NEWS

Published: “Scriabin’s Compositional Methods: Analysis and Review“
by Jay Reise 

Journal of The Scriabin Society of America 
Vol. 16, No. 1 Spring 2024, pp. 47-99

               Available through subscription:
                        scriabinsociety.com

     In this article, I offer an analysis and review of Scriabin’s methods in the context of recent discoveries.

This essay is an expanding of my earlier voice-leading analysis, presented in my 1983 article “Late Skriabin: Some Principles Behind the Style,” and contextualizes it with scholarship over the past 40 years. A major goal of this new paper is to explain every note (Scriabin said,“...there is not one note unaccounted for”) in as direct a manner as possible such that one can hear the procedures being discussed in the music itself. In many of the musical examples, I present the relevant scales and synthetic harmonies so the reader can readily hear and compare the analysis in the text with the example. I review and discuss issues of octatonic and whole-tone orthography, orthographic inconsistencies, the sources and voice leadings of tones foreign to the octatonic and whole-tone scales, and the roles of the synthetic harmony and acoustic scales. The latter includes discussion of how the voice leading of foreign tones contributes to the creation of his “synthetic harmony” (Scriabin’s term for the “mystic chord”) musical syntax. I also discuss the importance of registers as well as the functions and contexts of the scales and subsets. Finally, I review the scales Scriabin uses that contain more than eight notes, and present evidence that they too fall within the octatonic domain. 

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Video Recording
Starless Nocturne for solo violin
An Vedi, violin


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Now available online:

(world premiere)
DAVOOD GHADAMI, narrator ("Kush" on Eastenders)
English Symphony Orchestra
Zoë Beyers, violin
Kenneth Woods, conductor

In the blink of an eye… 
A miniature song cycle for soprano, shakuhachi, violin, cello and piano
Deborah Lifton, soprano
Kyo-Shin-An Arts 

Part of JAPAN SONGS (Six commissioned songs based on Japanese waka poetry)
Also includes settings by Victoria Bond, Douglas J. Cuomo, James Matheson, Paul Moravec, and Aleksandra Vrebalov
Tickets may be purchased to view a replay of this concert @
           tix.musae.me/japan-songs








Photo Credit: Cecilia Paredes

JAY REISE

 Composer

Award-winning composer Jay Reise wrote both the music and libretto for his opera Rasputin which was commissioned by the late Beverly Sills and premiered by the New York City Opera in 1988. The work was described in The Washington Times as “a spellbinding, challenging and profoundly beautiful creation.” Rasputin was given its Russian premiere in in 2008 by the Helikon Opera and has been performed by them over the last 10 years in Moscow, Estonia (Saaremaa Opera Festival) and Paris (Opéra de Massy). In November 2017, it was presented in Moscow as part of the commemoration marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. He recently completed “Three Capone Portraits” for orchestra, as well as a series of "Starless Nocturnes" based on material from his opera-in-progress Al Capone and Family. 
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