performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy
After the dark, almost narcotic air of the sixth sonata, we now have its brighter twin. That said, it’s still full of Scriabin’s characteristic mystery and programmatic-interpretive notes. There was a time when I was obsessed with this piece and thought if I could only play the sonata output of any one composer, I’d want it to be Scriabin, and I’d want it especially to be this piece.
As state in the last post, even the composer himself was disturbed by how dark and haunting the sixth was and as a result couldn’t bring himself to play it. Thus, the sibling sonata to the sixth was meant to be an exorcism of sorts. Scriabin mentioned something along the lines of a winged ascent that this piece was meant to convey, and just about every gesture here feels like the unfurling of great wings, of the grand swooping beats that carry upward to soaring heights, and some of the interpretive markings (for they cannot be considered purely musical instructions) allude to mystery, delirium, enlightenment, joy, and other heightened emotions.
It’s worth repeating that this sonata was composed the same year as, truly on the heels of, the sixth symphony, so look out for similar richness, complexity, and texture.
If the color palette of the sixth is all purples and blues so dark as to be nearly black, then this one deals in nearly blinding rays of light, bright whites and heavenly blues and yellows from which you almost need to shield your eyes.
That said, there’s actually a lot here that the two pieces share on a nearly genetic level. There are unmistakable figures and shapes take nearly directly from the sixth, but they are now cast in the purifying, all-exposing, healthy warm light of the sun, but the grand, dramatic end of the work potentially carries a parallel to the final collapse of the sixth. As we will discuss later, the trajectory or narrative is all very subjective.
As with the sixth, the seventh is ornate, rich, undulant, at times still writhing and almost grotesque in its constant motion and restless textures. There are passages where Scriabin is (as with some other sonatas) writing in four staves for the piano.
Our form here is similar to the sixth, in a sonata form of sorts. Interestingly, one of the other most famous single-movement sonatas dates from right around this time: Alban Berg’s op. 1 from the year prior, in 1910. Scriabin’s first synthesized/concentrated single-movement sonata was his fifth, as we discussed in the past, which predates Berg’s by three years. I can’t imagine they would have had any interaction or influence over each other at all, being from wildly different genetic/musical backgrounds, but they sort of arrive at a similar place: varying degrees, styles, and intensities of very broad, modern harmonic language.
In fact, it’s almost certainly NOT the case that either of them had any influence on the other. Scriabin ran in circles in Russia, France, and Switzerland, while Berg was eyeball deep in Vienna and the Second School named after that city. So this synthesis of a sonata down to one movement is an interesting development, and really ingenious. I’m ignoring the sonatas from Liszt or Reubke as they are larger, multi-part works that have sections corresponding to slow movement, scherzo, etc. and Berg and Scriabin eschew that.
There’s no introductory section here, no opening or prefatory material: we are immediately thrown right into the shining, glistening, ringing, glimmering tonalities that do instantly exorcise the suffocating stillness of the sixth. Were this a physical, real-life, tactile experience, it would be shocking, breathtaking, like being thrown into the sun after days in darkness, or a blast of cold air after being warm and cozy indoors or something. There are two subject areas here, with a development, recapitulation, and coda. But of course, this is Scriabin, so it’s not that simple and straightforward. Each of the subject areas has multiple themes, and so it’s difficult to call these T1 and T2 like you’d have with Mozart or even Beethoven, assuming that one key area (the tonic and then dominant) is made up of only one thing. That’s not true here, so what do you call them? Theme groups? Subject area? I wrote that a few sentences ago and realize I don’t care for it but I’m keeping it, I guess.
There’s certainly a lot that can be said about what makes these themes distinct, how the subject areas contrast, and how they’re developed and kind of compound on each other to create a sort of piled-up pressure that resolves in the recapitulation and the unmissable, satisfying, resolution of the recapitulation and the arrival of the first theme (group) again. Let’s take a look at the markings for the themes in each subject area and even if you don’t have the score in front of you and don’t know exactly where they begin, you might be able to get an idea for what’s what (and when, although I’ll give this one more listen to get timestamps for the arrivals of the individual sections in Ashkenazy’s recording.
First Subject Area:
- mystérieusement sonore (0:09; 0:22) (second time marking second theme of first subject area)
- avec une sombre majesté (0:38) (third theme)
Second Subject Area: - beginning marked avec une céleste volupté (1:01)
- très pur, avec une profonde douceur (1:14)
- mystérieusement sonore (again) (1:27)
- also note that the figure that appears at 1:35 or so will show up now and again, and it is very closely related to content from the sixth sonata.
Development:
- beginning at 2:21 with animé, ailé
- très animé, ailé (2:42)
- etincelant (2:50)
- très pur, avec douceur (3:10)
- enduleux, insinuant (3:19)
- très pur (3:33)
- menaçant (3:41)
- avec trouble (3:55)
- impérieux (3:59)
- très doux, joyeux, etincelant (4:18)
- vol joyeux (5:09)
- impérieux (5:15; 5:22)
- de plus en plus sonore et animé (5:27)
- comme des éclairs (5:33)
Recapitulation
- beginning at 5:42 with Foudroyant
- avec une sombre majesté (6:10)
- orageux (6:27)
- avec une céleste volupté (6:36, from sixth sonata for sure)
- très pur, avec une profonde douceur (6:48)
- mystérieusement sonore (6:59)
- ondoyant (7:05)
- animé, ailé (7:54)
Coda
- Beginning at 8:13 with Avec éclat
- impérieux (8:20)
- mystérieusement sonore (8:36)
- avec une volupté radieuse, extatique (8:42)
- en un vertige (9:21)
- fulgurant (9:25)
- avec une joie débordante (10:10)- this is sort of where things seem to be reaching a climax
(and finally…) - en délire (10:28) this is where things sort of explode, the bubble bursts. Listen for this enormous rolled chord and the collapse it causes.
And that’s it.
So the question you can ask when listening to (any piece of music, really, but especially one like this where the composer gives you vague vibe clues) is… am I supposed to get something specific from this? Is there a plot/trajectory to this music that I must grasp to enjoy it?
And the answer is no. It’s really helpful to identify that first theme, the opening figure of the sonata because it’s the foundation of the work: it reappears throughout the development and marks very clearly the beginning of the recapitulation. The coda also makes plentiful use of it, so if you can track and recognize that, you’re in great stead to get more of this piece than just putting it on and letting it wash over you, which is also always fine, and perhaps especially enjoyable for a work of such texture and color and detail like this one.
Is the ‘collapse’ I mentioned at the end, and the sublimating away into nothing… is that failure and death, or a completed, successful ascent and disappearing into the clouds? Who knows? I haven’t gone into analyzing all the mystic chords and harmonies and other philosophical stuff that is woven throughout this piece because frankly, it’s enough for me to know that the structure is there, that there are ideas to latch onto, to see how they change and interact with one another.
I’m perfectly happy, I think, that I’ll never get inside the mind of Scriabin, which was probably a really odd place to be, so it’s enough to have a grasp of the moving parts of this piece and how they’re laid out and be reminded that there is some way to make sense of what can seem like chaos (usually), and the more you listen, the more you enjoy, I think.
It’ll be a while before we get back to Scriabin with his eighth sonata. For now, in the coming weeks here we’ll be seeing Beethoven, Bruckner, and more Myaskovsky. Thank you so much for reading.