The Positivistic Mysticism of Alexander Scriabin: An Analysis of the Three tudes, Op. 65
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Abstract
Over the past several decades, scholarly writings on Scriabins late piano music have largely focused on one topic: the pitch organisation of his unusual sonorities. A great variety of analytical techniques and methodologies has disregarded the extramusical aspects of Scriabins mysticism and his esoteric theory of sound-colour correspondence, considering them irrelevant to an understanding of his music.
This thesis argues that the three essential components of the composers late creative practice the harmony, the underlying secret esoteric meaning, and the implicit correspondence of sound-colour ideas to the harmonic content are interrelated and crucial to understanding Scriabins late piano works.
The last three tudes of Scriabin, opus 65, are examined as a fragment of the composers plan of consecutive and consistent execution of ideas first sketched by him in LActe pralable (ca. 1912-1915). The concepts drawn from Helena Blavatskys metaphysical texts establish the conceptual framework in which Scriabins rationalism and mysticism merge.