Smith K., Kallis V. (Eds.) Demystifying Scriabin

Boydell Press, 2022. — xii, 345 p. — ISBN 978-1-78327-656-1, 978-1-80010-418-1.This book is an innovative contribution to Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) studies, covering aspects of Scriabin's life, personality, beliefs, training, creative output, as well as his interaction with contemporary Russian culture. It offers new and original research from leading and upcoming Russian music scholars. Key Scriabin topics such as mysticism, philosophy, music theory, contemporary aesthetics, and composition processes are covered. Musical coverage spans the composer's early, middle and late period. All main repertoire is being discussed: the piano miniatures and sonatas as well as the symphonies. In more detail, chapters consider: Scriabin's part in early twentieth-century Russia's cultural climate; how Scriabin moved from early pastiche to a style much more original; the influence of music theory on Scriabin's idiosyncratic style; the changing contexts of Scriabin performances; new aspects of reception studies. Further chapters offer: a critical understanding of how Scriabin's writings sit within the traditions of Mysticism as well as French and Russian Symbolism; a new investigation into his creative compositional process; miniaturism and its wider context; a new reading of the composer's mysticism and synaesthesia. Analytical chapters reach out of the score to offer an interpretative framework; accepting new approaches from disability studies; investigating the complex interaction of rhythm and metre and modal interactions, the latent diatonic 'tonal function' of Scriabin's late works, as well as self-regulating structures in the composer's music.Introduction: Demystifying Scriabin
Kenneth Smith and Vasilis Kallis
Shaping Creativity
About That Chord, and about Scriabin as a Mystic
Simon Morrison
Scriabin and the Russian Silver Age
Rebecca Mitchell
Scriabin as a Writer: The Development of Scriabin’s Thought as Shown in a Lifetime’s Writings
Simon Nicholls
Russian Pedagogy in Composition and Music Theory during Scriabin’s Creative Period
Kostantin Zenkin
Studying Scriabin’s Autographs: Reflections of the Creative Process
Pavel Shatskiy
The Music as Prism
Scriabin’s Miniaturism
Stephen Downes
The Scriabin Tremor and Its Role in His Oeuvre
Inessa Bazayev
Demystifying the Mystic
Vasilis Kallis
Temporal Perspectives in Scriabin’s Late Music
Antonio Grande
Scriabin’s Multi-Dimensional Accelerative Sonata Forms
Kenneth Smithvi Contents
Setting Mystical Forces in Motion: The Dialectics of Scale-Type Integration in Three Late Works
Ross Edwards
Reception and Tradition
Scriabin’s Synaesthesia: The Legend, the Evidence, and Its Implications for Multimedia Counterpoint
Anna Gawboy
Playing Scriabin: Reality and Enchantment
Marina Frolova-Walker
Scriabin and Music Analysis: The Search for the Holy Grail
Vasilis Kallis and Kenneth Smith
Scriabin and the Classical Tradition
Ildar Khannanov
Scriabin’s Critical Reception: ‘Genius or Madman?’
James Kreiling
Bibliography
IndexTrue PDF