Piano Sonata No. 9 (Scriabin)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Measure 36/37 from Alexander Scriabin's 9th Piano Sonata (part of the secondary theme)

The one-movement 9th Piano Sonata op. 68 by the Russian composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) was written between 1911 and 1913 and is often referred to as the “Black Mass”.

Emergence

In the years 1911 to 1913, in which the last 5 piano sonatas were written by Scriabin (numbers 6 to 10, all works in one movement), Scriabin dealt intensively with theosophical writings and planned a total work of art called “mystery”, in which music and poetry , Dance, light, color, scents and architecture should flow together and lead humanity to a higher level of consciousness. As the sketches for the “Mysterium” show, the last piano sonatas by the composer, who died in 1915, were also intended as a preliminary stage.

Preparatory work for the 9th Piano Sonata began in autumn 1911, but the composition was not completed until the summer of 1913. In the same year it was published by the Moscow publishing house Jurgenson . Scriabin himself played the sonata in public for the first time on September 30, 1913 in Moscow in the Great Hall of the Assembly of Nobles there.

characterization

Scriabin's 9th piano sonata in one movement has a playing time of about 8 to 10 minutes. The nickname “Black Mass”, which is often read, comes - unlike the term “White Mass” for the 7th Piano Sonata , composed in 1911 - not from the composer himself, but from his pianist friend Alexej Podgajetski. He refers to the ominous mood evoking the sphere of evil, which Scriabin himself intended, as utterances and direct descriptions of lectures make clear. According to Leonid Sabaneev , Scriabin said: "In the ninth sonata I came into contact with the Satanic more deeply than ever before [...]."

The work bears the initial tempo designation "Moderato quasi Andante" and shows the typical parts of the sonata form :

  • Exposition (bars 1 to 68)
  • Execution (bars 69 to 154)
  • Recapitulation (bars 155 to 209)
  • Coda (bars 210 to 216)

At the beginning there is a two-part motif with a chromatically descending upper part, which is entitled “légendaire”. The second motif of the main theme, "mystérieusement murmuré" ("mysteriously murmuring"), appears in bar 7 and was later referred to by Scriabin as the "theme of the creeping death". Both motifs can be traced back to altered variants of the mystical chord often used in Scriabin's late work . The eight-bar secondary theme (bars 35 to 42) is called “avec une langueur naissante” (“with budding longing”). In the final part of the sonata, this takes on in a transformed form "features of satanic malice and at the end whips the music through a martial march" (bar 179: "Alla marcia"). The sphere of the ominous is emphasized in the development, which is characterized by increased tempo, also by unusual lecture designations, for example in bar 97: "avec une douceur de plus en plus caressante et empoissonée" ("with ever more tender and poisoned sweetness"). The recapitulation accelerates the tempo further until the final increase from bar 199 "[...] like an outcry in which the ghost suddenly disappears into unsubstantial depths". A short coda rounds off the work by repeating the first, quiet bars of the exposition.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Valentina Rubcova: Foreword to the Urtext edition, G. Henle Verlag, Munich 2010, ISMN 979-0-2018-0855-0 (search in the DNB portal)
  2. ↑ cit. n. Valentina Rubcova: Foreword to the Urtext edition, G. Henle Verlag, Munich 2010, ISMN 979-0-2018-0855-0 (search in the DNB portal)
  3. ↑ Manfred Angerer: Musical Aestheticism. Analytical studies on Scriabin's late work . H. Schneider, Tutzing 1984, ISBN 3-7952-0412-7 , p. 53.
  4. ↑ Igor Fedorovich Belsa: Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin . Verlag Neue Musik, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-7333-0006-8 , p. 191.
  5. ↑ Manfred Angerer: Musical Aestheticism. Analytical studies on Scriabin's late work . H. Schneider, Tutzing 1984, ISBN 3-7952-0412-7 , pp. 64-66.
  6. ^ Sigfried Schibli: Alexander Scriabin and his music . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-492-02759-8 , p. 201.
  7. ↑ Manfred Angerer: Musical Aestheticism. Analytical studies on Scriabin's late work . H. Schneider, Tutzing 1984, ISBN 3-7952-0412-7 , p. 79.

literature

  • Sigfried Schibli: Alexander Scriabin and his music . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-492-02759-8 , pp. 200-203.
  • Valentina Rubcova: Foreword to the Urtext edition. G. Henle Verlag, Munich 2010, ISMN 979-0-2018-0855-0 (search in DNB portal) ( online ).

Web links