Blaszkiewicz 1

Alexander Scriabin and the Leitmotif

Jacek Blaszkiewicz
 Blaszkiewicz 2

Alexander Scriabin and the Leitmotif

Thematic representation of extra-musical ideas did not begin nor end with

Wagner, nor is it restricted to vocal music. However, discussion of extra-musical

elements during the latter 19th century practically demands the mention of the name

“Wagner” and of the term “leitmotif”. Likewise, it is difficult not to mention Wagner’s

name and legacy when discussing the development of Scriabin’s compositional style.

Wagner set the aesthetic standard of the latter 1800’s by playing a dual role a

musician and philosopher. Extra-musical meaning was sought in the arts to communicate

social, religious, or political opinions. The years surrounding the death of Richard

Wagner in 1883, composers from all parts of Europe became interested in reaching

Wagner’s legendary musical status, one which was due to his grand operatic singing

style, his rich orchestral writing, his philosophical implications, and his achievement of

melodic unity in his grandest works. Both Wagner’s scores and his prose works reveal an

aesthetic philosophy focused on a synthesis of the arts- namely, the “Gesamtkunstwerke”.

It is to this concept that Scriabin became drawn. Scriabin developed Wagner’s concept of

artistic unity into a radical vision of world unity under his guise. Musically Wagner

achieved unity through the leitmotif, a small fragment of a melody that represented a

character, emotion, or idea. Wagner’s musical ability to synthesize his grand ideas under

the simplest musical gestures remained a model for Scriabin, especially in works to

which he attached philosophical writing.1 In such works, Scriabin used recurring motives

similarly to synthesize his literary and musical work into one philosophical idea.

1
Specific examples will be discussed from his First, Third, and Fifth Piano Sonatas.
 Blaszkiewicz 3

Scriabin clearly admired Wagner’s ability to craft large-scale works out of many

minute character motives. Wagner “weaved”, to put it in a remedial sense, but out of

his musical embroidery came vast developments and dramatic weight. These motives are

commonly labeled “leitmotifs”, or “leading motives”. . Wagner pioneered the use of the

leitmotif to musically represent not only non-musical elements of his operas (eg. the

“Tristan” theme, “Sword” theme), but also his broad philosophical ideas that he recorded

in his voluminous prose works. Though the philosophical element of the leitmotif is

associated with Wagner, motivic representation is often credited to earlier generations.

The German music critic and historian F.W. Jähns (1809-88) pinned the term

“leitmotif” to the music of Carl Maria von Weber, his primary area of research. His

catalog of Carl Maria von Weber’s complete works used the term in reference to Der

Freischütz and to Weber’s concert overtures, especially Oberon.2 Jähns’ use of the term

as a tool in instrumental music without words applies to the trend instrumental composers

in the later 19th century to represent words through non-vocal music. The most famous

example is the later orchestral music of Franz Liszt, a contemporary of Wagner and

another favorite composer of Scriabin’s.3

Gerald E.H. Abraham, a scholar specializing in Russian music, dated the

leitmotif’s origin further back than Jähns, to the music of Mozart in his April 1925 article,

“The Leit-Motif Since Wagner”. In Mozart, Abraham believes, recurring themes heard in

connection with a particular situation (referring to the operas, of course) are effective in

2
Warrack, John: ‘Jähns, Friedrich Wilhelm’, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 3 May
2008), http://www.grovemusic.com.

3
Works such as the “Faust” and “Dante” Symphonies and the Symphonic Poems all represent literature or
legend through recurring motives in lieu of spoken or sung words. “Hamlet” is used as an example on page
five.
 Blaszkiewicz 4

their powerful yet subtle ability to evoke the listener’s attention. He disapproves with

Wagner’s use of the leitmotif as a systematic element, appearing in places other than

dramatic climaxes. To him, the leitmotif is meant for the stage, where the leitmotif

accompanies what is seen at important moments only. Abraham does not acknowledge

the leitmotif’s function as a unifying element when pauses between operatic numbers are

not desired.

WAGNER, LISZT, AND THEMATIC TRANSFORMATION

Wagner utilized the technique of thematic transformation, much like Liszt did in

his orchestral works. Thematic transformation is a process that modifies a theme or

group of themes so that new musical material is presented with essentially the same

elements; another term is “thematic metamorphasis”.4 In the symphonic poems and

symphonies of Liszt, Wagner saw a new technique that captured a large-scale expressive

style without the confinement of the traditional symphonic and singspiel forms. The

transformation involves compositional techniques similar to the development of themes

in an 18th century fugue or sonata development. Unlike the manipulation of themes in the

fugue or classical sonata, themes subjected to thematic transformation in Liszt’s music

never returned to their original form. Instead they serve as motives that connect portions

of a work, creating musical unity. Thematic transformation allowed a composer to write

without formal pauses or cadences, granting freedom to write expand musical ideas into

single-movement forms. The trend can be traced from Liszt’s single-movement

4
MacDonald, Hugh: ‘Thematic Transformation’, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 3 May
2008), http://www.grovemusic.com.
 Blaszkiewicz 5

symphonic poems, to Wagner’s music dramas, to Scriabin’s single movement piano

sonatas.

Thematic transformation was the basic structural technique of the Lisztian

symphonic poem, a genre Wagner studied and admired. Wagner’s period of exile between

Lohengrin and The Ring involved a thorough study of Liszt’s scores, where he must

studied Liszt’s thematic manipulation.5 Though he never wrote a symphonic poem in the

Lisztian style, Wagner’s operas are related Liszt’s orchestral poems. Both use recurring

motives to link large, through-composed works. The motives in the works of both

composers have extra-musical meaning (in Wagner it is from the libretto and in Liszt it is

from the namesake literature). An example Liszt’s and Wagner’s similar use of motives

is the uncanny resemblance of the opening of Liszt’s symphonic poem Hamlet (1858) and

Wagner’s prelude to Tristan (1858-9):

Fig. 1

Wagner: opening to Tristan und Isolde

Fig. 2

5
Liszt conducted the first performance of Lohengrin in 1850, signifying an already mutual admiration
between the two men.
 Blaszkiewicz 6

Liszt: Opening to Hamlet

Both works are representations of music based on text: Liszt on Shakespeare’s

and Wagner on his own adaptation of legend6. The idea of a single movement greatly

appealed to Wagner during the composition of “Tristan”; intermissions between acts are

the only pauses Wagner’s musical narrative.

SABANEEV AND SCRIABIN

The Russian music scholar and critic Leonid Sabaneev stated in his 1932 article

“Remarks on the Leit-motif” that there is one lasting impact of the leitmotif on the

modernist world, it is its withdrawal. Upon the leitmotif’s leave, language “disappeared

from philosophically injected scores to its ancient meaningless condition from which it

emerged”7. In his article, he disproves the idea that Wagner pioneered the concept of the

leitmotif, in support of Jähns’ argument that the leitmotif present in pre-Wagnerian music.

Sabaneev traces the leitmotif’s origin not to Weber’s overtures or Mozart’s operas but to

the late sonata developments of Beethoven. Sabaneev attempted to broaden the

6
The version used by Wagner as the basis for his drama was that of Gottfried von Strassburg, a Middle
High German poet during the 13th century.
7
Sabaneev, L. “Remarks on the Leit-Motif”. Music & Letters, Vol. 13, No.2. (Apr., 1932), pp. 200-206.
 Blaszkiewicz 7

leitmotif’s definition, which he himself defined as “a scrap of music with which a

particular idea of figure is associated”.8 In order for there to be a logical argument for the

presence of leitmotif in music, the composer himself must accompany the work with a

form of writing. Weber’s libretto of Die Freischutz and his titled overtures allow for

extra-musical interpretation. The piano sonatas of Beethoven bear no indication of extra-

musical ideas; Sabaneev must have been referring to the programmatic “Pastoral”

Symphony or to the Fifth Symphony’s opening “theme of fate”.

Sabaneev did not confine the leitmotif to dramatic music. He compared Wagner’s

operas to Beethoven’s sonata developments in their “thematic unity, continual

modulation, seemingly “endless melody”, and deceptive cadences”.9 Sabaneev claims

that the Beethoven developments are similar to the operas of Wagner in their reliance on

thematic variation. Sabaneev does not leitmotif as a purely musical tool, since there is no

unanimous agreement on the meaning of Beethoven’s often “oligothematic”

developments. Nor does Sabaneev formulate a way to decipher the leitmotif in dramatic

music. Wagner himself never applied the term to his music, so interpretation of leitmotifs

is somewhat subjective. Unlike word painting, where music imitates the mood or actual

definition of a word, leitmotifs do not need to capture physical characteristics of an idea.

The magnetic appeal of the leitmotif was in its ability to synthesize both the composer’s

extra-musical ideas through representative motives and the harmonic structure of the

work through transforming melodic figures.

Sabaneev believed that the leitmotif’s role in the decay of the Romantic musical

tradition was its removal of philosophical meaning from music, returning the concept of

8
Sabaneev, L. “Remarks on the Leit-Motif”. Music & Letters, Vol. 13, No. 2. (Apr.,1932), pp. 200-206.
9
Ibid. p. 204
 Blaszkiewicz 8

music as “an element which has no concern with ideas”.10 Sabaneev thus defines

Scriabin as the last “leitmotifist” and in turn, one of the last Romantic composers. The

idea of using music not only as an art in itself but as a medium of expressing a

philosophy rung informed the beginnings of the Third Sonata (1897) , when he first

began to apply textual explanations in his piano works. The concept of the leitmotif as a

carrier of textual meaning must have come from Scriabin’s exposure to Wagner, who

used the leitmotif most systematically and whose works most likely persuaded Scriabin to

utilize the leitmotif in his own works.

Almost every piece of music Scriabin wrote from the Fifth Sonata (1907) onwards

was for him a careful and calculated project. Through his letters and his poetry, it is

evident that he had a philosophical agenda: to create an all-encompassing work that

would unite the world, through his art, under his ideas. From this period of Scriabin’s

compositional career to the end of his life, every consecutive composition was for him an

improvement upon the last towards his ultimate goal of unity. His “magnum opus”, the

Mysterium, was supposed to bring the world together in aesthetic unity. Scriabin’s large-

scale ambitions required careful planning and logic. He needed an outline of key

recurring theme to synthesize his vast musical and philosophical ideas. In this respect,

Scriabin’s preparation of his final work ran parallel to Wagner’s preparation of his operas.

Scriabin had a unique method of composing that paired inspiration with careful

groundwork. A highly superstitious person, his method of composing, unlike the outward

appearance of his music, was careful and prepared. He allegedly counted measures of his
10
Ibid. p. 206
 Blaszkiewicz 9

later sonatas to assure perfect symmetry. Sabaneev states in his biography of Scriabin

that the composer’s muse was not only impulse but analysis:

A great deal in his creative work seems to be not the result of intuition, but
the result of stubborn “research” work, that possessed, if you will, a
mathematical character to some extent. The traits of the ecstatic visionary
[Scriabin] lived side by side with traits of the rational research scholar, and
the schematism which is so clear in his philosophic concepts of the
universe manifests itself no less strikingly also in his music, in the
structure of his compositions which are so harmonious, so “rationalizes”
in their harmony that occasionally their form appears to be some logical
conclusion rather than the creative work of their author.11

A clear example of Scriabin’s careful compositional method is Vers La Flamme,

op. 72. The work is based on a single growing crescendo leading to a climax, with a

recurring motive of a minor second. Using the simplest dynamic and melodic material,

respectively, Scriabin’s late piano poem seems to have been conceived by pure impulse.

A closer look reveals Scriabin’s use of his beloved “mystic chord” that he used frequently

in his later works, as well as recurring pitch class sets that carry the theme through

various keys.

THE OPERA

Boris de Schloezer and Scriabin exchanged letters about Scriabin’s opera between

the years 1901 and 1903. In them Scriabin enthusiastically addresses his ideas for the

11
Sabaneiev, L. Modern Russian Composers, trans. Judah A. Joffe. New York: Da Capo, 1973, p. 51.
 Blaszkiewicz 10

opera. The letters included quotes from the libretto and ideas for musical scenes.

However, the completion of the Divine Poem, progress on the Poem of Ecstasy, and a

growing obsession with the Mysterium project drew a close to discourse about the opera.

Composition of it was soon abandoned. Remnants of the opera libretto returned as text to

the Mysterium, a sign of Scriabin’s preoccupation with the latter project. 12

Scriabin was very influenced by Wagner and Nietzsche between the years 1901

and 1903. Having absorbed Zarathustra, Scriabin became obsessed with the idea of the

Ubermensch, and became very personal in his philosophies. This preoccupation with

himself as the epicenter of life crept into the writing of the opera. The protagonist, an

unnamed hero, was a musician, philosopher, and poet- in essence, it was Scriabin. He

had written himself into the libretto, assuming the role of the Ubermensch, the redeemer.

The world of the opera is Scriabin’s ideal world. Driven by Nietzschean philosophy, the

world as seen by Scriabin has no God or higher being. The hero (himself) is the only

redeemer. His will to puissance (a nod to Schopenhauer) is his reason for redemption.

To Scriabin, there are only three elements in the world: the redeemer, the redeemed, and

the medium through which the redemption occurs.13

Scriabin’s opera libretto was to contain a dramatized version of this philosophy.

However, the project was abandoned willingly by the composer, who knew of the

libretto’s flaws. Scriabin was correct in thinking so; his libretto fragments leave an

impression of inexperience. Firstly, as seen by the above brief description of Scriabin’s

philosophy, the premise is vague. It is not clear who was to be redeemed, from what

12
Schloezer, Boris de. Scriabin: Artist and Mystic, trans. Nicolas Slominsky. Los Angeles, University of
California Press, 1987.
13
Ibid. p. 120
 Blaszkiewicz 11

tyrant, and for what reason. The libretto itself contains three characters: the hero, the

Queen’s daughter (a symbolic figure for the masses to be redeemed), and the crowds and

onlookers who restate the aims of the philosophy. No earthly dramatic action can occur

with such allegorical characters. Another failing element was the opera’s pompous

libretto. Scriabin, representing himself and his ideas as the hero of the opera, proclaims

the following to the crowds:

If only I could give you

A grain of my blessed self,
If only a ray of the caressing light
That inhabits my soul
Could for a moment illuminate
The sorrowful lives of people
Devoid of happiness, without a future!

Scriabin, in the manner of the Messiah, speaks in his own voice to the

world through his libretto that his art and ideas will illuminate the declining society.

Scriabin lacks Nietzsche’s rhetorical skill to effectively proclaim his own importance to

the world. Musically it would have lacked the necessary power to enlighten the masses,

for the ideas are too abstract and lack specificity. It is for these reasons that Scriabin

abandoned the idea of connecting his philosophy with a staged dramatic work. His ideas

did not perish with the project; Schloezer observed that some lines of the opera libretto

were rewritten into the texts of the Poem of Ecstasy14.

Scriabin structured the philosophic text of his opera in the manner of Nietzsche

and Schopenhauer through its references to redemption by a single being and the absence

14
Schloezer, Boris de. Scriabin: Artist and Mystic, trans. Nicolas Slominsky. Los Angeles, University of
California Press, 1987.
 Blaszkiewicz 12

of an all-powerful deity. His composition of the opera was Wagnerian in approach. The

opera’s sketches consist of autonomous motives and themes. These would have

eventually been applied to the score as leitmotifs. Like the Third Sonata, the hero’s

theme would recur throughout the work, transforming from scene to scene to reflect the

progress of the hero’s reform. Another motive would represent the Queen-Daughter.

Through her pleading voice, Scriabin would have given her more passive motives.15

Unlike classical sonata form, where the second theme retains its contrasting character

through the movement, Scriabin transforms the theme into the context of the musical

instead of retaining its original mood. For example, the first theme of the first movement

of the Fourth Sonata undergoes a transformation by the end of the work. Suspended

above pulsating chords, the theme feels breathless; but when it returns at the end of the

second movement, it pierces through fortissimo repeated chords leading to a climax in F

sharp major. It is triumphant, having reached its goal. However, the basic character

remains; it has been redeemed. Such a climactic treatment of the slow theme can also be

found in the last bars of the Fifth Sonata, in the First Symphony’s choral ode to Art, the

The Poem of Ecstasy’s tutti grand proclamation, and Prometheus’ choral, non-textual

flourish. Characters so grand as the representation of the redeemed population of the

world were given leitmotifs whose development could be traced according to the theme

groups of classical sonata form.

The fragments of the libretto imply that the Queen-Daughter’s motive would

under transformation. In Scene I, The Queen-Daughter, Tsaritsa, expresses her desire and

mortality:

15
Scriabin chose passive motives for redeemed characters in the slow themes of the Fourth and Fifth
Sonatas.
 Blaszkiewicz 13

(DESCRIPTION OF THE QUEEN-DAUGHTER)

But all these treasures

Worthy of this picture divine only enhance
The delicate form of the Tsaritsa
She crowns the dream.
She is all mortal hope,
Idol of her subjects
Her father proffers a sumptuous festival
To her honor. It is her departure.

Interaction between the Poet and the Queen-Daughter takes form as a love affair

seeking liberation from the confinements of social barriers. In Scene III, the Hero,

struggling with the world that he must redeem, proclaims:

The Tsaritsa is sad.

On a rock by the sea
At the garden’s enclosure
Her idol sits, sits her solace!
The enraptured poet hastens to meet the maiden
He speaks his passionate words
A song just composed.
He invites her to love’s holiday.

THE FIRST SONATA

Evidence of philosophy appeared in Scriabin’s music as early as 1891, when

Scriabin began working on his first larger scale work, the First Sonata. Composed with

purely musical inspiration, Scriabin later applied a “program” to the four-movement

piano work. The program was conceived a difficult time in Scriabin’s life e.g. problems
 Blaszkiewicz 14

with the functionality of Scriabin’s right hand16. The injury caused a highly

temperamental period of doubt and insecurity. The text that Scriabin added was not

meant to be publicly displayed alongside the sonata, like many of his later works. The

text was a personal issue: a struggle to understand the origin and purpose of his pains.

What is unusual about this outline is its religious orientation. It begins and ends with a

submission to God, unlike his later texts, in which he abandons the idea of a Deity and

seats himself as the center of life. The text is divided into five sections:17

I. Good. Ideal. Truth. Goal outside myself (Belief in God who

placed striving within me. Who gave me the ability to attain.
Through Him and His strength).
II. Disappointment at failure to reach I. Tirade against God.
III. Search for these ideals within myself. Protest. Freedom.
IV. Scientific basis for Freedom (Knowledge).
V. Religion.

The First Sonata contains no specific leitmotifs or musical phrases that directly tie

it to its text. The work is written in a romantic, pre-Wagnerian style, when Scriabin was

still under the influence of Chopin.18 The only recurring motive is the opening theme of

the first movement, allegro con fuoco, a rushing series of major seconds from the bass,

separated by major thirds (F-G—B-C#). This highly energetic motive represents no. 2 in

the outline, a tyrannical rage at failing to express this gratitude. The second theme, meno

mosso, emerging after the storm of octaves, functions as the “passive” theme of

16
The problem arose during his Moscow Conservatory years, when he overpracticed sections from Liszt’s
Reminiscences de Don Juan.
17
Bowers, F. Scriabin: A Biography. New York: Dover Publications, 1996. (pp. 168-169).
18
The idea of a funeral march movement was Scriabin’s nod to Chopin’s Sonata, and B flat minor op. 35,
subsequently, to Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat op. 26
 Blaszkiewicz 15

redemption discussed earlier. It is dreamlike, with sparse accompaniment suspending it

in midair after the low, rumbling octaves of the first theme had fallen away. The

“exchange” of the first two themes and the first two points on the outline show that

Scriabin had no intention of making the First Sonata programmatic, also explaining the

mystery of five points against four movements. Despite this looseness of association, the

moods captured by the literary Scriabin coincide with the moods captured by the musical

Scriabin. The themes of the first movement are elaborated through a sonata form, but the

presence of a text generated by the composer makes it possible to consider these themes

also as “idea” themes: motives that represent, under within a sonata structure, extra-

musical ideas that occupied the composer’s mind during composition of the work.

THE THIRD SONATA

Faubion Bowers, in his second revised biography of Scriabin, quotes from

Scriabin’s contemporaries to support his claim that the composition of the Third Sonata

in F sharp minor, op. 23 marked a new era of the composer’s compositional career.

Scriabin, according to Bowers, had freed himself from early influences of Chopin,

Schumann, and Beethoven. Though he would still write music in a distant style of his

predecessors, his intentions would be different.19

Scriabin’s Third Sonata, written between 1897 and 1898, contains an

accompanying text in a similar outline format to the First Sonata. The text was not

written by Scriabin himself (though he nicknamed both the sonata and the text), but by

his second lover, Tatyana Schloezer, who was his unofficial second wife until his death.

Scriabin did not object to Tatyana’s text, and he possibly even dictated it to her. The
19
Ibid. (p. 253).
 Blaszkiewicz 16

Third Sonata’s text is more a narrative than a set of emotions, as was the First Sonata.

Divided into four sections that musically coincide with the four movements of the sonata,

the text provides a glimpse into Scriabin’s budding philosophy that would influence all of

his subsequent works, as well as musical descriptions of how his ideas are to be

transferred into the score. The sonata and text, both titled “States of the Soul”, are based

around Scriabin’s new concept of a dichotomy between two sides of himself. The first is

a struggling artistic mind, named “Soul”, and the second, the inner deity within Scriabin

that was trying to release itself, the “Man-God”. This disconnected personality coincided

with his failing marriage during the time of the sonata’s composition. The philosophical

duality of the Sonata would be attempted several years later in his unfinished opera,

except that the Soul had already been absorbed by the Man-God. The Third Sonata and

its text are Scriabin’s attempt to launch a campaign that, to him, would conclude in his

own glorification.20

I. The free, untamed soul plunges passionately into an abyss of

suffering and strife.
II. The Soul, weary of suffering, finds illusory and transient respite. It
forgets itself in song, in flowers. But this vitiated and uneasy Soul
invariably penetrates the false veil of fragrant harmonies and
radiant rhythms.
III. The Soul floats on a tender and melancholy sea of feeling. Love,
sorrow, secret desires, inexpressible thoughts are wraithlike
charms.

20
Ibid. (p. 254)
 Blaszkiewicz 17

IV. The elements unleash themselves. The Soul struggles within their
vortex of fury. Suddenly, the voice of the Man-God rises up from
within the Soul’s depths. The song of victory resounds
triumphantly. But it is weak, still…When all is within its grasp, it
sinks back, broken, falling into a new abyss of nothingness.

The four movements of the sonata do not contain a single motive

representing the divided Scriabin. Musical and philosophical unity would be ineffective

for Scriabin’s goal, for a clear-cut sign of Scriabin’s struggle to find his own voice would

weaken his powerful view of himself. However, the first and third movements are linked

by a recurrence of a motive, the opening theme of the sonata. The ponderous, march-like

first theme also recurs in altered keys within the first movement, serving as a liaison

within the movement.

Fig. 3. Scriabin Sonata no. 3 in F sharp minor, op. 23. Opening of first movement.

At the conclusion of the third movement, prior to the transition to the

fourth (which is played attacca), the first theme of the first movement returns in a major

key, with the altered progression of B major, B minor, E major, and B# diminished with a

lowered third, producing an unearthly harmonization of the first theme. The descending

triplets that float down to the tenor register meet their end with this theme, much as

harmonic instability and dissonance concluded with this theme in the first movement.

The accompanying text defines this theme as the “Soul” theme. Since the “Soul” theme
 Blaszkiewicz 18

is almost entirely dissimilar in the second and fourth movements, where the episodes take

the soul into contrasting areas, its recurrence in the third movement can be considered a

memory of its original state.

Fig. 4. Scriabin Sonata op. 23, last bars of third movement.

Extra-musical descriptions of musical ideas played a significant role in

Scriabin’s pedagogy. The celestial opening theme of the third movement was described

by Scriabin to a student as “singing stars”, an idea that would play great importance in his

later light-oriented music and philosophy.21

The Third Sonata varied Liszt’s technique of thematic

transformation and Wagner’s leitmotif system. Scriabin did not see his “Soul” character

as a stable personality; it would not have been able to retain a similar melodic contour

throughout its self-discovering adventures. Unlike Wagner’s “Siegfried” theme, where

the melodic contour remains similar from the child’s conception to adulthood, Scriabin’s

“Soul” was not born a hero. It also wasn’t based on mythology, or in Liszt’s case, in

fictional literature. The two textual characters in the Third Sonata’s text are fragments of

the reality of self-discovery. They change beyond recognition, adapting to their

circumstances, and only retaining their original form in memory. The motives

representing the “Soul” and the “Man-God” in Scriabin’s Third Sonata are thus

21
Ibid.
 Blaszkiewicz 19

unconnected to the listener by literal musical representation, but evidence suggests that

they depict both a budding philosophy and a budding musical style. So emotionally

draining was the Third Sonata to Scriabin that he wrote his publisher Belaieff on August

24, 1898, “I am frightfully tired after the Sonata.”22

FIFTH SONATA

Many Scriabin scholars, including High Macdonald and James Baker, consider

the Fifth Sonata op. 53 one of Scriabin’s most elaborate and splendid conceptions. It is

the first of Scriabin’s piano sonatas to be written in one elongated movement, in the same

scope as Franz Liszt’s B minor and “Dante” sonatas. Also like the “Dante”, the Fifth

sonata contains a text: not explanatory, not inspiration, but a fragment of his own poem

“The Poem of Ecstasy” written alongside the orchestral poem of the same name. It is for

this reason that the Fifth Sonata bears the nickname of its poetic and symphonic

counterparts. The Fifth Sonata is preceded by the following excerpt from the Poem

appears below the title:

I appeal to you, oh mysterious forces!

The ones concealed in precipices dark
Being afraid of creative resources
I’m striving to give you the buds of luck
-Ecstasy Poem, p. 11

The compositional order and motive of the three works is confusing. As Baker

states, “ The [Fifth Sonata] was written in December 1907, immediately after – and

perhaps even a sequel to – the Poem of Ecstasy Op. 54 (although the order of their opus

22
Ibid. (p. 255)
 Blaszkiewicz 20

numbers is reversed).”23 Hugh Macdonald states that the Fifth Sonata and the Poem of

Ecstasy orchestral poem are a musical are a diptych, a musical setting of Scriabin’s

original text “The Poem of Ecstasy”.24

The term “musical setting” is important: at this point in Scriabin’s life, where his

new, atonal musical language began to appear his tonal form, the Fifth Sonata lays as a

turning point in his composing career.

James Baker, a theorist by trade, outlines the mapped the major themes of the

Fifth Sonata in his study on Scriabin. He notices that certain themes recur during

moments of contrasting temperament, adapting to the surrounding musical landscape. In

the coda of the sonata, the languorous theme of the slow section before the “exposition”

appears, piercing high above repeated chords notated on three staves. Here again is

evidence of Scriabin’s use of a recurring theme, in this case of the languorous, passive

soul, in its gradual progress into an ecstatic finish.

23
Baker, James M. The Music of Alexander Scriabin. Yale University Press, 1986. (p. 169).
24
Macdonald, Hugh. Skryabin. London: Oxford University Press, 1978.
 Blaszkiewicz 21

Fig. 5. From James M. Baker, “The Music of Alexander Scriabin”.

The music of Alexander Scriabin contains a synthesis of fervent impulses

and passionate drives towards ecstasy and highly structured outlines saturated with extra-

musical meaning. From the Fifth Sonata onwards, every major work written by Scriabin

was a stepping stone to an ultimate accumulation of philosophical and musical glory. The

idea of the Mysterium obsessed him until the end of his life; his entire energy was

focused on preparing himself for it. His developing philosophy runs parallel with his

developing musical language: the more abstract and other-worldly his idea became, the

more Scriabin saw the need for denser harmonies, a more freely expressive melody, and
 Blaszkiewicz 22

emancipation from the earthly confines of tonality. At the same time, Scriabin knew that

a stricter sense of structure would be needed to accommodate his increasingly atonal

style. Symmetry became an essential element: he would count measures to be certain of

perfectly calculated phrases, leaving blank measures to be filled in later for the sake of

the form. Scriabin did not simply abandon tonal music for atonal music, but devised a

method of generating novel sonorities with interesting atonal structures at the surface of a

fundamentally tonal composition.25 Fusion of traditional and experimental compositional

procedures occurs in the Fifth piano sonata and the Poem of Ecstasy.

The accompanying texts act as a binding element of both works. Scriabin

may not have based one on the other, but Poem of Ecstasy text and the two musical works

both express Scriabin’s idiosyncratic philosophy. The technique he used is similar to

Liszt’s and Wagner’s uses of it in their text-inspired works: thematic transformation and

or the leitmotif, respectively. The differences between the two are musical. The idea

behind them was to attempt to connect ideas to music that do not musically mimic the

idea, as in word painting, but to musically represent an extra-musical idea in a short,

malleable motive. In Scriabin’s music, motives representing his unique philosophy are

binding elements in highly complex music, and serve to represent musically Scriabin’s

lifelong philosophical journey.

25
Ibid., (p. 268)
 Blaszkiewicz 23

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