Demystifying Scriabin

This book is an innovative contribution to Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) studies, covering aspects of Scriabin's life, personality, beliefs, training, creative output, as well as his interaction with contemporary Russian culture. It offers new and original research from leading and upcoming Russian music scholars. Key Scriabin topics such as mysticism, philosophy, music theory, contemporary aesthetics, and composition processes are covered. Musical coverage spans the composer's early, middle and late period. All main repertoire is being discussed: the piano miniatures and sonatas as well as the symphonies. In more detail, chapters consider: Scriabin's part in early twentieth-century Russia's cultural climate; how Scriabin moved from early pastiche to a style much more original; the influence of music theory on Scriabin's idiosyncratic style; the changing contexts of Scriabin performances; new aspects of reception studies. Further chapters offer: a critical understanding of how Scriabin's writings sit within the traditions of Mysticism as well as French and Russian Symbolism; a new investigation into his creative compositional process; miniaturism and its wider context; a new reading of the composer's mysticism and synaesthesia. Analytical chapters reach out of the score to offer an interpretative framework; accepting new approaches from disability studies; investigating the complex interaction of rhythm and metre and modal interactions, the latent diatonic 'tonal function' of Scriabin's late works, as well as self-regulating structures in the composer's music. Introduction: Demystifying Scriabin 1 About That Chord, and about Scriabin as a Mystic 2 Scriabin and the Russian Silver Age 3 Scriabin as a Writer: The Development of Scriabin's Thought as Shown in a Lifetime's Writings 4 Russian Pedagogy in Composition and Music Theory during Scriabin's Creative Period 5 Studying Scriabin's Autographs: Reflections of the Creative Process 6 Scriabin's Miniaturism 7 The Scriabin Tremor and Its Role in His 8 Demystifying the Mystic 9 Temporal Perspectives in Scriabin's Late Music 10 Scriabin's Multi-dimensional Accelerative Sonata Forms 11 Setting Mystical Forces in Motion: The Dialectics of Scale-Type Integration in Three Late Works 12 Scriabin's Synaesthesia: the Legend, the Evidence, and Its Implications for Multimedia Counterpoint 13 Playing Scriabin: Reality and Enchantment 14 Scriabin and Music Analysis: The Search for the Holy Grail 15 Scriabin and the Classical Tradition 16 Scriabin's Critical Reception: 'Genius or madman?'