Synthetic chord
Encyclopedia
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 class
es: 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 fourth
s. However, the chord may be spelled in a variety of ways, and it is related to other pitch collections; see below.
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
.
in 1916, 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
.
Scriabin himself called it the akkord pleromy (аккорд плеромы) or "chord of the pleroma
", 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."
s 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
, chord
s, 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.
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 chord
s. 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 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).
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. 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.
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.
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
the mystic chord or Prometheus chord is a complex six-note chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
, scale, or pitch collection, which loosely serves as the harmonic
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
and melodic
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
basis for some of the later pieces by Russian composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
. Scriabin, however, did not use the chord directly but rather derived material from its transpositions
Transposition (music)
In music transposition refers to the process, or operation, of moving a collection of notes up or down in pitch by a constant interval.For example, one might transpose an entire piece of music into another key...
– see below.
It consists of the pitch class
Pitch class
In music, a pitch class is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart, e.g., the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves...
es: C, F, B, E, A, D. This is often interpreted as a quartal
Quartal and quintal harmony
In music, quartal harmony is the building of harmonic structures with a distinct preference for the intervals of the perfect fourth, the augmented fourth and the diminished fourth. Quintal harmony is harmonic structure preferring the perfect fifth, the augmented fifth and the diminished fifth...
hexachord
Hexachord
In music, a hexachord is a collection of six pitch classes including six-note segments of a scale or tone row. The term was adopted in the Middle Ages and adapted in the twentieth-century in Milton Babbitt's serial theory.-Middle Ages:...
consisting of an augmented fourth, diminished fourth, augmented fourth, and two perfect fourth
Perfect fourth
In classical music from Western culture, a fourth is a musical interval encompassing four staff positions , and the perfect fourth is a fourth spanning five semitones. For example, the ascending interval from C to the next F is a perfect fourth, as the note F lies five semitones above C, and there...
s. However, the chord may be spelled in a variety of ways, and it is related to other pitch collections; see below.
It is also an example of a synthetic chord
Synthetic chord
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...
, and the scale from which it derives its notes, sometimes called the Prometheus scale, is an example of a synthetic scale
Synthetic scale
In music, a synthetic scale is a scale which has been derived from a traditional diatonic major scale through the alteration of one degree by a semitone in either direction. Composer Ferruccio Busoni originally explored these scales in his A New Esthetic of Music and their number and variety were...
.
Title
The term "mystic neat chord", coined by Arthur Eaglefield HullArthur Eaglefield Hull
Arthur Eaglefield Hull was an English music critic, writer, composer and organist.Hull was initially a music student of Tobias Matthay and graduated with a Doctorate of Music from Oxford University...
in 1916, appears to derive from Scriabin's intense interest in Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
, 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
Leonid Sabaneyev
Leonid Leonidovich Sabaneyev or Sabaneyeff or Sabaneev was a Russian musicologist, music critic, composer and scientist.-Biography:...
.
Scriabin himself called it the akkord pleromy (аккорд плеромы) or "chord of the pleroma
Pleroma
Pleroma generally refers to the totality of divine powers. The word means fullness from comparable to πλήρης which means "full", and is used in Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally, and by Paul of Tarsus in Colossians Colossians 2:9 KJV .Gnosticism holds that the...
", 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."
Use
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 chordSynthetic chord
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...
s or scales
Synthetic scale
In music, a synthetic scale is a scale which has been derived from a traditional diatonic major scale through the alteration of one degree by a semitone in either direction. Composer Ferruccio Busoni originally explored these scales in his A New Esthetic of Music and their number and variety were...
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
Sonata No. 5 (Scriabin)
The fifth piano sonata, Op. 53, is a one movement sonata written by Alexander Scriabin in 1907. It is his first sonata to be written in one movement, but from this point forward he retained this format. It marks the end of his Romantic period and the beginning of his transition to an atonal style...
(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
George Perle
George Perle was a composer and music theorist. He was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. Perle was an alumnus of DePaul University...
calls a pre-serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
manner, producing harmonies
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
, chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
s, and melodies
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
. However, unlike the twelve tone technique to which Perle refers, Scriabin did not use his Mystic chord as an ordered set
Ordered set
In order theory in mathematics, a set with a binary relation R on its elements that is reflexive , antisymmetric and transitive is described as a partially ordered set or poset...
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.
Qualities
Nicolas SlonimskyNicolas Slonimsky
Nicolas Slonimsky was a Russian born American composer, conductor, musician, music critic, lexicographer and author. He described himself as a "diaskeuast" ; "a reviser or interpolator."- Life :...
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 chord
Dominant seventh chord
In music theory, a dominant seventh chord, or major minor seventh chord,is a chord composed of a root, major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. It can be also viewed as a major triad with an additional minor seventh...
s. 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 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).
Octatonic scale
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. Among the most famous of these is a scale in which the notes ascend in alternating intervals of a whole step and a half step, creating a symmetric scale...
, the whole tone scale
Whole tone scale
In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole step. There are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales:...
, and the French sixth, all of which are capable of a different number of transpositions. 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.
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 chordElektra chordThe Elektra chord is a "complexly dissonant signature-chord" and motivic elaboration used by composer Richard Strauss to represent the title character of his opera Elektra that is a "bitonal synthesis of E major and C-sharp major" and may be regarded as a polychord related to conventional chords...
- Petrushka chordPetrushka chordThe Petrushka chord is a recurring polytonic device used in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka and in later music. These two major triads, C major and F# major - a tritone apart - clash, "horribly with each other," when sounded together and create a dissonant chord.-Structure:The Petrushka chord is...
- Psalms chordPsalms chordIn music, the Psalms chord is "the famous opening chord" of Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, a "barking E minor triad - characteristically spaced", "like no E-minor triad that was ever known before"...
- Tristan chordTristan chordThe Tristan chord is a chord made up of the notes F, B, D and G. More generally, it can be any chord that consists of these same intervals: augmented fourth, augmented sixth, and augmented ninth above a root...