Scriabin - Sonata No.5, Op.53

Scriabin’s Sonata No.5, Op.53 for piano solo has a freneticism and vivacity that rivals his other piano sonatas, with a constant energy electrifying the whole piece. While carrying intense dissonances, the piece has almost a poetic quality in the violently changing emotions and complex motives that return throughout the piece. The whole sonata is a single movement, so strap in for a wild ride.

The piece opens at Allegro. Impetuoso. Con stravaganza. ("Fast. Impetuous. With eccentricity.") with an intensely metallic tremolo with a deep bass register tritone, flickering into the darkness with a series of rising arpeggios on the D#-A and A-E (L) and D# and G# (R) that comprise the opening tritone [with interrupting flares in the right hand].

After the violent entrance, the piano shrinks to Languido for the next section with ambiguous time (complex time signatures that are often changing, with the ⁵/₈ feel being very unclear at times). A simply motivic ascending minor third and descending minor third followed by a briefly rising chromatic passage is introduced in this section of the piece.

Throughout the piece, several pianistic textures are explored with increasingly atonal chromatic motion, constantly shifting tonal centers, and suggestions of the texture from the preceding section. 

Wild dynamic changes outline the piece. A transition from the fluctuating time signatures leads to a dance-like melody in ⁶/₈. With its tremendous skips in triads for the right hand paired with quadruplets in the left, the overlapping rhythms creates a careful balance between a frenetic rush and a lighthearted dance at Presto con allegrezza.

The piece quickly gives way to a thunderous alternation of triads.

Scriabin now breaks out into the recognizable start of the exposition of a severely distorted sonata-allegro form. The style and dynamic marking of f imperioso perfectly describes the section.

It recedes into an ever-more chromatic section, with at once contrary motion chromatic lines with more dissonant and ghostly chords, welcoming more tritones and augmented chords.

A short interruption at Allegro fantastico initiates the development of the sonata-allegro form, giving way to more darkly metallic Presto tumultuoso esaltato ("Tumultuously fast, exalted").

The return of rhythmic and motivic ideas from the previous Presto blurs the idea of whether the development is itself a recapitulation or just the development. Below, you can see the entire development, and all of the places where motifs from both the introduction and the exposition are repeated.

This blurring of the structural lines of the sonata-allegro form is further influenced by the return of the introduction in the middle of the development, up a major second. You could consider this to be the start of a recapitulation that lasts the entire rest of the movement, or perhaps this is a partial recapitulation ... or perhaps this is just the development.

Here, you can see the introduction and the start of the "development" side-by-side, with motivic ideas highlighted. The succeeding Languido has nearly the same form as the first time around.

A chromatically widening interval from a G#₅ down a minor third to down a perfect fourth (orange) eventually gives way to a game of tag between the "pink" and "red" motifs, and later ⁶/₈ and ⁵/₈ ideas over fragments of introduction melodies, interspersed with the imperioso figure. The development introduces very few new ideas, and just transplants and recombines ("develops") the original ideas in new ways.

Following a frantic mini-climax, Scriabin copies material from the first Presto con allegrezza, sprinkling shards of sparkling introduction melody into it: the opening Languido theme appears in a heavily arpeggiated form at Presto giocoso.

The interlude after the Presto returns to the contrary moving chromatic figures once again...

...and includes a foreshadowing of the closing Presto in its short bursts of Allegro fantastico.

A drawn-out accelerando creates the impression of a recapitulation, but this is just the continued development (which recapitulates ideas from the exposition ... is this sonata-allegro form confusing enough yet?).

Notice the many motifs from the exposition that Scriabin repeats and develops in this section (after appearing just once in the exposition; find the red box in the maroon region above):

The calm chromatic figure with the wild dissonance makes a bombastic appearance, climbing higher and higher on the keyboard in each of its four appearances (two shown below). This ascent closes out the development.

Scriabin abruptly ends the development and blasts off at Prestissimo, marking the start of the true recapitulation.

Below are the exposition (top) and recapitulation (bottom). You can see that Scriabin cuts the recapitulation short, perhaps to balance the return of several motifs in the development: 

After reestablishing several of the themes introduced in the exposition, Scriabin breaks out into the recognizable part of the exposition: the wide melodies at f imperioso:

The recapitulation settles back into the chromatic soup, the last shred of peace, once more before exploding into the coda.

After traversing a wildly distorted sonata-allegro form, we finally arrive at the coda. The style markings vertiginoso con furia (“dizzy with fury”) and con luminosità (“with brightness”) are apt descriptors of this coda with sparkling figures in the highest register of the piano and a dialogue between the stormy bass and the shimmering treble voices.

The motivic idea from the very first Presto con allegrezza appears in bits and pieces, frequently augmented (stretched rhythms), and another imperioso figure (red boxes) also appears in augmentation.

The Languido theme with the minor third returns at estatico near C₆-G₆ in the key of E-flat major with a constantly hammered E♭₁ and E♭₂ in the left hand, a call to the initial D#s that were used in the opening tremolo.

A grinding ritardando bursts into a final devastating Presto that uses the jumping triads for the final time.

The frenzy of rising arpeggios on the opening D#-A and A-E (L.H.) and D# and G (R.H.) that so searingly announced the opening bookends it, bringing the sonata’s tragic freneticism to a halt.

In review, here is the entire piece minus the coda — there are so many distinct ideas, and yet almost every segment of the sonata-allegro form (introduction, exposition, development, recapitulation, and coda) uses nearly every one of those ideas. Pretty incredible writing.

If you go back and listen to the entire piece with a high-level view of the musical structure, you can really appreciate the scale at which Scriabin was writing works even just for solo piano.

Thanks for reading and listening along! Share if you enjoyed this post, and leave your comments below!

All excerpts taken from the 1971 Edition Peters (Leipzig) score via IMSLP.org.

Liszt - Années de pèlerinage I, S. 160 - Orage ("Storm")

Liszt, the famed virtuoso pianist and composer, informally known as the first "rock star," wrote a huge body of solo piano works. Among them include three years' worth of music while he went on a 'pilgrimage' to several European countries. As suggested by the title, the piece today is from his first year of pilgrimage in Switzerland.

This piece, Orage ("Storm") from Années de pèlerinage: Première année (Suisse), S.160, one of a set for solo piano, opens with fortissimo chords, voices jumping from the low end of the piano to the high end, interspersed with five-note chromatic rising figures, one which will appear several times throughout the piece.

This pattern repeats a few times before building up a wild rising chromatic passage in groups of four, with alternating rising and descending chromatically consecutive notes at tritones with each other, creating a brilliant dissonance as the notes reach the top of the piano.

With a torrent of sound, the notes fall to the bottom with thundering octaves, closing the introduction.

The first melody of the piece centers on the tonic of C minor at Presto furioso, which persists through most of the piece (only slowing for a still powerful Meno Allegro), with rising octaves in the left hand resembling the thunder of a storm, which breaks the traditional feel of the ⁴/₄ duple meter of the piece.

The piece is riddled with dropping chromaticism in huge waves in the right hand (for example, from A₅ and A₆ to B₄ and B₅, a wide range to cover in under 3 seconds) and wildly dissonant chords in clusters in the left hand (for example a d°⁴₂ with a B♮, even marking it rinforzando at ff).

In between there are rising-falling figures in both hands in thirds, creating the effect of waves. 

At Meno Allegro, Liszt adds rumbling low octaves with the Pedale to create a thunderous effect with a march-like melody above it in short grotesque interruptions...

...which quickly derails into a chaos of octave minor and diminished chords.

Before the Cadenza (ad libitum), Liszt includes an interesting figure. He starts with alternating octaves in alternating ascending and descending broken a♭^°7, a^°7, b♭^°7, and b^°7, followed by three ascending broken c^°7, d^°7, and e^°7. This switch of first half-step skips to whole-step skips creates a rushed effect.

The Cadenza is preceded by a quick restatement of the opening figure with new mashed-up major thirds (they sound like major thirds but are written both as diminished fourths and major thirds).

The melodic contour and rhythm then underline a wash of up-down arpeggios in a classically flashy Liszt cadenza, which closes with more of those dissonant chords, mashing the keys at the highest and lowest reaches of the piano.

A reprise of the opening tumult and the first melody begins the coda of the piece...

...and then the melody begins to cool down, with the left hand retiring to arpeggios with single notes at a time rather than octaves, and the right hand moving slowly closer to the left down the range of the piano.

The left hand closes the phrase with a somber reflection of a previous figure.

The ending of the piece brings the listener back to the opening fortissimo chords, voices jumping from the low end of the piano to the high end, with those 5-note chromatic figures.

The piece ends with a tragic and violent flight up to the top of the keyboard hitting a record high A♭⁷ and tumbling down to C₁ to finish off the “Storm.”

Thanks for following along! If you enjoyed this post, please share it! Leave your comments below and see you in the next one!

All score excerpts taken from the 1976 Neue Liszt-Ausgabe (New Edition of Liszt) by Editio Musica (Budapest) via IMSLP.org.

Bach - Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582

J.S. Bach’s inventiveness and creativity of the theme and variations and fugal forms are on display in his Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 for pipe organ. This fantastic video by musician and software engineer Stephen Malinowski graphically visualizes the score.

The piece opens like a traditional passacaglia, in triple time, with the ground bass stating the melody as the theme in a grave sarabande-like manner.

The first variation lasts two iterations of the theme, with a syncopated figure. At the small scale, the contour is rising and falling, whereas the large scale shows a mostly falling figure.

The first variation has a relatively consistent rhythm throughout, and the second variation continues with constant eighth notes, with more variant contours, with rising and falling figures.

The third variation introduces a 1+a 2+a 3+a (𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯) figure, with a continuation of the full-length bass figure. 

The fourth variation has a similar figure, but instead of having a linear stepwise figure, there is instead an arpeggiated motion, and the bass line no longer has whole and half notes the entire time, replacing that with a more bouncy [1 (2) (3)+a | 1…] (𝅘𝅥 ⋮ 𝄽 ⋮ 𝄾 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯) figure.

The fifth variation has rising sixteenth notes, with 3 per voice and a longer tone following it, with the return of the original ground bass.

The fifth variation morphs into the sixth, replacing the rising sixteenths with falling sixteenths.

The seventh variation blends the contour of the fifth and sixth variations.

The eighth variation has staccato arpeggios to lighten up the texture after three very thickly scored variations, including mostly arpeggios of chords in the root position.

Variation nine has identical rhythms in the ground bass, tenor, and alto voices, with the soprano voice moving up and down in a scalar fashion.

At variation ten, two voices drop out and the ground bass’s theme moves to the soprano voice, with another scale moving up and down the keyboard in the left hand.

The soprano carries the melody through the eleventh variation, and the other voices return with eighth notes and sixteenth notes in falling thirds.

The twelfth variation is more lightly scored once again, with the melody from the soprano staying in the alto and tenor voices in a [3e+a | 1] (𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 | 𝅘𝅥) figure with a twisting contour.

Variation thirteen has two consistent interlocking rhythms: [1+ (2)e+a (3)e+a] (𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 ⋮ 𝄿𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝄿𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯) in the right hand  and [(1)e+a 2 3e+a)] (𝄿𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯) in the left hand, with arpeggios of root position chords through the variation.

The arpeggios continue in variation fourteen, instead leaving only one note played at a time, all rising arpeggios. The ground bass notes appear on beats 1 and 3 as they have the entire piece, but lasting only one quarter of the beat.

Variation fifteen has an interesting motion, with notes of triads characteristic of C minor being approached from the note below, starting with the top note and moving down. This once again uses the full ground bass, underlining the [(1)e+a 2e+a 3+] (𝄿𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮) rhythm of the variation.

Variation sixteen breaks out into triplets in two voices, rising and falling down the keyboard, occasionally straying from the general rhythmic feel.

The seventeenth variation resembles the third in rhythm, but uses a down-up contour with the [(1)+a 2+a 3] (𝄾𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥) rhythm. 

Variation eighteen uses an up-down-down-up, circling around the note of each chord, with a dialogue of this figure between the soprano and tenor voices.

The nineteenth and final variation finishes off the passacaglia with the entrance of a fifth voice, so that the outer of the top 4 voices (1 and 4) have the twisting figure at the same time and the inner voices (2 and 3) have it at the same time as well, with the ground bass stating the theme one last time before the fugue allows it to rest.

The fugue has constant [(1)+2+3+] (𝄾𝅘𝅥𝅮 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮) in the first countermelody and constant sixteenth notes in the second countermelody. It continues as a typical Bach-style fugue with some short departures from the original theme for a little bit of variety.

For the first time the theme is presenting in a major tonality (first in E♭, later in B♭).

A set of trills signals the last statement of the theme in the soprano voice, the countermelodies in alto and bass, and the tenor filling in the space to create a wide texture.

A [1 (2)+ 3+ | 1...] (𝅘𝅥 ⋮ 𝄾𝅘𝅥𝅮 ⋮ 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 | 𝅘𝅥 ...) figure slowly opens to a fermata on a first-inversion D♭ chord, the Neapolitan sixth (N6).

The piece ends with a movement between the tonic major I (C) and iv (Fm) chords via the secondary dominant V⁷/iv (C⁷), throwing in the D♭ of a C^7♭9 chord to emphasize the final expansive resolution to C major, ending with 5 voices and both feet of the bass for the final chord.

Hope you enjoyed this fantastic piece! Check back for more posts, share your comments below, and let others know about this post!

All score excerpts are taken from the 1867 Bach-Gesellschaft edition by Breitkopf and Härtel (Leipzig) via IMSLP.org.