Scriabin second sonata - harmonic and melodic analysis help

[nemoo]

It's been a long dream of mine to play the second sonata. However, I don't understand it very well, so here I came to ask for some help.
Could anybody explain me the first page of this sonata in detail ? I'd be very happy to read it, as that would get me started.

I've read it a bit, but I don't understand the chords very well (l see some seventh, but there are also unexplained tritones) ; even the subjects puzzle me, they keep modulating around.

Here is the sheet music :
https://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/5/50/IMSLP01987-Scriabin_-_Sonata_No_2.pdf


Regarding the subjects :
1 - the first one is presented in bar 0-2, consisting of D#-D#-G#G#G# and D#-D#-FxFxFx. Or is the second phrase A#-D#-FxFxFx ?
Then I guess bar 3 is transition to bar 4, where the first member of the theme is modulated a fourth up. Then bar 5 is transition again, still along the scale.
Bar 6 is quite strange, seems like it is modulating in A#major ?
2 - Then Bar 7 takes the "transition motif" from bar 3 and 5 on the right hand and expands it slowly, while the left hand introduce the second subject D#-C#-B-A#-B, repeated in the following bars and concluding in bar 10.
3 - Bar 11 and 12 reintroduce the first subject a fifth higher.
Then bar 13 plays the second subject in B major (arranged along a I-V7-I-V progression), concluding it with an excerpt from the first subject in D# during bar 14 (the dominant key, and the mediant of B major).
Bar 15 repeats the second subject, in D# minor this time, with the same chordal arrangement, and bar 16 does the same echoes of the first subject in B major.
Bar 17 then modulates in E minor, and thus the first page ends.


Regarding the chord progression, the last bars of the page I think I understand (though any help is welcome) but the beginning is a total mystery. I can't even figure some of the root notes. The second beat in bar 1 and 2 is problematic for me.

Please help me ! Thanks in advance. I've read a few books on Scriabin (including Hull's famous one), searched the internets, but it was fruitless. I'm pretty desperate... While a complete "walkthrough" of the first page would be great, I'm very willing to think by myself, but I'm totally stuck here - so ANY pointers are welcome, regarding the subjects (though whether the second is an actual subject or a bridge leading to the subject introduced page 2 is another matter !) or the chord progression.

[nemoo]

Made a mistake while editing...

[ramseytheii]

I'll try and take you up on your challenge, though I don't know this piece at all.  It's impossible to give a full account of just the first page, because I don't know how the material is going to be used - I don't know what is important, and what isn't.  But perhaps I can give you some information that is useful.

For starters, your analysis is slightly over-detailed.  An analysis, when read, needs to give a picture of what is happening in the long-run, with emphasis on the material that connects it; yours is a little bar-by-bar, and doesn't give an impression of what is happening in that sense.  I won't say anything is wrong per se, but you should look at the bigger picture.

I didn't even look at the second page, but I have the strong feeling that bars 1-12 constitute an introduction.  Scriabin is introducing us to different motives, though all within the context of essentially one long phrase.  The fact that each small part of this phrase ends with a thrice-repeated note, is clearly significant.

The inner phrasing is very complicated.  He gives us, in bars 1-2, a sequence leading to V (beat 2 of bar 2).  The next two bars, then, would clearly suggest a resolution - a similar sequence leading back to i.  However through the harmony in bar 4 (ii^o/ [half-diminished] spelled A#-C#-E-G#) he creates an ellision with the following material.  The phrase therefore doesn't end in either of those bars; he keeps it going.

Having established that, let's look at the harmony in bars 1-4.  The first bar is clear enough, the left hand spells out the tonic (G#-B-D#).  The E# in the right hand, on the second beat, in my opinion is non-functional.  It is just Scriabin, wanting to use a half-diminished sounding chord (he is very adept at those chords, and major chords with minor sevenths, but doesn't use them in a classical way).  The second bar is clearly a V⁷harmony (D#-Fx-A#-C#).  That is the first sequence.

The third bar thankfully just deals with chords in the scale; VI, ii, i and iv, in a scalular passage which you very insightfully point out, is used in a modified fashion in bar 7.  iv, remember, is a dominant preparatory chord; try playing bars 3 and 4 and ending them with iv - V - i, and see what he could have done.  This is to underscore the point that the ii chord on the second beat of bar 4, is an ellision, and also serves to undermine expectations.

Where does the phrase go from here?  Starting in bar 5, he leads us rather strongly to V on the downbeat of 6, in what is clearly a modulation, but he is not satisfied that it is implicit enough, so he sequences back to it a few times, through measure 10, until it is very strongly established.  The phrase therefore continues at least to measure 10.

Going back to the harmony of those bars.  The harmony in 5-6 is typical of Scriabin, who assigns multiple meanings to chords.  The last sixteenth of bar 5 is rooted in E, and I suppose would technically be a German sixth in g#.  The chord: E-G#-B-Cx  is in other words, an E⁷, which when used as a German sixth would, in classical times, lead to the I⁶₄, meaning a G# chord spelled thusly: D#-G#-B, but in this case, Scriabin ingeniously connects it to V/V.

The first beat of bar 6 is V/V with the G# suspended, resolving upward.  On the second beat, spell the chord: A#-Cx-A#, if you use your imagination add an E#, then respell it to: B^b-D-F.  A B-flat chord, which is V/E-flat; E-flat is V/g#-sharp minor, though it is spelled as d#.  Got it so far?  It's only confusing because it is written in a different, and unusual key.  But actually if you respell everything it is not complicated harmony.

In measure 7, as you can see, the downbeat is V (D#).  That proves the V/V that I noted in the previous bar.  He is clearly modulating towards V, though he never gets there totally.  In the progressions in bars 7 - 10, he is strengthening the pull towards V.  Bars 7 and 8 feature V on the downbeat, the strongest beat, and bars 9-10 are clearly a tension-inducing extension designed to lead us to a decisive V on the second beat of bar 10 (notice the strong octave drop, the perfect position, the crescendo towards the stronger dynamic.  Those all contribute psychologically to establishing that key).

Is this then the end of the first phrase?  I would say, normally, it would be.  But Scriabin brings back the first bar, as if an epilogue, and thereby extends it even longer.  I don't think the second phrase starts before the fermata in bar 12; it starts in bar 13.  These bars, 11 and 12, are very interesting because while they could easily be used to resolve the argument in the introduction, instead they end the introduction with a clearly unanswered question.  

The harmony in these bars is not complicated, seen from the prism of V, to which he modulated.  In bar 11, the left hand clearly spells out minor v (D#-F#-A#), and the second beat is not functional in my opinion, but I guess technically would be a vi^o//v (B#-D#-F#-A#).  Bar 12 is purely V/V (A#-Cx-E#-G#, respelled B^b-D-F-A^b).

The piece proper starts, it seems, in bar 13.  This harmony is initially confusing but easy to understand if you absorb Scriabin's philosophy of major and minor chords.  In essence, he didn't see any difference in them.  A major triad consists of a major third and a minor third (for instance C-E, E-G); so does a minor triad (C-E^b, E^b-G) just reversed.  I believe Schoenberg remarked on the same thing.

It would seem that bar 12, which remember is V/V, is leading us back to V.  After all, he only has used major V in the whole progression between bars 7 - 10.  However for Scriabin major and minor is immaterial.  The B major in bar 13 comes rather from minor v.  It is merely a deceptive cadence.  Rather than going to D# minor (the minor v), he goes to the submediant (B major).  It's not more complicated than that.

What makes it hard for us to grasp, is that we want to hear music in terms of stable, major or minor keys.  For Scriabin it was much more fluid.  Chords can go in multiple directions, as I demonstrated above, not just in the direction that classical voice-leading would suggest.  The root triad at any times can be considered major or minor; it is immaterial to him.

You said you understood the harmony int he last bars so I won't go into it.  There is clearly a wealth of rich detail in this introduction, and I am glad you gave me the opportunity to explore it.

Walter Ramsey

[ramseytheii]

I just want to sum up a couple of things, because that long post can be hard to take.  Essentially, the important thing is bars 1-12 are an introduction.  They play with unstable harmony, but essentially only detail a modulation from I to V (or i to v).

What does this mean for performance?  I believe these bars are all only one phrase.  Therefore, there has to be a connection felt between the music in bar 1, and the music in bar 12.  Bar 12 must be strongly related to bar 1.  The material in between leads us through those bars in between.  It is a fragmentary, unstable journey: 3 fermatas, 4 ritardandi, and a whole host of non-functional, disorienting chords.

But the pianist in concert has to make this all one unit, one idea flowing from the previous and into the next, until the unanswered question in bar 12.  Scriabin's music is so ingenious.  The phrasing is incredible to discover; the harmony is entrancing; the texture is original.  Also, after the haze of the introduction, what happens in bar 13?  The music just moves.  After all that starting and stopping, all the harmonic back-and-forth, and the unanswered question of bar 12, he just goes. 

It feels to me like someone on the ground, walking back and forth, trying to decide what to do, what to think, where to go; then, they just fly away.  They leap into the air and fly away.  Scriabin could capture that lightness, and the sense of escape into fantasy, like no other composer.

Walter Ramsey

[nemoo]

Thank you for your detailed analysis, exactly what I was looking for ! I was feeling a bit lost alone

It'll take some time to digest it though :-) I think one of the major difficulty I have is what you call the "non-functional" harmonies ; I keep trying to make them fit in the overall progression when they in fact may very well be just passing sounds. I guess experience is what you need to understand these properly

[ramseytheii]

Thank you for your detailed analysis, exactly what I was looking for ! I was feeling a bit lost alone

It'll take some time to digest it though :-) I think one of the major difficulty I have is what you call the "non-functional" harmonies ; I keep trying to make them fit in the overall progression when they in fact may very well be just passing sounds. I guess experience is what you need to understand these properly

I'm glad you saw this, I hope it helps.

The best thing one can do is find the bigger points, and a few of the chords in the introduction definitely didn't change anything about the essental I - V movement.  It's always a good idea to ask not just what a chord is, but where it goes.

Walter Ramsey