Transformational Procedures in Scriabin’s Prelude op.67, N.1

By Mario Mazzoli

Ex.1

Example 1 entirely reproduces the score of Scriabin’s Prelude op.67, N.1.  The piece has a fairly explicit formal design and, due to the large use of repetition and literal transposition, its inner structure may seem equally evident. A closer inspection of the constituent elements however, reveals a systematic yet subtle and complex organization.

            A clear understanding of the work relies on three analytical key-components:

-         The measure-to-measure transformation

-         The T3 operation (interval of a major 3^rd)

-         The T6 operation (interval of a augmented fourth, or tritone; definitely Scriabin’s favorite)

Through the employment of these “tools”, within the methodologies defined by the Fortean and Transformational Practice, I will illustrate how the inner relations of the first bar and those of the first section as a whole act as a generator of the entire prelude.

The following chart outlines the form of the piece, which we may roughly identify as rounded binary. To a certain extent, the use of Sonata form derived labels will provide a clearer picture of the overall structure.

-         A section: mm.1-6

-         A’ section: mm.7-12

-         B section: mm. 13-26. Within this section, mm.21-26 acts as a sort of retransition. From now on I will refer to mm.13-20 as B section, and to mm.21-26 as “retransition”.

-         A’’ section, or recapitulation: mm.27-32

-         Coda: 33-35

Every measure of the piece, with the exception of measures 13, 17 and 35, comprises one melodic element and two verticalities. Ex. 2 shows them as they appear in the first measure. A different parsing of the measure would be plausible as well, i.e. removing Ab in the first chord and including it in the melodic element, or including the melodic G in the second verticality, but that presented in the example seems, for analytical purposes, the most effective division. I labeled the melodic component A and the two verticalities B and C, in temporal order. B and C constitute, respectively, pentachords of set-classes (02468) and (01367). These two collections represent sub-sets of two of the three most frequent set-classes of Scriabin’s last period[1]: (02468T), the whole tone scale, and (013679)[2]. Set-class (013579), the principal collection of the author’s last works, the so-called “mystic chord”, is avoided in this work[3].

Ex.2        

            It is possible to define an array of contextual transformations that illustrate how the structure of the A section of the piece derives from the main three-part entity.

1.      The transformation IDENT leaves each element unvaried from one measure to the next.

2.      The transformation P applies the operation T3 to A and C, and T0 to B

3.      The transformation E commutes B into C or a sub-set of it, often prolonging the latest form of C

4.      The transformation SYM transforms A into a member of a different set-class (0358), which preserves the axis of symmetry of the previous (0134) form.

5.      The transformation CAD evolves every element into a form of C or a sub-set of it.

According to the above described transformations, we can observe how measure one moves to measure two via IDENT; it then reaches measure three via P, transposing elements A and C by T3; subsequently, SYM (E) (i.e. SYM after E) brings us to measure four: through E the C3[4] pentachord in measure three is tied over to measure four, replacing B, whereas the SYM transformation, visually represented in example 3, attains a new melodic gesture[5]; measure five is reached inverting SYM (E), thus mirroring measure 3; the sole operation E is applied to measure 5 to reach measure 6.