Piano Forum

Hi everyone,

First of all, I probably should've posted this in the Music Theory board, but that isn't a very regularly visited place so I posted it here.

Since a month or so, I'm learning Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 23 (or well, the first movement, Drammatico, to begin with) and I'm almost through the exposition (first three pages). It is amazing how much one can gain from his music, in terms of technical skills as well as musical skills. However, apart from using his own harmonies extensively (mostly in the last movement) he also seems very much concerned with doing all sorts of incredible stuff with the material he came up with.

So, right now, I'm at this section, after he introduced the main theme in bars 1-8, he introduces that upwards triplet figure which starts at an upbeat. He keeps using that figure all throughout the first movement. But then, in bars 25-30, he very suddenly changes the texture into a (as far as I can see it) highly contrapuntal one and introduces a new theme (second theme?). That section is where the trouble comes in because I notice those four voices all going their own way, but I can't seem to really understand what happens there in terms of, what really is the second theme, which voice uses what parts of that theme when. It looks like there also occurs some canonic stuff, but I'm not sure about that.

So can anyone help me out? To clarify myself once again, I'll list up the question I'm most eager to get an answer to:

Is this six-bar-section contrapuntal, or just polyphonic?
What is the second theme, where does it start?
Where does the second theme (or parts of it) occur again, and in what voice in this particular section?

Thanks in advance!

BW,
Marijn