split third scale degree. Furthermore, the <525>

referent on Dbb shown in Example 4-2 is not the only possible Dbb 12-1 referent

exhibiting the <525> structure. Examples 4-3 and Example 4-4 below show two further

possible <525> on Dbb 12-1 referents, which include alternative spellings of pc5 and pc6

first as split second scale degrees (in Example 4-3), and second, as split fourth scale

degrees (in Example 4-4).

Example 4-3. Dbb<525>, Split ^2.

121
 Example 4-4. Dbb<525>, Split ^4.

While the presence of the five-part splitting of scale degrees one and five in the

three <525> on Dbb referents shown above certainly belabors, if not stretches beyond the

breaking point, most conceptions of “tonal” implications, I still point out that in these

specific examples, the differences between particular spellings of the “2” of the <525>

referent does in fact change the larger level scale degree / pseudo-tonal reading of the

referents shown. Example 4-2 above shows a chromatic scale referent which projects a

highly chromatic trichord (D’s, F’s, and A’s). Example 4-3 projects chromatic spellings

of scale degrees ^1, ^2, and ^5, while Example 4-3 projects chromatic inflections of

scale degrees ^1, ^4, and ^5.

Notice furthermore that the chromatic / orthographic structure of <525> is

different from that of its permutated referent <552>, as shown in Example 4-5 on the

following page. This 12-1 referent structure projects a ^1, ^4, ^6 chromatically inflected

scale degree structure. And, as before, different referents would result by respelling the

terminating “2” covering pitch-classes 10 and 11 as first A#-Ax (projecting a total ^1, ^4,

^5 structure) and then Cbb-Cb (projecting a ^1, ^4, ^7 scale degree structure).

122
 Example 4-5. Dbb <552>

Despite the difference between, as shown above, the <525> referent and the

<552> referent, we can define a set of “essential structure referent families,” which

consist of all permutations of a given <s1, s2, …sn> referent structure, in order to examine

representatives of each of the essentially distinct splitting cardinalities. For now, let us

arbitrarily choose as representative for each “essential structure referent family” a

referent permutation that lists the splitting cardinalities in descending order. For example,

<525>, <552>, and <255> are all members of the same “essential structure referent

family,” and can be arbitrarily represented by the <552> referent.

The table on the following page lists the representatives of all possible essential

structure referent families, grouped by descending cardinalities of maximally-used

splitting cardinality (ie, from referents which include five-part chromatic inflections of

single letter names, which I term “five-inclusive referents,” to those which include at

most a four-way splitting of a single letter name, “four-inclusive referents”, and so on).

In the broadest sense of essentially different referent structures (defined here

loosely in terms of the splitting cardinality of certain scale degrees or letter names in each

referent by 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1), we see that there are 33 essentially distinct orthographic

structures for chromatic referents by representative alone. Furthermore, as demonstrated

briefly in the discussions of Example 4-2 through Example 4-5 above (the <525> and
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 5-inclusive 4-inclusive 3-inclusive 2-inclusive

<552> <444> <3333> <222222>

<5511> <4431> <33321> <2222211>

<543> <4422> <333111>

<5421> <44211> <33222>

<54111> <441111> <332211>

<5331> <43311> <3321111>

<5322> <43221> <322221>

<53211> <432111>

<531111> <4311111>

<52221> <42222>

<522111> <422211>

<5211111> <4221111>

Table 4-2. Referent Family Representatives.

<552> on Dbb referents), each of these essential referent structure representatives

corresponds to a larger space of referents whose “strings” are permutations of the referent

strings shown in Table 4-2. Moreover, as demonstrated in the discussion of Example 4-3

and Example 4-4, while these permutations connote the same essential splitting-

cardinality structures, each permutation connotes very different tonal implications. For

example, the <5421> representative shares its essential splitting cardinality structure

with, and thusly represents, a totality of 24 distinct 12-1 referents containing one letter
124
name chromatically inflected five ways, one letter name chromatically inflected four

ways, one letter name chromatically split two ways, and one letter name with a unique

single chromatic inflection.

From the starting point of 354,294 distinct ways of notating a chromatic scale in

LxM5, we have narrowed the scope of our investigation to 33 families of essentially

different referent structures. I will now continue to narrow down our scope to examine

which of these 33 distinct referent families are themselves unique; specifically, which of

these essential referent structures exhibit properties familiar to tonal spellings.

Returning to Table 4-2 above, the reader will notice that I have made boldface

certain referent representatives. These referent representatives are those referents that

include all seven letter names in their structure – what I term the “diatonically scalar

chromatic referents.” There are five such diatonically scalar families; their

representatives are listed below in Figure 4-1:

<5211111> <4311111> <4221111> <3321111> <2222211>

Figure 4-1. Representatives of the Diatonically Scalar Referent Families.

Each of the above referent representatives contains at least one instance of each of

the seven letter names (subjected to various degrees of chromatic inflection). These five

structures are shown written on a Cbb-tonic (and representing a chromatic scale from

pitch-class 10 through pitch-class 9) in Example 4-6 on the following page.150

150
The reader will recall here that, by convention, I order a referent-family representative string in
descending splitting cardinality.
125
 Example 4-6. Diatonically Scalar Referent Representatives on Cbb.

Furthermore, even by appealing to the “diatonically scalar” criterion in order to

find a more “tonal” chromatic referent, there are still hundreds (at least, 525) of seven-

note chromatic referents possible within our conventional orthographic space. 151

However, given Scriabin’s use of complex orthographic conventions (and, taking the

following discussion independent of the spelling practices advocated in this dissertation),

one cannot immediately rule out the diatonically scalar referents featuring five, four, and

three-way chromatic inflections of scale degrees. As a brief example, Example 4-7 on

the following page shows a representative passage (measures 3-4) of the Prelude Op. 74,

151
There are 21 such distinct permutations of <2222211>, 72 permutations each of <4311111> and
<5211111>, and 180 permutations of each of the <3321111> and <4221111> referents.
126
No. 2, in which Scriabin consistently uses successive linear statements of tripartite

chromatic inflections of the same letter name. In other words, Scriabin, as evidenced by

his spelling practices in the late works, did not hesitate to invoke such complex splittings

Example 4-7. Prelude Op. 74, No. 2 (mm. 3-4).

of a single letter name. Hence, we much search for a further criterion for singling out the

12-1 chromatic referent advocated in this dissertation.

Admittedly, the five, four, and three inclusive referents, while possible, do seem

to stretch the boundaries of “tonal” implications. However, those referents that only split

scale degrees into two different chromatic inflections harken much more immediately to

an extended tonal system, implying shades of modal mixture as a background tonal

paradigm.152 It is perhaps this first criterion applied to the total space of chromatic

referents - that only referents consisting of binary chromatic inflections (at most) be used

to suggest an extendedly tonal chromatic referent – that distinguishes the advocated 12-1

chromatic referent <1222122> (along with all members of its essential structure referent

family, with representative <2222211>), as being more “tonal” than the remaining

152
See Chapter 3, §3.5: “Chromatic Referent as Modal Amalgam.”
127
hundreds of possible chromatic referents within orthographic space. I suggest that this

two-part chromatic inflection constraint is a more direct constraint for a “tonal”

chromatic referent than the presence of chromatic inflections of all seven letter names in

a given referent (the diatonically scalar constraint).

Before continuing, let me recapitulate the results obtained thus far. Within our

conventional notational system (or orthographic space) of seven letter names crossed

with five accidental values or chromatic inflections:

• there are 354,294 possible 12-1 chromatic referents, ranging from those projecting

a trichordal structure through those projecting a diatonic or scalar structure.

• Imposing a limitation to prefer the diatonic or scalar referents alone (as being

those referents more possibly “tonal”) does not immediately, of itself, result in

clearly “tonal” referents, for at least 525 such all-seven-letter chromatic referents

exist, ranging again through five, four, three, and two-inclusive referent

structures.

• The only essential referent structure family that both contains only binary

chromatic inflections (or less), and exhibits a diatonically scalar structure

(incorporates all seven letter names) is the family of referents represented by

<2222211>, of which my proposed 12-1 chromatic referent (Example 4-1) is a

member.

Thus, we have provided justification for the preference of the <2222211> family of

chromatic referents, as those referents that are diatonically scalar and only split scale

degrees into at most two chromatic inflections, to the exclusion of the remaining possible

12-1 chromatic referents. However, the total space of the <2222211> family consists of

128
21 distinct referents, each exhibiting slightly different “tonal” constructions in terms of

the scale degree status of chromatically inflected and split steps members. The 21 distinct

members of the <2222211> family are listed in Figure 4-2 below. The chromatic referent

advocated in this dissertation is marked with an asterisk.

<2222211> <2222112> <2221122> <2211222> <2112222>

<2222121> <2221212> <2212122> <2121222> <1212222>

<2221221> <2212212> <2122122> <1221222> <1122222>

<2212221> <2122212> <1222122>*

<2122221> <1222212>

<1222221>

Figure 4-2. The <2222211> Family of 12-1 Referents.

Example 4-8, which spreads across the following pages, shows each of these

<2222211> family referents on the pc0-as-C pitch level. Note the arrows showing single-

enharmonic reinterpretation relationships between referents. Figure 4-3, which follows

Example 4-8, gathers together these enharmonic reinterpretations into a tonnetz for the

<2222211> family.

129
 continued

Example 4-8. The <2222211> Family on C.

130
Example 4-8, continued.

continued

131
Example 4-8, continued.

Figure 4-3. A Tonnetz for the <2222211> Family.

In the course of this investigation into Scriabin’s orthographic practices and

harmonic idiom, I have derived and advocated the 12-1 referent <1222122>, a member of

the <2222211> family, as the idealized super-space according to which all of Scriabin’s

132
preferential sonorities of the late oeuvre are spelled. In Chapter 3, I furthermore

examined the inherent tonal implications of this chromatic referent, specifically, as

representing an amalgamation of spelling practices adopted in modal mixture.

David Clampitt, in individual dissertation studies, has observed a further

relationship between the <1222122> chromatic referent and the modal system. The

orthographic structure of the <1222122> chromatic referent is similar in construction to

the Phrygian scale, when rendered in word-theory. Setting the diatonic half-steps (those

that form a minor-second) in the 12-1 referent as “b,” and the chromatic half-steps (those

that form an augmented prime) as “a,” the <1222122> referent forms the following word:

bababab⏐babab

This word can be generated from the ur-word (a⏐b) via the application of the “special

Sturmian morphism” combination D~G~G~D, where:

D(a) = ba and D(b) = b; G~(a) = a and G~(b) = ba; D~(a) = ab, and D~(b) = b.153

Applying this transformation we arrive at the structure of the <1222122> referent, as

shown in the calculations below:

D~G~G~D(a⏐b) = D~G~G~ (ba⏐b) = D~G~(baa⏐ba) =D~ (baaa⏐baa) = bababab ⏐ babab

The penultimate word in this sequence, baaa⏐baa, is the structure of the Phrygian

mode.154

After examining the total space of chromatic scale representatives possible within

the orthographic space of LxM5, we have seen that the chromatic referent advocated in

this dissertation, <1222122>, itself first derived via observation of the spelling practices

153
Clampitt and Noll 2011, 3.
154
Clampitt and Noll 2011, 4.
133
adopted by Scriabin in his late works, is a member of the <2222211> family of chromatic

referents; the only such family that is diatonically scalar and splits scale degrees or letter

names into no more than two distinct chromatic inflections. This family is furthermore

distinct in this regard – it is the only such “modal” referent family among the five

diatonically scalar referent families. These diatonically scalar referents themselves

constitute a space of 525 referents, out of the totality of 354,294 ways of notating a

chromatic ascent within LxM5.

We have seen that the two constraints of first, no-more-than-dually chromatically

inflected scale degrees, and second, preference for diatonically scalar structures, serve as

more-or-less tonal criteria for a chromatic referent to express or at least relate to

traditional tonal spelling practices. The <1222122> referent, one of 354,294 ways of

notating a chromatic space, maintains tonic and dominant scale-degrees as singly

inflected letters, and inflects only scale degrees ^2, ^3, ^4, ^6, and ^7, precisely those

scale degrees which differ between the modes via principles of mixture.

Whether the <1222122> referent is the inexorable conclusion – or natural

consequence – of traditional tonal spelling practices, its uniqueness within the space of all

possible chromatic referents cannot be ignored or trivialized, especially as it relates to

Scriabin’s preference for this spelling protocol. For, as demonstrated, his music could be,

theoretically, equally written in a spelling system that formalizes tripartite chromatic

inflections. The efficacy of describing his late works via the 12-1 chromatic referent ties

Scriabin once again to the tonal – if radically and fantastically extendedly tonal – side of

the twentieth-century compositional divide.

134
 Chapter 5: A Fundamental Bass Theory for the Late Oeuvre

§5.0 Diagonal Music and the Fundamental Bass.

This chapter combines the results of Chapters 2 and 3 – the symmetrical

sonorities most frequently used by Scriabin in the late oeuvre, with the preferential

spellings imposed by his orthographic practice resulting in orthographic referents

identifying roots and establishing hierarchies among pitch content and principles of

relatedness (referent inclusion, or “key” relationship) – and furthermore establishes a

compositional and aural logic for the progression of said sonorities in a manner similar to

that of Rameau.

In the Traité de L’Harmonie, Rameau synthesized diverse extant theoretic

systems into, essentially, the first unified theory of tonal harmony. 155 This theory,

developed further in a number of additional treatises written over the span of his life156,

includes the recognition of a triad as generated from its root, the “son fondamental,” and

that harmonic progression, the motion from one chord to the next, is reckoned according

to the progression of these roots, via the basse fondmentale (fundamental bass).

Furthermore,

155
Prominent theorists whose work precedes Rameau’s, and on which his results are based, include
Lippius, Zarlino, Campion, and Descartes.
156
Nouveau système de musique théorique (1726) and especially the Génération harmonique (1737).
135
the fundamental bass should progress according to the constituent intervals of these

triads: consonant thirds and fifths.157

In Chapter 2, I demonstrated Scriabin’s preference for transpositional schema that

maximize common-tone retention. In Chapter 3, I provided a chromatic referent that

governs the spelling practices adopted by Scriabin in the late works. This chapter

synthesizes these results into a new fundamental bass theory, in which Scriabin’s

preferential transpositions T2/T10, T3/T9, T4/T8, and T6, and tonally spelled as

indicated by the chromatic referent, form fundamental bass progressions for all levels of

structural hierarchy.

Prior to explicating the fundamental bass theory, I must address the nature of

Scriabin’s centricity itself; a compositional technique and philosophy resulting in an

oeuvre I term “diagonal music.” Composers have long suffered and belabored the

theoretic, or more aptly, compositional-philosophic hierarchy of the melodic realm contra

the harmonic realm – of the horizontal versus the vertical. For Scriabin, and in his

compositional realization of the sonorities of the late oeuvre, there is no distinction

between the realm of the vertical and the realm of the horizontal; Scriabin’s music is

diagonal. Bowers relates the following:

“ ‘Melody is harmony unfurled,’ he often said and would add, ‘Harmony is furled

melody.’ In this way, he leveled the vertical and horizontal differences between

harmony and melody to a single unit of compression. Melody lost definition,

surrendered its legibility as a line separate from harmony’s integer.”158

157
Rameau 1722, Book II: Chapter I: “On the Fundamental Sound of Harmony and On Its Progression.”
158
Bowers 1973, 147.
136
 George Perle describes Scriabin’s style in a similar manner as “a musical

language that makes no distinction between chord and scale”159 and again notes that in

the music of the late oeuvre, “the set functions simultaneously as scale and chord.”160

This “single unit of compression” is the harmonic window with which this chapter

is concerned. We have seen, in Chapter 2, the chord-centric descriptions of these

windows, emphasizing the particular chords, sonorities, or collections that establish each

harmonic window, and the sundry relationships that obtain between them. In Chapter 3,

we furthermore established that Scriabin’s orthography alone evinces an idealized

chromatic referent according to which pitch content can be segmented.

For example, in any harmony built on a G root, we expect, via the chromatic

referent, to encounter pitch content spelled as:

G Ab A Bb B (C) C# D Eb E F F#

Any configuration of pitches structured according to the spellings above can be

represented simply by indicating the root of the chromatic referent, in this case, G, as a

fundamental bass, like that shown below in Example 5-1:

Example 5-1. G fundamental and Referent Root

159
Perle 1984, 104.
160
Perle 1963, 43.

137
This simple indication encapsulates the harmonic window of any number of figures and

gestures composing-out a G harmony, varying over a wide range from those more

vertical and harmonic in nature, as in the excerpt from the conclusion on Piano Sonata

No. 6 shown below in Example 5-2:

Example 5-2. From Piano Sonata No. 6

to those of a more melodic-contrapuntal nature, as in the excerpt from Piano Sonata No.

8 shown on the following page in Example 5-3.

138
 Example 5-3. From Piano Sonata No. 8

The concept that Scriabin’s late music is completely devoid of any instance of

non-harmonic tones is an untenable one. Firstly, one must note that any mention of “non-

harmonic tone” presupposes the priority of a singly identified chord structure as primary.

As we have seen in Chapter 2, distilling Scriabin’s harmonies into a rigorously systemic

series of transpositions is a claim difficult to validate.161 Secondly, such distinctions

represent a dichtomy between the melodic and the harmonic realm, whereas no such

distinction can be made in Scriabin’s music.

161
With the exception of Prometheus, the first work of the late oeuvre, which represents the most systemic
application of such transpositional principles in the late oeuvre.
139
 More salient, then, is to observe Scriabin’s approach via the combination of the

vertical and horizontal; that is, any pitch that may be posited as a “non-harmonic tone” is

still subject to the spelling preferences of the chromatic referent. Consider the Five

Preludes Op. 74, No. 3, a prelude almost universally recognized by analysts as based

upon the octatonic collection (OCT 0,1, specifically). If we take as axiomatic that this

prelude is based structurally on OCT0,1 on pc6, or, in Cheong’s terminology, 8-28 on F#,

then there are several pitches encountered over the course of this short prelude that fall

outside of this pitch collection. Indeed, examining their melodic contexts, each is

describable as a chromatic passing tone, moving between otherwise “structural” members

of the octatonic collection at play.

More important, however, is that Scriabin spells these passing tones within the

context of the F# chromatic referent (12-1 on F#). For example, the first such passing

tone in measure one could have, and perhaps more typically, been spelled as an Ab, since

the passage begins on the structural octatonic member A, and the chromatic passing tone

passes down to the structural G. Why not spell this passage as the succession A-Ab-G?

Ab is not a member of the chromatic referent on F#; this pitch must be spelled as a major

second “re” above tonic.

140
 § 5.1 The Surface

We have seen the beginning point of the fundamental bass theory and its

notational system: the representation of the harmonic-melodic window by a single bass

note which is both chord root and referent representative. Beyond the orthographic

distinctions made by the chromatic referent, identification of a window’s fundamental

bass is somewhat trivial, as Scriabin most typically voices his harmonies in “root

position,” that is to say, with the referent tonic or harmonic root as the lowest sounding

pitch. In most cases, the sounding bass and fundamental bass are one and the same.

There are, however, two common exceptions. The first is the voicing of a

harmony in “second inversion,” or “6/4” position, in which the dominant scale degree, ^5

(sol) is the lowest sounding harmonic member. Example 5-4 below shows measures 84-

86 of Piano Sonata No. 10, in which the minor-third-related Eb, C, and A harmonies are

voiced such that their dominant scale degrees, Bb, G, and E, respectively, are the lowest

sounding members of each chord.

Example 5-4. Piano Sonata No. 10, measures 84-86.

141
 Such “6/4” position voicings do not play any significant structural role in the

harmonic progressions of the late oeuvre, and as such will not be reflected in the first

level of any fundamental bass analyses. These “second-inversion” voicings typically

serve a contrapuntal role to connect the sounding bass to the bass of the subsequent, and

more problematical, type of “inversion”: tritone inversion.

Very often, Scriabin voices his chords with the referent tritone, the #^4 (fi), as the

lowest sounding bass. This results in two options for the listener and analyst. First, in

such cases the orthography clearly establishes the hierarchy between do (^1) and fi (#^4);

as such, the bass fi may be treated simply as a surface-level voicing choice, and leave the

fundamental bass as ^1 as indicated by the orthography of the passage.

However, there is a second reading possible. Due to the tritone saturation in the

late oeuvre, both in the intervallic constituency of the harmonies and in the intervals of

succession (the fundamental bass progressions, as demonstrated below), the listener often

hears a tritone transposition, even when the orthography does not bear this out. This is a

direct corollary to Dernova’s principle of enharmonic reinterpretation, and a symptom of

the property of T6 transpositional invariance obtained by so many of the preferential

sonorities. I liken this occurrence to the McGurk affect.

The McGurk affect is a discrepancy between an auditory stimulus and the visual

source of that sound. In the foundational study on the subject, McGurk and MacDonald

found that when video of lips speaking the consonant syllable “ga” was dubbed to an

audio recording of a spoken “ba,” listeners perceived “da.”162 Campbell clarifies: “the

162
McGurk and MacDonald 1976.
142
perceiver heard an event which was not present in either the visual or the auditory

stimulus.163

In Scriabin’s late music, there is often a similar discrepancy between the visual

stimulus – the root of a harmony as indicated by the orthography – and the auditory

stimulus; the aurally perceived root of the same harmony. Flammes Sombres offers

several examples of this “McGurk affect” in Scriabin’s music. The reader will recall the

opening bar of this dance, reproduced below in Example 5-5.

Example 5-5. Flammes Sombres, measure 1.

In Chapter 3, I explained the orthographic implications of the two chords of this passage;

the first chord being built on an F root and spelled via an F chromatic referent, and the

second, B. However, consider measures 4-6 of the dance, reproduced in Example 5-6 on

the following page:

163
Campbell 2007, 1.
143
 Example 5-6. Flammes Sombres, measures 4-6.

In this passage, the rolled chord on the upbeat of measure four is the climax of the

opening phrase. Examining the orthography, this chord and all events through the first

chord of measure six, are spelled within an F-referent (F-Gb-G-Ab-A-B-Db-D-Eb). The

return on the downbeat of measure six to the opening gesture is easily perceived this way

(as an F harmony). However, due to the trajectory of this phrase, and the rhythmic

accentuation of the measure four upbeat chord, when listening, one hears a clear motion

and transposition to the tritone, B. This is doubly confirmed when the B harmony arrives,

“correctly” spelled, at the end of measure six.164

The dichotomy between reading such moments as a tritone inversion of a tonic

harmony vs. the McGurk affect sounding “root position” of a tritone related harmony

(subjected to the spelling preferences of the tonic a tritone away) results in an analytical

choice, with the decision of status being made based upon either the aural perception of

the passage, or the systemic needs of the moment. For example, in many instances, the

closest one gets to the structural #IV harmony needed, which is the most-structural

164
The F-natural in the right hand upper voice of this chord is the conclusion of the chromatic descent G-
Gb-F; hence tonic of the F harmony, and not flat-five of B.
144
progression in the fundamental bass theory, is the McGurk affect “#IV” as heard, yet

spelled with deference to the chromatic referent on the global tonic.

On the first level of the F.B. analysis, such McGurk affect #IV harmonies (read as

such only when needed for purposes of structural division) will be notated with a

variation of string harmonics notation; the #^4, aurally perceived root will be written as a

standard notehead in the bass, with the tonic (^1) of the tritone-related referent notated as

a harmonic. In the later levels, this McGurk tritone harmony will be asserted as a

structural move to #IV. In other cases, when either aural perception or the structural

needs of the moment dictate, such tritone inversions will be given on the first level as

having a F.B. of tonic (^1), as indicated by the orthography. Example 5-7 below analyzes

the passage shown in Example 5-6 both ways; first, as F, secondly, as a McGurk affect

move to the tritone B.

Example 5-7. The McGurk Affect in Flammes Sombres, measures 4-6.

Example 5-8 on the following page shows measures 84-102 of Piano Sonata No.

10. Each harmony of this passage features either a “6/4” position harmony, or a tritone

inversion tonic harmony. Example 5-9 provides a second level F.B. analysis of this

passage, which treats each tritone inversion as a McGurk affect move to a local #IV. The

analysis also introduces some of the notations and orthographic principles of inclusion

145
defined and fleshed out in the subsequent sections of this chapter. This passage is a

composing-out of Eb, which is bIII in the global C-referent or “key” of this sonata.

146
Example 5-8. Piano Sonata No. 10, measures 84-102.

147
 Example 5-9. F.B. Analysis, Piano Sonata No. 10, measures 84-102.

§5.2 Chord to Chord Progression

We have seen thus far how orthography alone serves as an adequate criterion for

determining harmonic partitions. Two further features of Scriabin’s compositional style

serve to aid us in determining harmonic boundary demarcators. In Scriabin’s music, a

change in root or harmony corresponds, generally speaking, with a surface level change

in gesture. This almost universally corresponds to the metrical boundary of the bar-line.

There is typically no distinction between gestural rhythm and harmonic rhythm. This is

not to say that Scriabin’s rhythm is uninteresting – in fact, it is perhaps the singly most

under-emphasized interesting feature of his compositional style; where this is not the

case, the change in harmony usually falls on the typical subdivisions of the meter.165

165
Two Poems, Op. 63, No.1 provides an interesting counter-example, in which the harmonic rhythm is
syncopated, with the changes most commonly falling on the upbeat into the next bar.
148
 For convenience and expediency, a harmony or window will be labeled via a

Roman numeral denoting the status of the harmony’s root with respect to the global

referent. With this in mind, we can thusly recast the harmonic windows possible within a

single chromatic referent into the following scale-step harmonies:

I bII II bIII III (IV) #IV V bVI VI bVII VII

The reader will note that I am invoking only one aspect of the traditional usage of

Roman numerals – the enumeration of a harmony’s root with respect to a global tonic;

which here is the global (or later-level) referent tonic. The Roman-numerals above in no

way mean to speak to the quality and intervallic construction of the harmonies in

question; for, as we have seen previously in Chapter 3, such qualitative distinctions are

no longer necessary, given adequate comprehension of the information contained within

the orthography of a passage under consideration.

In Chapter 2, we established the transpositional schemes of T3/T9, T4/T8, and T6

as primary in the harmonic progressions of the late oeuvre. Figure 5-1 on the following

page recasts these progressions within the context of the chromatic referent, here

reckoned on a C root.

149
 Figure 5-1. F.B. Structural Progressions.

The most common progression, and that progression elevated to the status of a

fundamental structure, is that of the tritone progression I - #IV – I (Figure 5-1a). This

progression is encountered on multiple structural levels in the late oeuvre of Scriabin.

Often, both the structural late level #IV and middle level chord-to-chord progressions of a

late oeuvre composition are found spelled via the afore-mentioned “McGurk affect,”

150
wherein the #IV harmony is spelled subjected to the global tonic referent. Returning to

Example 5-9 above, the reader will observe this I-#IV-I succession on multiple structural

levels, both as typically spelled and via the McGurk affect tritone inversion.

T3, or minor third progressions, commonly obtain on all structural levels. On the

surface level, these T3 schema are shown in Figure 5-1 b and c, which project a I-bIII-I

and I-VI-I structure.

Dernova relates that “after the basic tritone relation, the major third enharmonic

relation is second in importance.”166 I posit these T4 progressions as secondary in status,

and are shown in Figure 5-1 d and e, which project a I-III-I and I-bVI-I structure. The

concluding progression in measures 98 – 102 of Piano Sonata No.10 (shown in Example

5-9 above) articulate the I-III-I progression.

These fundamental progressions may be nested, or combined to form richer and

more varied progressions. Returning to the ic3 related I-bIII-I and I-VI-I progressions,

Scriabin will typically compose-out a harmony by repeating these progressions in

oscillation. Either order is possible, and equally common; I-VI-I-bIII-I, or, its dual, I-bIII-

I-VI-I. Both ic3 combination patterns are shown on the following page in Figure 5-2.

166
Guenther 1979, 99.
151
 Figure 5-2. Minor-third Combination Patterns.

Most typically, the tritone span of the I-#IV-I progression is filled in with the ic3

related VI and bIII scale-step harmonies. Dernova relates that “besides the major

enharmonic sequence, the coupling of two tritone links which mutually divide each other

in half can also serve as a polar basis.”167 Speaking to the Seventh Sonata, Perle relates

that “this segment and its transposition at the minor third above are both derivable from a

single statement of the set, a possibility that permits the establishment of a closed system

of transpositions and a principle of succession.”168 This T3 cycle, cast here within the 12-

1 referent on C, is shown in Figure 5-3 on the following page, spelled as the succession

I-bIII-#IV-VI-I, and its dual, the descent I-VI-#IV-bIII-I.

167
Ibid., 203.
168
Perle 1963, 41.
152
 Figure 5-3. Minor-third Cycles.

A favorite compositional device of Scriabin’s is to alternate tritone inversions

with root position scale step harmonies in these patterns, thereby hiding an ascending

minor third F.B. progression amidst a sounding bass of descending minor thirds.

Example 5-10 reproduces Three Etudes, Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2. Example 5-11, the

F.B. reading of this passage, reveals this compositional slight-of-hand.

Example 5-10. Three Etudes Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2.

153
 Example 5-11. F.B., Three Etudes Op. 65, No. 1, measures 1-2.

The example above demonstrates a further spelling conundrum: in filling in the tritone

gap between I and #IV, Scriabin will occasionally spell either bIII or VI as a harmony

belonging to the “key” of the #IV step. In the example above, the expected bIII harmony

of Db is instead spelled as C#, or VI in the E-referent of Bb’s #IV. In such cases, I will

use slurs to indicate harmonic inclusion; to demonstrate (based again on the orthography

of the passage) the referent to which a harmony belongs. Figure 5-4 recasts Figure 5-3 to

account for these paradigms.

Figure 5-4. bIII as VI of #IV.

154
 §5.3 The Later Levels: Transferred Structures

Any of the fundamental bass patterns of §5.2 above may be transferred to any

scale-step harmony of the global referent to compose-out that scale step. The conception

here is not far removed from Schenker, in which “every transferred form has the effect of

a self-contained structure within which the upper and lower voices delimit a single

<tonal> space.” 169 Numerous transferred progressions are possible, and rather than

expositing each (in Schenkerian fashion), they will rather be encountered in the course of

the selected analyses of Chapter 6.

Example 5-12 below provides one example of a transferred structure, taken from

the opening fourteen bars of Piano Sonata No.9.

Example 5-12. F.B. for Piano Sonata No. 9, measures 1-14.

The “key” of this sonata is G, as easily confirmed by the opening 12-1 referent on G in

measures 1-4, which composes out this harmony (I). In measure five, Scriabin composes-

out Eb, bVI in the global G-referent, by nesting the minor-third descending cycle. Note

169
Schenker [1979], 87; emphasis added.
155
the beginning of this composed-out bVI corresponds to the acceleration of the surface

gesture; the A harmony of measure six, #IV in the composed-out Eb scale step, is

emphasized as a tritone-diving point by Scriabin’s indication to poco cresc. The F#

harmony of measure seven is VI of #IV of bIII, in the manner of Figure 5-3. The

conclusion of this minor-third cycle on Eb, measure seven, introduces the primary theme

of the sonata, a rapid repetition of b^3 and ^3. The return to the global G tonic in measure

nine is met with a return to the pp dynamic of the opening. This passage is shown in

Example 5-13 on the following page.

156
Example 5-13. Piano Sonata No. 9, measures 1-14.

157
 §5.4 The I-#IV-I Progression and other Background Structures

We have seen how the tritone progression I-#IV-I is the most structural

progression in the late oeuvre, projecting itself across all levels of structural hierarchy.

This progression – Dernova’s tritone-link – constitutes the most fundamental structure,

and furthermore formal structure, of the late works. The two most common structural

divisions in this progression are the I - #IV || I - #IV – I interrupted structure shown

below in Example 5-14, and the I - #IV || #IV – I tritone recapitulation.

Example 5-14. I-#IV-I Interruption and Recapitulation

As mentioned previously, the structural #IV may be notated via the McGurk affect tritone

inversion (and spelled subservient to the global referent). Furthermore, bIII commonly

functions as a structural “DB” to the global tonic I, or DA, in place of #IV as a final

158
cadential gesture. Dernova has indicated that “in Skryabin’s later works, there generally

is no concluding tonic. The form is concluded on the primary dominant, DA.”170 By

“tonic,” Dernova is here referring to the imagined, and absent tonic resolution (according

to principles of functional tonality) of the extended dominants in Scriabin’s late works.

The works of the late oeuvre, in contrast, do conclude on the global referent root (or

“key”) governing each composition. However, Scriabin will often begin a piece with a

version of the “off-tonic beginning,” typically #IV, bIII, or VI.171

§5.5 Interpolation as an Explanation of bV in the Middle Levels.

Bowers has indicated that “evidently, Scriabin had no firm theory about the

difference between a diminished fifth and an augmented fourth.”172 We have seen that

this is not the case on the local level of intra-harmony spellings, in which case the

augmented fourth, #^4, is structural, and b^5 is not. However, there are certain

unavoidable instances of progression to bV, and not #IV, in Scriabin’s late oeuvre.

In systematizing his theory of tonality, Rameau encountered a similar conundrum,

and offers a possible solution:

170
Guenther 1979, 149.
171
Such an off-tonic beginning could cast Prometheus in F#, via a bIII (A) off-tonic beginning. Previously,
I posited Prometheus as in the key of A, mainly due to anecdotal evidence. Readings in either A (with an
F# deceptive conclusion) or F# (with an A off-tonic beginning) are possible; as is C, since the slowly
changing line of the tastiera per luce outlines a C whole-tone referent (F#-Ab-Bb-C-D-E-F#). Gawboy
2010 furthermore reads the key of B embedded deeply in the background of Prometheus.
172
Bowers 1973, 148
159
 “Even more vexing were fundamental bass progressions that seem to move by

step – in clear violation of his dictum that fundamental-bass motion ought to be

composed of those consonant intervals that comprised the vertical triad. He

attempted to solve these problems by proposing ‘interpolated’ (concealed)

fundamental basses and implied dissonances.”173

Instances of a bV scale-step harmony may be similarly explained away by an

orthographic extension of Rameau’s interpolation. Example 5-15 below shows the

problem, and offers possible interpolations, to varying degrees of success.

Example 5-15. Possible Interpolations for bV.

173
Lester 2007, 765.
160
 In a G-referent, the tritone harmony #IV should be spelled as C#; however, often

one encounters a Db harmony instead in chord-to-chord succession. Interpolating a

mediating bIII harmony, here, Bb, rectifies this orthographic conundrum by relating the

Db bV as a bIII to bIII. Four other interpolations are possible, but to lesser degrees of

likelihood. An interpolated bVI, which is itself a primary scale step progression, relates to

the Db harmony as I-bVII; such M2 root progressions typically do not appear until the

later structural levels. The reverse scenario obtains by interpolating a bVII harmony; a

less likely scale step harmony, but one that relates to the Db harmony in a desirable I-bVI

relationship. The final two interpolations, bII and IV, invoke undesirable scale step

harmonies and untenable root progressions (by P4), and are rejected as viable, though

strictly possible on an orthographic basis.

Furthermore, this interpolation (bV as bIII of bIII) is not at all far removed from

typical tonal explications of seeming bV stufe. While the #IV step is reckoned in this

theory as not only structural, but moreover possessing the highest status possible as a

progressive paradigm, the undesirable bV interpolation discussed above is in keeping

with Schenker (and others’) treatment of this seeming harmonic step.174

In the subsequent analyses of Chapter 6, I will not revert much to invoking

interpolated bIII’s to explain away bV; while interpolation rectifies this bV conundrum, I

find this solution to be untenable; it derives too much from the system itself, rather than

from the passages under examination. This will be the normative procedure to account for

problematical passages – through deference to the passage under consideration. With the

174
See Brown, Dempster, and Headlam 1997.
161
fundamental bass theory outlined, Chapter 6 provides multi-level analyses of selected

works from the late oeuvre with accompanying prose discussion.

162
 Chapter 6: Selected Analyses

§6.0 Forward

This chapter offers middle and late level fundamental bass analyses of works of

the late oeuvre: Two Preludes, Op. 67, No.1; Two Poems, Op. 69, No.1; Two Poems, Op.

71, No. 2; Vers la flamme Op. 72; Two Dances, Op. 73, No.1 Guirlandes and No.2

Flammes Sombres; and the Five Preludes Op. 74. The global referents, or “keys,” of

these pieces are C, C, D, E, A, F, F#, F#, F#, A, and Eb, respectively. C and A are the

most commonly encountered referent roots of the late oeuvre, while Flammes Sombres is

the only piece of the late oeuvre cast in F.

§6.1 Two Preludes Op. 67, No. 1

I will begin by analyzing the example that opened our investigations into the

orthographic distinctions of the late oeuvre: Two Preludes, Op. 67, No. 1. The

“mystérieux” Fb of the left hand of measure 1 has since been revealed as the b^2 of the

Eb referent and harmonic root of the second chord. This prelude (like No. 2) is cast in 12-

1 on C. Example 6-1 on the following page provides a middle level fundamental bass

analysis.

163
Example 6-1. Middle Level F.B. for Op. 67, No. 1

164
 The most common fundamental bass progression is the I-bIII-I minor third

progression, as can easily be ascertained by examining the oscillating C-Eb bass motions

throughout the prelude. Structural #IV is mostly attainable through the McGurk affect

tritone inversion; each of the moves to the #IV scale step harmony are spelled according

to the global C referent. In measure twelve, a near “true” F# harmony is articulated;

however, this reading is problematical in that in this harmony, C, rather than B#, is

present in both hands.

However, this is a sort of systemic failure that may in fact have a structural

purpose related to the passage that follows it. Measures one through twelve feature,

exclusively, I, bIII, and #IV harmonies; all ic3 related minor third progressions. The

“surprising” chord of measure thirteen, posited as having a Bb root, prepares a shift in

harmonic means from the predominantly bIII world of the first third of the composition,

to composed-out passages of III, beginning in measure 15. The “near” F# harmony of

measure 12 – neither perfectly 12-1 on F#, nor McGurk affect F# in 12-1 on C (due to the

D#, rather than Eb, of the right hand) – sets up this mutation.

This move to III is short-lived; as soon as measure 19, Scriabin returns to the

more normative bIII. The transitional nature of measures 12-19 can be summarized in

Example 6-2 below:

Example 6-2. III  bIII

165
 With the return to the bIII harmony in measure 19, Scriabin continues in the more

typical minor-third cycle progressions (I, bIII, #IV, VI) through the arrival of the divider

tritone #IV in measure twenty-three. In measure twenty-two, a VI harmony (A) is

suspended in the left hand, underneath the right hand continuation of the minor third

cycle to the C (I) harmony. Measure 27, the tonic recapitulation, follows measures 1-6,

but extends the #IV step for the final #IV-I harmonic motion. Example 6-3 provides a

late level F. B. analysis for this prelude.

Example 6-3. Late Level F.B. for Op. 67, No. 1

166
 §6.2. Two Poems, Op. 69, No. 1

Two Poems, Op. 69, No. 1 is also cast in 12-1 on C, and No. 2, in Db. Whereas

the Prelude Op. 67, No. 1 emphasized I-bIII-I minor third progressions, this poem opens

with the major third related I-bVI-III progression. Here, III is composed out in measures

5-12, with the structural #IV step arriving in measure 13. Measure 17 recapitulates the

opening four bars on tonic (I), but in measure 21, the E harmony transforms into #IV of

Bb, part of an unfolding down to the F# tritone in measure 29 (C-Ab, Bb-F#). Here,

Scriabin unfolds the preferential major third relations downward, rather than composing-

out the upper major third (III) as in the first section of the poem.

This is reflected furthermore in the registration of measures 23-29, which

progresses in the sounding bass deeper than any passage of the poem to this point. The

lower extreme is reached in measure thirty, on bIII, which constitutes the final cadential

harmonic motion of the poem. Here again Scriabin invokes a downward chromatic

inflection of III to bIII, as in the Prelude Op. 67, No. 1. Example 6-4 on the following

page provides a middle level F.B. analysis of the poem, and Example 6-5 which follows

it provides the late level F.B.

167
Example 6-4. Middle Level F.B. for Op. 69, No. 1

168
 Example 6-5. Late Level F.B. for Op. 69, No. 1

§6.3 Two Poems, Op. 71, No. 2

Two Poems, Op. 71, No. 2 is cast in D, and No. 1, in Eb. At the largest level, bIII

(F) is composed-out, opening up windows into F and B harmonies. The final structural

#IV-I cadential motion is achieved via the McGurk affect tritone inversion, as discussed

in Chapter 3. Three moments are worthy of comment: in both measures 9 and 27, the

orthographic preferences of the previous harmonies (D and F) are maintained in the right

hand, while the left-hand orthography moves on to #IV preparations for the upcoming

harmonic windows (B and D). This is reflected in the two-voice fundamental bass in

those measures in Example 6-6 on the following page, which provides a surface level

F.B. analysis showing I-#IV-I structures. Lastly, Scriabin invokes a surprising upper-

neighbor move to E prior to the final cadence.

169
 Example 6-6. Surface F.B. for Op. 71, No. 2

Example 6-7 below provides a later level F.B. analysis of this poem.

Example 6-7. Later Level F.B. for Op. 71, No. 2

§6.4 Vers la flamme, Op. 72

Toward the Flame offers a case study in nested I-bIII structures; a procedure we

will encounter again in the Prelude Op. 74, No. 1. The opening bars rely heavily on the

Fr+6 chord, first rooted on E, the global referent or key of this piece. Momentary

window-bleeding occurs at the downbeat of each change of Fr+6 root; the right hand
170
invokes chromatic upper and lower neighbors, spelled with respect to the previous

harmonic window, before resolving to the new structural Fr+6 members, properly

spelled.

The sudden and surprising arrival of tertian harmonies – particularly, the B-minor

triad of measure 19 – emerges as III of bIII (G). Within this composed-out window of

bIII, Scriabin plays with alternating Bb and B-natural harmonies; the motive G-Bb-B is a

particularly favored melodic cell in the late oeuvre, here transformed into a fundamental

bass progression.

Most of the piece composes-out G (bIII), and its bIII, or Bb. In each of the three

largest passages of composed-out bIII (G), Scriabin opens these windows through three

different techniques: first, Bb as bIII of G embedded within a larger passage of

composed-out G; second, Bb opening up the window into the upcoming G (bIII), and

finally, Bb spun-off of G.

Structural #IV is invoked once, in measure 92, as a McGurk affect tritone

inversion, but still confirming the structural importance of G in this piece. Otherwise,

tritone inversion does not occur; the entire piece is composed mostly with root position

and “second-inversion” chord structures. The return to E-as-tonic is met with the two

most interesting textural and gestural changes in the composition: in measure 41, and

measure 77.

Example 6-8 on the following page provides a surface level F.B. for Vers la

flamme.

171
 Example 6-8. Surface Level F.B. for Vers la flamme.

Example 6-9 on the following page provides a later level F.B. analysis for this

piece. Note that invoking an interpolated G to explain the final Bb-E succession is, in this

work, acceptable, due to the established context of the Bb harmony as bIII of bIII.

172
 Example 6-9. Later Level F.B. for Vers la flamme.

§6.5 Two Dances, Op. 73

The Two Dances, Op. 73 treat material spun off of Scriabin’s sketches for the

Mysterium. As a demonstration of the compositional possibilities of the fundamental bass

theory, I will generate Guirlandes from the background to the foreground. We begin

with the fundamental structure, a tritone interruption with recapitulation on the tonic, A.

This background structure is shown in Example 6-10 on the following page.

173
 Example 6-10. Guirlandes, Background.

To compose-out the initial tonic (I) on A, I symmetrically unfold the major third

related scale step harmonies bVI and III, here F and C#. Then, to compose-out the A-

tonic after the D# tritone interruption (the tonic recapitulation), I also symmetrically

unfold about the A tonic, but in this recapitulation, by the major second related scale step

harmonies bVII and II, thereby projecting a large-scale whole-tone structure wedging

inwards to tonic (A-F-C#-A-D# / A-G-B-A-D#-A). This procedure is shown in Example

6-11 below.

Example 6-11. Whole-tone Unfolding in Guirlandes.

174
 Each of the scale step harmonies added above (bVI, III, II, bVII) can be

composed-out further by transferred tritone (I-#IV-I) fundamental structures. Similarly,

the initial and final tonics may be composed out via additional transferred I-#IV-I

progressions. Example 6-12 below shows this composing-out of the F.B. constructed

above.

Example 6-12. Transferred Fundamental Structures in Guirlandes.

Finally, each of the scale step harmonies above can be composed out by many

such transferred tritone fundamental structures. To obfuscate the theoretical derivation,

these contextual #IV’s can be spelled via the McGurk affect, reckoning their spellings

according to the referent tonic they compose-out. Various local tonics may be placed in

“second inversion” to further obfuscate the fundamental progression. As a final

compositional touch, an Eb harmony (bVI of G) is spun off of the G step prior to the

175
penultimate tonic, suggesting the start of yet another symmetrical unfolding in major

thirds; G-Eb-G-B. However, this progression is only hinted at by the single Eb step

harmony. Example 6-13 below provides the surface level F. B. progression of

Guirlandes, which has been generated in this presentation from the background tritone

structure.

Example 6-13. Surface F.B. Progression for Guirlandes.

176
 Example 6-14 on the following page provides the middle level F. B. of Flammes

Sombres, which is cast in an F-referent. The I-VI-bIII-I minor third progression forms a

harmonic ostinato in much of the dance, and the first I-#IV tritone span is composed out

via a whole-tone ascent in the composed-out scale step harmonies I, II, III, and #IV.

Although Guirlandes and Flammes Sombres exist, on the surface, in two separate

harmonic worlds – the first one of symmetrical T4 and T2 unfoldings about tonic, and the

second, excessive passages of T3 related scale steps – both dances are unified by their

large-scale projected whole-tone structure.

177
Example 6-14. Middle Level F.B. for Flammes Sombres.

178
Example 6-15 below provides the composed-out tritone background structure of

Flammes Sombres.

Example 6-15. Background F.B. for Flammes Sombres.

§6.6. Five Preludes Op. 74

The Five Preludes Op. 74 are Scriabin’s final completed works. Like the Two

Dances Op. 73, the motives and themes of the Five Preludes are found throughout the

sketches for the Mysterium. The following discussion provides detailed analyses of No. 1,

No. 3, and No. 5, and a few observations on No. 2 and No. 3. The keys of these preludes,

in order, are F#, F#, F#, A, and Eb. Taken as a unit, these keys suggest a background or

governing, though hidden, key of C. However, this hidden background of C is made

explicit in the second prelude, which spells the #IV step of F# as C (bV) throughout the

short prelude.

179
 Prelude No. 1 (Douloureux, déchirant) is in F#, but spends much time

composing-out A, C, and Eb. This again suggests a strong hidden background of the

global key of C for this set of preludes. However, the final six measures of this short,

sixteen-measure prelude confirm the key of F# via three #IV-I motions. The composed-

out scale steps of A, C, and Eb evolve from successive nested bIII structures, as shown in

Example 6-16 below.

Example 6-16. bIII Nesting in Op. 74, No. 1

Example 6-17 below provides the surface level fundamental bass analysis for this

prelude.

Example 6-17. Surface Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 1

180
Example 6-18 below provides a late level fundamental bass analysis.

Example 6-18. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 1

In the Five Preludes Op. 74, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4, Scriabin incorporates

contrapuntal connections to a greater extent than in most other works of the late oeuvre.

In the second prelude, descending chromatic lines initiating on F#, G, G#, B#, D#, E, and

E# connect the consistently oscillating F# I and #IV windows. However, in this prelude,

the #IV step is consistently spelled as a C step (bV).

Interpolation of an A bIII is not necessary in this prelude, however. There is a

much simpler reason to spell the #IV step as C, rather than B#. Example 6-19 on the

following page re-writes measures 3-5 of the prelude, meticulously respelling each C

window as a B# window, the idealized #IV step.

181
 Example 6-19. Op. 74, No. 2 measures 3-5, respelled.

This is a decidedly undesirable respelling of an already orthographically thorny

passage. In this reading, the sustained F# sounding bass would need to be respelled every

eighth note as an Ex. This would also require the G’s of the left-hand ostinato figure to be

respelled as Fx; whereas Scriabin rarely subverts tonic (here, F#) within such a short

time-span.

Instead, the simple respelling of a #IV B# as a seeming bV C clarifies, rather than

obfuscates (as in Example 6-19 above) the readability of the passage. With the #IV step

spelled as C, Scriabin meticulously spells each of the descending chromatic lines

according to the window in which they sound (initiating in the F# tonic window, and on

the second pitch of the descent, spelling according to the then-sounding C window).

Figure 6-1 on the following page shows each of the afore mentioned chromatic

descents, and their respellings once the C window opens; this transition is indicated by

the dividing line ( | ).

182
 E# | E Eb

E | Eb D

D# | D Db

B# | B Bb

F# E# | E Eb

____________

F# | C

Figure 6-1. Chromatic Descents in F# and C Windows

The chromatic descents on G# and G correspond with the only non-F# or C

harmonies in the prelude; Scriabin moves to a left-hand D-A perfect fifth dyad at the end

of measures 4 and 8, and on beat 2 of measures 11 and 12. In measures 4, 8, and 11, this

move is still spelled subject to the global F# referent, and the chromatic descent from G is

therefore spelled as G-F#-E#. However, measure 12, the climax of the prelude, instances

the only G# descent, spelled as G# G | F# F. This second window is spelled with

deference to a D referent, and may evidence the large level structure of this prelude as I-

bVI-I, or F#-D-F#.

The third prelude (Allegro drammatico) is spelled entirely according to an F#

referent. We have seen previously that this prelude consists mostly of octatonic pitch

content (OCT 0,1 on F#), but includes non-octatonic passing tones, still spelled according

to the F# key of the prelude. Figure 6-2 on the following page shows the 8-28 on F#

octatonic referent, with passing tones (in parentheses) completing the 12-1 on F#

chromatic referent for this prelude.

183
 F# G (G#) A A# (B) B# C# (D) D# E (E#)

Figure 6-2. Chromatic Passing Tones in Op. 74, No. 3

The entire prelude is spelled according to the global F# referent; all structural root

movements are thereby disguised via an extended McGurk affect. Example 6-20 below

provides a surface level fundamental bass progression for this prelude, in which each

harmony is shown as being spelled according to the global F# key.

Example 6-20. Surface Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 3

Measures 21-22 have been the source of some contention in this prelude. This

chord, spelled (A-D-G#-A#), contains a G#, which is not a structural member of the F#

octatonic collection. Reading the G# as “correct” forces an interpretation of a McGurk

affect bVI harmony (on D). However, I contend that this G# is an editorial typo, and that

the sharp applies to the D of this chord, resulting in an A-D#-G-A# harmony, a McGurk

affect bIII. Example 6-21 on the following page shows these two readings of the left-

hand chord of measures 21-22, and the differing fundamental basses that result.

184
 Example 6-21. Two Readings of Op. 74, No. 3, measures 21-22

I believe that the latter reading, of an actual A-D#-G-A# chord, is more likely due to the

fact that measures 13-22 are a tritone transposition of measures 1-12. Example 6-22

below demonstrates the left-hand chord of measures 21-22 as a T6 transposition of the

left-hand chord of measures 9-10.

Example 6-22. Op. 74, No. 3, measures 21-22 as T6(measures 9-10).

Finally, this reading – that of an A harmony in measures 21-22 – allows for the more

typical minor third cycle to obtain in measures 13-22, here composing out the McGurk

affect #IV. This is shown in Example 6-23 on the following page, which provides a late

level F. B. analysis for the third prelude. In this example, the McGurk affect scale step

harmonies of Example 6-20 have been normalized to I, bIII, #IV, and VI.

185
 Example 6-23. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 3

One additional misspelling needs comment: the C-natural in the right hand of

measures 9-10. At first, one could read this as evidencing the root of this chord as A, in

tritone inversion (A-C-C#-E / D#); however, Scriabin maintains the A / A# split third of

the F# referent throughout this passage. I believe the primary motivation for spelling this

note as C, rather than the B# that replaces it in measures 10-12, is motivic intervallic

consistency; this C comes out the final A of measure 8, which is the third instance of the

ascending minor third motive heard in measures 5-6 (as D#-F#), measures 7-8 (as B#-

D#), and measures 8-9 (as A-C).

The fourth prelude (Lent, vague, indécis) is much more problematical than any

other prelude of the set, due to the increased role of contrapuntal procedures. The opening

three bars, recapitulated in measures 18-20, are all spelled via the McGurk affect,

disguising their fundamental basses within the orthography of the key of this prelude, A.

Measures 4-17 are problematical for this theory, because here, Scriabin’s primary

compositional determinate is descending semitonal voice-leading. In elevating such

horizontal or contrapuntal connections, Scriabin is experimenting, searching for a

horizontal logic not comfortable within his otherwise “diagonal” musical style.
186
As bookends to these extensive passages of linear writing, Scriabin resorts to his more

familiar fundamental bass progressions. Example 6-24 below provides a later level F.B.

analysis of measures 18-24, which end the prelude. Note that measures 1-2 open with the

same progression as measures 18-21, though the latter passage elongates these harmonies

in preparation for the concluding cadential gesture.

Example 6-24. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 4, measures 18-24.

The fifth prelude is cast in Eb; the arrival of Eb-as-tonic is delayed until measure

8, where it is emphasized by an extensive descending scalar passage spanning more than

two-octaves. This tonic arrival is delayed via an off-tonic beginning; measures 1-6

compose-out the #IV step (here A). In measures 3-6, this composing out takes one of its

many usual forms: the C# step of measure 3 is III of #IV; A as #IV arrives in measure 4

and persists through measure 5. Measure 6 confirms the local importance of A by giving

A its McGurk affect tritone step harmony. In measure 7, C (as VI of Eb) fills in the

tritone span from #IV A to I Eb, and in measure 8, tonic Eb finally arrives, confirmed by

the forte dynamic marking and extensive scalar descent.

The reader will note that I read the Bb’s of measure 1, and the F#’s of measure 3,

as appoggiaturas. The music itself readily confirms this: by the end of measures 1 and 3,
187
Scriabin “corrects” these P4th appoggiaturas, inflecting them upwards to B and Fx,

respectively. Then, he doubly confirms that the tritone #^4 above the root is the “correct”

structural chord member by beginning measures 2 and 4 with the “correct” G and D#

tritones above the Db and A roots of these bars. Example 6-25 below provides a surface

level fundamental bass analysis of the fifth prelude.

Example 6-25. Surface Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 5

The opening four bars are furthermore interesting due to their symmetrical

unfolding about A, the tritone composed-out in this off-tonic beginning. Example 6-26

below shows how Scriabin accomplishes this radical change from the Db window of

measure 2 to the C# window of measure 3.

Example 6-26. M3 Nested in Op. 74, No. 5

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In the recapitulation beginning in measure 9, Scriabin maintains the same F and Db

harmonies of measures 1 and 2. Measures 11 and 12, however, transpose this descending

M3 progression to G and Eb, or III and I. It is curious that Scriabin did not fully commit

to a tritone transposition of measures 1 and 2, which would result in a (III of III)-III, III-I

or B-G-Eb progression in measures 9-12. He perhaps maintains the opening F-Db

progression in measures 9-10 because of the desirable tritone relationship between the Db

harmony of measure 10, and the G harmony of measure 11 – despite these two harmonies

belonging to two entirely different windows. Example 6-27 below provides a later level

F.B. analysis of the fifth and final prelude of Op. 74.

Example 6-27. Late Level F.B. for Op. 74, No. 5

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 §6.7 Concluding Remarks.

In this dissertation I have offered an extendedly tonal theory for the late works of

Alexander Scriabin, in which transpositional invariance forms the governing principle of

harmonic succession (the fundamental bass), and in which simultaneously melodic and

harmonic windows progress and relate to one another via not only these intervals of

succession, but furthermore according to the orthographic principles detailed in the

chromatic referent. Careful observation of the orthographic notation of a passage under

consideration renders specific qualitative distinctions unnecessary, in contrast to the usual

approach to this body of music, which typically identifies a single central collection for

each work examined.

I have demonstrated that the space of collections encountered in the late oeuvre is

much larger than one usually gathers from discussions of Scriabin’s music, and while

readings of these collections range from tonal extended and altered dominants, to

extendedly tonal collections, to post-tonal pitch-class sets and set-classes, the chromatic

referent binds them all together via its preferential spellings. Furthermore, I have argued

that the plurality of both tonal and transformational or set-theoretic relationships between

these preferential sonorities evidences this space of collections as a totality, a singular

multiplicity of sound possibility.

This idealized chromatic referent was derived not only from a synthesis of the

spelling practices adopted by Scriabin in the late oeuvre, but also as a synthesis of the

spellings derived via modal mixture. This idealized spelling was furthermore shown to be

190
extremely particular and unique among the totality of over 354, 296 distinct ways of

notating a chromatic collection or scale within our conventional notation system.

The idealized spelling preferences of the chromatic referent, together with the

fundamental bass progressions outlined in Chapter 5, have been demonstrated to apply to

all levels of structure, providing a system of hierarchy in Scriabin’s late works. These

idealized spellings govern orthographic choices from the spelling of surface level pitch

content within a single harmonic window (or chord), to the intervals of succession

relating these windows (chord-to-chord progression), to the transference of these

intervallic successions to subsequent scale-step harmonies that moreover compose-out

larger windows yet. Finally, these deep or late level windows themselves relate to the

single global tonic as prescribed by the orthography of the chromatic referent.

In Chapter 6, I provided surface, middle, and/or late level fundamental bass

analyses for eleven out of the twenty short compositions of the late oeuvre (as defined in

Chapter 1 of this dissertation), presenting a survey of roughly half of the short piano

works of this period.175 In each case, I demonstrated the efficacy of the chromatic referent

and the fundamental bass theory in relationship to the musical literature under

consideration, going as far as showing the compositional usefulness of this theory by

generating the surface fundamental bass progression of Two Dances, Op. 73, No. 1

(Guirlandes) from the background to the foreground.

Furthermore, the fundamental bass theory proposed in this dissertation embraces a

degree of analytical flexibility that is a desirable feature of any analytical or theoretical

175
These twenty short works of the late oeuvre are the piano preludes, etudes, dances, and poems. The
remaining six compositions of the late oeuvre (as defined herein) are the Piano Sonatas No.’s 6 – 10, and
Prometheus, Op. 60.
191
system. Tritone inversions of tonic step harmonies may be treated, on the next level, as

either tonic or McGurk affect #IV steps depending on the analyst’s needs, and more

preferably, depending on his or her aural perception of the passage in question.

Finally, with the mechanisms and components of the fundamental bass theory in

place, I would like to draw salient distinctions between my theory and the “Neotonality”

of Yuri Kholopov, a system which at first seems to bear a close relationship to my own,

but which I shall demonstrate below as significantly different with respect to most

features. Kholopov defines his “Neotonality” as follows:

“Twentieth-century neotonality is a qualitatively different phenomenon in

comparison with classical tonality, since neotonality relies mainly on dissonance

(a dissonant chord, that is, any group of notes expediently collected by the

composer) and on a 12-tone structure . . .based on a scalar foundation, and does

not have a directly sensed gravitation to a central complex at every moment.

Neotonality is structurally diverse and individualized. At the same time, as with

classical tonality, it represents a logical, well-formed, hierarchically ordered

system of functional pitch connections—in other words, a mode. The pitch

situation of motives and chords in neotonality is esthetically regulated (and not

“atonally” indifferent).”176

176
Kholopov 1991, in Ewell 2012.
192
This “hierarchically ordered system of functional pitch connections” is Kholopov’s

Neotonality, shown below in Figure 6-3, which reproduces Ewell’s Example 16.177

Figure 6-3. Ewell’s Example 16: “Kholopov’s Neotonality, C Tonic Center.”

While the orthographic spellings indicated in Kholopov’s neotonal system duplicate the

idealized spellings of my chromatic referent, there are a number of salient differences

between Kholopov’s application (and derivation) of this system and that of my own. To

begin with, Kholopov’s system incorporates Yavorsky’s dual polarity in multiple deep

levels. The C-step in Figure 6-3 above is the tonic, and F# is the tonic-double. While the

various readings in my system of a tritone inversion tonic (I) versus a McGurk affect

177
Ewell 2012, [3.10].
193
tritone step (#IV) comes close to enfolding the older Russian systems of dual-polarity, it

maintains a structural hierarchy between the two; in my system, a decision between these

two readings must be made at the next level. The #IV step in my system does not

represent an equal polar dual to the tonic; rather, #IV is subservient to tonic, and only

expresses it in the sense that the fundamental progression I-#IV-I expresses or composes-

out tonic.

The only feature common to both theories is the status and treatment of

Kholopov’s minor and major mediants and submediants, similar to my treatment of bIII,

III, bVI, and VI. However, this equivalence only holds on a single level, that of chord-to-

chord progressions within a single “monofunctional sphere” in Khopolov’s system,

which can be only loosely likened to my late level windows or composed-out scale steps.

In Kholopov’s system, a single “central element” or chord is the basis for an

entire composition. As Kholopov relates:

“In essence this chord is the tonic, in the sense that we understand tonic to imply

the central element of a tonal system. In this fashion, the establishment of the

“fundamental chord” as the foundation in the harmony of late Scriabin is the

establishment of a new tonic . . .”178

I have previously established that the orthographic distinctions provided by the chromatic

referent render such chord-center techniques irrelevant, or rather superfluous. The

chromatic referent represents a singular multiplicity of sound possibility, which opens up

178
Kholopov 1967, 98 in Ewell 2012 [3.3].
194
windows into any number of possible chord constructions whose orthography alone tie

them together to this global referent root. The harmonies defer and relate only to the root

of the referent at that level, composing-out a scale step, and not a particular harmony.

While the orthographic structure of Kholopov’s neotonal functional paradigms

appear equivalent to the scale degrees of my chromatic referent, their orthographic

distinctions completely disappear amidst his analyses. It is this difference that most

strongly separates our theories. In §5.3 of Chapter 5, I provided an analysis of the

opening 14 bars of Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 68. In my reading, G is the global referent

and key of this sonata. Measures five through eight compose-out the bVI step, Eb. In

Kholopov’s reading, the entire sonata is based on the chord shown in Example 6-28

below:

Example 6-28. Kholopov’s “Central Element” for Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 68

Kholopov treats Eb, his perceived root of this chord, and the T tonic of the sonata.179 As

we have seen, the orthography clearly places the chord shown above as subservient to a G

chromatic referent. In an analysis of measures 1-7 of the sonata based on Kholopov’s

179
Kholopov 1967
195
system, Ewell is forced to treat the F# harmony of measure seven as the minor mediant of

this Eb tonic. This reading is completely at odds with my reading; this F# must be the

“minor submediant” (VI) of A, the tritone (#IV) of Eb.

As a final example showing the failure to observe orthographic distinctions in

Kholopov’s system, Example 6-29 below, which reproduces Gawboy’s Example 3.31,

shows Kholopov’s analysis of the Prelude Op. 74, No. 1.180

Example 6-29. Kholopov’s Analysis of Op. 74, No. 1

180
Gawboy 2010, 158, reproducing Ewell 2001, 204.
196
 Several salient differences emerge under comparison of Example 6-29 above

with Example 6-17 and Example 6-18, which provided my readings of this prelude. In

Kholopov’s analysis, the upbeat chord into the first measure is the tonic-double, whereas

I read this as a tritone inversion expressing the global tonic, F#. In Kholopov’s reading,

the C step harmony of measure 3 is also the tonic-double, whereas in my reading, this C

is bIII of A, which is itself bIII in this F# prelude. Kholopov reads a move to D in

measures 4-6, with the Ab as its tonic-double. However, in my theory the orthography

reveals Ab as the tonic in this pair, with D its fleeting #IV step.

The F# and Eb harmonies of measures 8-10 are tonic F# and the minor

submediant in Kholopov’s reading; as explained in this dissertation, Eb cannot be VI in

an F# referent; it is in fact bIII of C, a window opened much earlier in my reading (in

measure 3) and persisting until the #IV McGurk affect step of measure 10. After measure

10, our analyses correspond with respect to tritone related #IV and I harmonies, albeit

with the difference that in Kholopov’s theory, my #IV is a tonic-double that is as equally

tonic as F#, whereas in my theory, B# step harmonies in an F# referent or key are

subservient to tonic F#.

As revealed in this comparison, by embracing the traditional Russian theories of

dual polarity in his functional system, Kholopov’s Neotonality fundamentally differs

from my fundamental bass theory and its associated chromatic referent; the orthographic

distinctions implicit in his functional system for “central elements” disappear after

surface level chord-to-chord progressions, and are made subservient to invoking

instances of tritone tonic doubles. Kholopov’s theory lacks any orthographically based

197
system of hierarchy, and as such, represents a fundamentally distinct system for

Scriabin’s late oeuvre from that of my own.

In the first chapter of this dissertation, I related that my theory was a prototype

model, rather than exemplar-based model for the late oeuvre, and that this distinction

metatheoretically softened the edges of those moments where the fundamental bass

theory fails. Yet, for any theory of Scriabin’s late music, there are inexorably numerous

such moments when the idealized system either fails to account for a passage, or fails to

account for it fully, simply because Scriabin, despite claiming to have been able to

demonstrate that he was composing in a system, never explicitly defined this system. For

all those theorists interested in Scriabin’s music, we are left reconstructing this system

based on solely on those features of the music we deem as salient; we are basing our

theoretic constructions on our own observations.

Surely Scriabin, composer of the Poem of Fire, and of the Black Mass Sonata,

and author of hundreds of beautiful texts, poems, letters, and verses expounding upon his

intricate, ever-evolving system of mystical beliefs, could have easily provided such a

demonstration of his late oeuvre system of composition, even if that system was itself

intricate, a-systematically formed, or ever evolving.

I cannot help but wonder if, rather than evidencing that he in fact had no such

system, Scriabin’s conspicuous silence and omitted explications were in fact decidedly

intentional; leaving the compositional system of the late oeuvre as a final mystery

imbedded in the fabric of the late works themselves, allowing the interested disciple to

chart his or her own personal path to the truth, or truths, contained therein.

198
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