Scriabin – piano music in the context of the composer’s creative ideology. Part 2

Abstract

The article is the second part of the text devoted to the profile and piano works of Alexander Scriabin. The composer had an extraordinary piano talent and the ability of coloured hearing. He worked out an innovative musical language based on a unique harmonic style. He was an unprecedented visionary of art, he had knowledge on philosophical topics, he was also a mystic who wanted to save the mankind thanks to his creative output. Throughout the period of around 20 years, Scriabin’s musical language transformed drastically, which is most fully shown in his piano pieces, especially miniatures and sonatas. The second part of the article presents a general characterisation of Scriabin’s piano compositions and musical language in subsequent stages of his creative work. The analysis refers to style and form-related topics, melodics and harmony he used, texture and timbre phenomena and the connections between piano and symphonic pieces. The author of the article reflects on the essence of Scriabin’s artistic orientation and the fact whether the change of his musical language can be called an “evolution” as such. An important element of the article is the presentation of the structure of each piano sonata. The included characterisation of the change of his musical language is an addition to the first part of the cycle, enabling the reference to the stages of the composer’s life juxtaposed there with the description of the transformation of his artistic views.