I bet he’s really intense at parties.

New drinking game: Take a shot every time he says “Octatonic Triad”

This is my favorite Scriabin sonata. It's haunting, and it has moments that are full outpourings of anguish and distress. Really fine performance of this too. I feel it and it comes across clearly, and that's no easy feat in this work.

wow, this sonata was much more complex than I thought

I'm only 7 years late to the party. With the pandemic, I have a lot more time to explore KZfaq now. Anyway, this is really cool. These expanded harmonies and chord extensions really bring the modern piano, 'into its own'. What do I mean by that? . . . since the modern piano is more or less equally 'out of tune' for any particular key - by way of treating all keys equally - these expanded chords bring out the 'color' possibilities of the modern day Steinway (or fill in your favorite make). To put that differently, the modern piano can sound dull when limiting your program to 18th century and early 19th century harmonic writing, which is mostly triadic, voiced in relatively 'tight' harmony. Without a lot of finesse, it can get dull quickly. Seems to me that Scriabin picks up where Debussy and Ravel leave off, and paves the way for the more harmonically adventurous jazz pianists who have come along. Good stuff. In "Prometheus", he makes things even more harmonically ambiguous (the 'mystery' chord!), and adds soft tam-tam strokes all over the place. Awesome.

I can't seem to find the files I used for this video. I think they were done on an old computer and never transferred to my new one, so unfortunately I can't help. Thanks for enjoying the video though!

Thank you. This is amazing.

Great decoding, thank you, helped me a lot, more people should watch this!

Love this analysis. I do wish he included more audio examples of what he was talking about to keep the video engaging, but I still appreciate it. I suppose this was a pre-Adam Neely production haha

This is awesome

Very helpful!!

The F natural in the C dominant 13th is irksome. In one school of harmonic thinking (Berklee) the F would have to be changed either up or down a semitone. At least that's what I was taught. The chord you've given seems purely hypothetical to me. I've rarely, if ever, come across that exact chord in classical music or jazz. When I say 'classical' I'm including late 19th century and 20th century styles. You could find it in atonal music, where anything is possible, but it's unlikely because it's a totally tonal-sounding chord -- albeit one that sounds wrong. With an F# it suddenly starts to make a bit more sense and also it takes us closer to the first seven notes of the 'acoustic scale' (or Lydian b7), as you mentioned, ie. the first seven separate notes to be found in the harmonic series, rounded up or down to their equal tempered equivalents. Also, having seven or eight notes in a scale is fine but up until today I always thought that triads had three notes. With these small matters out the way, thanks for this exhaustive analysis of Scriabin's harmonic and melodic style. His music has certainly given us something to talk about.

Thank you for this, that was an amazing analysis! I wouldn't have thought of all that when playing the piece, but it was amazing and very detailed nonetheless! Do you have it in notes I could get a copy of somewhere? :)

8:40 my vision on the first page is this: A simple cycle V I V I V I on A D B E C# F# (same octotonic scale as A) The A and F# chords are inclued in your C octotonic triad, The Ab octotonic scale a D Majorminor chord, The D octatonic scale inclues B chord The Bb scale inclues E Majorminor E scale for C# and C scale For F# It is quite evident playing only real notes.... But it is an interpretation, less technical but based on tonal language and ear. And for me there are only 3 octatonic scales because mode 2 is a limited transposition mode. I hope I have been precise. What do you think?

HEAVY

Why do you keep using the term "triad" to describe a set of seven pitch classes? "Triad" by definition means a set of three pitches.

That is sure a great analysis. For me, there is missing something about this music in terms of mood, character, philosophy. Why did Scriabin compose such a dark and special music. I can not find something about it. Thank you.

What a shame this explanation isn't demonstrated on a piano... I've only got O Level music, I'm not as fluent in all this theory as I'd like to be, or need to be to hear and understand this better...

Clunc minor versus Zinc major

5:10 that's just completely wrong.

Other than that, with all due respect, I find much of your analysis to be more complicated than it need be. For instance, in the "avec un volupté céleste" sections, I find that these are based on a set of seven pitch classes, which I see as a distinct mode unto itself, not related to the octonic scale used up to that point, nor for that matter to the acoustic scale. So instead of oscillating between two scales, I think it's better to understand this as being in one 7-note scale all its own. Also, in so many areas as you see as shifting between octotonic "triads," I think it's better to see the larger sections that are all in one transposition of a full octonic scale.