Mystic chord

Mystic chord

Component intervals from root

major second

major sixth

major third

minor seventh

augmented fourth

root

In music the mystic chord or Prometheus chord is a complex six-note chord, scale, or pitch collection, which loosely serves as the harmonic and melodic basis for some of the later pieces by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. Scriabin, however, did not use the chord directly but rather derived material from its transpositions – see below.

It consists of the pitch classes: C, F♯, B♭, E, A, D. This is often interpreted as a quartal hexachord consisting of an augmented fourth, diminished fourth, augmented fourth, and two perfect fourths. However, the chord may be spelled in a variety of ways, and it is related to other pitch collections; see below.

Prometheus scale on C, whole tone scale with one degree altered chromatically  Play (help·info).

It is also an example of a synthetic chord, and the scale from which it derives its notes, sometimes called the Prometheus scale, is an example of a synthetic scale.

Title

The term "mystic neat chord", coined by Arthur Eaglefield Hull in 1916,^[1] appears to derive from Scriabin's intense interest in Theosophy, which infused much of his music with mystical meaning, and the chord is imagined to reflect this mysticism.

It is also known as the "Prometheus chord" or Promethean chord after its extensive serving as the basis of the harmonies in his work Prometheus: The Poem of Fire. The term was invented by Leonid Sabaneyev.^[1]

Scriabin himself called it the akkord pleromy (аккорд плеромы) or "chord of the pleroma",^[1] which "was designed to afford instant apprehension of -- that is, to reveal -- what was in essence beyond the mind of man to conceptualize. Its preternatural stillness was a gnostic intimation of a hidden otherness."^[2]

Use

There seems today to be a general consensus that the mystic chord is neither the key nor the generating element in Scriabin's method.

—Jay Reise (1983)^[3]

Some sources suggest that much of Scriabin's music is entirely based on the chord to the extent that whole passages are little more than long sequences of this chord, unaltered, at different pitches; but this is rarely the case. More often than not, the notes are reordered in order to supply a variety of harmonic or melodic material. Certain of Scriabin's late pieces are based on other synthetic chords or scales that do not rely on the mystic chord.

Contrary to many textbook descriptions of the chord, which present the sonority as a series of superposed fourths, Scriabin most often manipulated the voicings to produce a variety of melodic and harmonic intervals (in the same manner that a dominant seventh, built on superposed thirds, will deploy intervals of a sixth, fourth, and/or second under inversion). A rare example of purely quartal spacing can be found in the Fifth Piano Sonata (bars 264, 268). Incomplete versions of the chord spaced entirely in fourths are considerably more common, for example, in Deux Morceaux, op. 57: "Désir" and "Caresse dansée".

Scriabin used this chord in what George Perle calls a pre-serial manner, producing harmonies, chords, and melodies. However, unlike the twelve tone technique to which Perle refers, Scriabin did not use his Mystic chord as an ordered set and did not worry about repeating or omitting notes.

Other sources suggest that Scriabin's method of pitch organization is based on ordered scales that feature scale degrees. For example, a group of piano miniatures (Op. 58, Op. 59/2, Op. 61, Op. 63, Op. 67/1 and Op. 69/1) are governed by the acoustic and/or the octatonic scales^[4].

Qualities

Nicolas Slonimsky^{[citation needed]} compares the synthetic chord to a "typical terminal" chord of jazz, rag-time, and rock, the major tonic chord with an added sixth and ninth (if the root is C: C, G, E, A, D), and to Debussy's post-Wagnerian "enhanced" dominant seventh chords. If one moves the F♯ up to G and the A up to B♭ (already present), one is left with a familiar dominant ninth chord.

Jim Samson ^[5] points out that it fits in well with Scriabin's predominantly dominant quality sonorities and harmony as it may take on a dominant quality on C or F♯. This tritone relationship between possible resolutions is important to Scriabin's harmonic language, and it is a property shared by the French sixth (also prominent in his work) of which the synthetic chord can be seen as an extension (C, E, F♯, B♭ with an additional D, A).

Synthetic chord's dominant quality^[5]

The pitch collection is related to the octatonic scale, the whole tone scale, and the French sixth, all of which are capable of a different number of transpositions.^[6] For example, the chord is a whole tone scale with one note raised a semitone (the "almost whole-tone" hexachord, sometimes identified as "whole tone-plus"), and this alteration allows for a greater variety of resources through transposition.^[7]

The pitch classes of this chord can also be used in creating a "jazz chord". In this case, a C dominant 7th chord with a 9, sharp 11 and 13. This type of chord is also known as a II/I7 (2 over 1), which consists of a major triad built on the second degree of the scale over a dominant chord built on the tonic of the scale. In this case, it would be a D Major triad over a C dominant chord.

See also

• Elektra chord
• Petrushka chord
• Psalms chord
• Tristan chord

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Skryabin and the Impossible", p.314. Simon Morrison. Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 51, No. 2. (Summer, 1998), pp. 283-330.
2. ^ "Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or, Stravinsky's 'Angle'". Richard Taruskin. Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 38, No. 1. (Spring, 1985), pp. 72-142. Cited in Morrison (1998).
3. ^ "Late Skriabin: Some Principles behind the Style", p.221. Jay Reise. 19th-Century Music, Vol. 6, No. 3. (Spring, 1983), pp. 220-231.
4. ^ "Principles of Pitch Organization in Scriabin's Early Post-tonal Period: The Piano Miniatures". Vasilis Kallis, Music Theory Online, Vol. 14.3 (Sep 2008)
5. ^ ^{a b} Samson, Jim (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900-1920, p.156-7. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-02193-9
6. ^ "Orthography in Scriabin's Late Works", p.60. Cheong Wai-Ling. Music Analysis, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Mar., 1993), pp. 47-69.
7. ^ "The Evolution of Twelve-Note Music", p.56. Oliver Neighbour. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 81st Sess. (1954 - 1955), pp. 49-61.

Weblinks

• Some occurrences of the Mystic chord in the scores of the Petrucci Music Library