# Scriabin vs. Schoenberg: Two approaches



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The *Piano Sonata No. 10 opus 70 by Scriabin *is so advanced harmonically, so chromatic, that it verges on the atonal. A wandering, seemingly aimless composition, vague and prolix, melodically almost non-existent, rhythmically diffuse, no discernible pulse...what a refreshing break from the "One-two! One two!" march rhythms and clichéd phrasings of most Western, even modern, composers.

This is what happens when harmonically advanced music, becoming more and more chromatic, loses its melodic charms, and becomes a twisting morass of chromatic chord permutations...all things become vertical, sonorous, spectral, and polyphonic independence dissolves in the rapids of harmonic waves of sound.

*Schoenberg* knew this is what would happen, so he gave the chromatic morass an ordered sequence; a forlorn strategy which attempted to solidify the waves, to regain the polyphonic lifelines of order. *Scriabin,* instead, chose to die, to drown, to submit his ego to the water, carefully refined and sealed-over. His intense interest in *Madame Blavatsky's *philosophy shows that he was inexorably drawn to the unconscious, the non-ego-driven, the animus, the dark side of the moon.

*Schoenberg *was too directed by his agenda and tradition; to transform Viennese ideology into his own creature; nationalistic to a degree, in that he always wanted to "belong," to be a part of, yet, to accomplish this by subverting it finally? A love/hate mission, unconscious forces of his psyche pulling him in two directions: one is the traditionalist, wanting to fulfill the expectations of society, in traditions of love, marriage, heroic accomplishment; and the other, the outsider, lingering outside the concert halls of Vienna, too poor to gain admission to Wagner, playing a makeshift cello, yet knowing more than any typical Viennese citizen. So, finally he was driven to subvert the very language he mastered so completely, by giving it ordered sequence and polyphonic life again. He will not drown in the chromatic sea, but will conquer it, and tame it.

*Scriabin,* by contrast, submits to the anima; the darkness engulfs his music, he becomes one, in submission and death, to the vast chromatic ocean of colors. Ahh, yes, the darkness!

These two composers might seem to represent two diametrically opposed solutions to the increasing chromaticism of the 20th century. Scriabin, Dionysius, submitting beautifully and completely to the unconscious drives of chaos and feeling; Schoenberg, Apollonian, feeling the same forces, attempting to control the dragon, to create himself as a heroic victor over the forces of illogic and diffuse intuition; then submitting to its consequences. A removal of ego, but on his terms.

The modern world, with its relentless logic and order, seems to be the counterpoint to Scriabin's 'psychedelic' vision of color and mysticism; perhaps this is the "corner" to which we moderns relegate out art, as a reminder of the squelched creative forces within each of us. "The darkness" is forbidden; the "void" of the unconscious is "counter-productive" in an industrialized oligarchy. So we declare Scriabin the winner, as a prize Pomeranian lap-dog, a reminder of the darkness, tamed, domesticated, rendered harmless as a curiosity.

It might appear that we moderns need Scriabin more than we need Schoenberg's logic. In the end, perhaps both composers created their own version of the darkness, coming from diametrically opposed directions.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> The *Piano Sonata No. 10 opus 70 by Scriabin *is so advanced harmonically...


Interesting adjective. Is the implication that, say, J.S. Bach is primitive harmonically?


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

While Schoenberg was nowhere near the mystic that Scriabin was, he wasn’t quite the Apollonian he’s being made out to be here either. Schoenberg’s philosophical justification for serialism was just as reliant on New Agey psychobabble as Scriabin’s cosmic harmonies were. In Schoenberg’s case it was the philosophy of Emmanuel Swedenborg that provided the mystical context for his experiments in serialism. In a lecture delivered in 1941, Schoenberg drew a direct parallel between motivic manipulation in serial music and Swedenborg’s concept of heaven. The latter is described (by Schoenberg) as a realm where binary oppositions are rendered obsolete, where time is the equivalent of space. He likened this to serial motivicization, where a segment of a tone row is identifiable as such whether it appears as a harmony or as a melody. Harmony and melody are equivalent—i.e. Swedenborg applied to music. Schoenberg described serial technique in very Swedenborgian terms as a means of achieving a “unitary perception of musical time and space."

Granted, for most of the twentieth century we listeners have preferred to view serialism from the perspective of logic and order. But given a choice between our camp and Scriabin’s, Schoenberg probably would have chosen Scriabin’s.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Interesting adjective. Is the implication that, say, J.S. Bach is primitive harmonically?


I knew, as I typed "advanced harmonically", that this would imply that harmony has "advanced" through time. The fact is, the harmonic system did proceed (advance) into more chromatic territory since Bach's time. The tunings of instruments reflect this; mean-tone tunings were developed for producing better major thirds, and only functioned properly within restricted ranges of keys (sharps C-G-D-A-E, flats C-F-Bb-Eb-Ab). So Baroque music was designed to stay more-or-less in one key area, until the demands of music required the use of equal temperament.

I consider the expansion of harmonic territory, into distant keys, to be "advancement," because it presents new possibilities. On the other side, this pervasive use of ET has tended to rob music of its sonorous, sensual qualities which had "purer" intervals. But the 12-system was imperfect from the get-go, so I see that as no great loss, as the 12-note system was a compromose to begin with. If I want perfection, I'll seek out Wendy Carlos (Beauty In the Beast) or Terry Riley (Shri Camel, The Harp of New Albion).


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I think deep down inside Scriabin was a romantic until the end, he just took it to its extremes, with ever more freedom in form, harmony and rhythm, pushing the envelope so radically that his music ended up as something quite new altogether. But whatever advancements he made, or methods he invented, they were mere tools to what he sought to express and not rules to follow religiously above all else. Anyway, why is it still called a sonata?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

DeepR said:


> I think deep down inside Scriabin was a romantic until the end, he just took it to its extremes, with ever more freedom in form, harmony and rhythm, pushing the envelope so radically that his music ended up as something quite new altogether. But whatever advancements he made, or methods he invented, they were mere tools to what he sought to express and not rules to follow religiously above all else.


The OP leaves us a bizarre premise based upon two of the more extreme late high romantics who were also modern... just two different takes on late high romantic sensibilities. That means I don't 'much get' the interest of the premise of the OP.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> The OP leaves us a *bizarre* premise based upon two of the more extreme late high romantics who were also modern... _just two different takes on late high romantic sensibilities. _That means *I don't 'much get' the interest of the premise of the OP.*


For me, and I have given this much consideration, it means that (fact the increase of chromaticism leads to inevitabilities; inevitabilities which are manifest as qualities; namely, less defined melody, and less defined harmony and tonality. T*his is a simple statistical fact *of increasing the number of notes from 8 (tonality) to 12. Redundancy and repetition is decreased, so pattern-recognition becomes more difficult. Like tonality, the brain tends to derive meaning through simplification and reduction.

*Schoenberg* saw this as well, and gave the chromatic scale a specific sequence, or ordering, which not only defines it melodically, but gives it a horizontal dimension which takes the place of harmonic function (which is manifest horizontally as well as in terms of vertical sonance). Since harmonic meaning was inevitably taken away by chromaticism, Schoenberg decided to replace harmonic meaning with sequences of intervallic relations which give a sense of sonance and vertical movement, yet remain harmonically vacant in the traditional functional sense.

*Scriabin, *by contrast, chose to remain in the morass of increasingly dense and ill-defined, ambiguous (chaotic?) harmonic chromaticism, which is the inevitable consequence of increasing chromatic density. In terms of harmonic function (tonality), this means an increasing ambiguity, and in a sense, an increasing "meaninglessness" in harmonic terms.

Yet, Scriabin's late works are indeed tonal, if you've got the ear/brain to handle it; yet, they are on the verge of atonality because of the extreme chromaticism.

This is the premise of the OP; that one had to either remain in the harmonic hierarchy, which was becoming its own undoing, or depart into uncharted territories, and create a new hierarchical system of relations, as Schoenberg did.

If one wishes *not* to admit that this change was historically inevitable (although things happen in sequence), then the numbers speak for themselves; 12 is more complex than 8, and produces more cross-relations. But one can choose not to recognize number in relation to music, and see it as purely art, with no dimension of number affecting it.

If one wishes (on artistic grounds) not to accept this inevitability as inevitable, then there is no point in arguing the point, as it becomes a matter of metaphysics or style.

Yet, the entire 12-note division of the octave is arbitrary and imperfect; but its *hierarchy* of vertical sonance relations and horizontal functions is based on natural harmonic principles; "1" is divided into fractional subservient parts.

Thus, as it has ever been, music represents the struggle between natural sensual factors and geometric constructs.


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