Scriabin Is The King Of Chromaticism

[@Poeme340]

Thank you for helping this layman-but-Scriabin-devotee to understand this concept more fully. I’ve always found those passages in the fifth sonata to be uniquely beautiful IMHO.👍👍

[@duryi6399]

Other composer who uses a lot of chromaticism is Liszt, he uses it for his fast, flashy cadences. But Scriabin uses chromaticism in a more complicated/advanced way

[@jaybeardmusic8074]

Yea, Scriabin makes the chromaticism integral to the musical motifs! You’re right about Liszt too!

[@samh1996]

I believe you’re right, among all the major and famous composers out there, Scriabin is the king of chromaticism. Great video.

[@OphatTaerattanachai]

Franz Liszt. He has many pieces that highlight the chromatic theme. For example, Dante Symphony, Après une lecture du Dante - Fantasia quasi Sonata, Ein Faust Symphony. And his late pieces make me feel like he is trying to push the boundary of harmony into something new; such as Bagatelle sans Tonalite and Nuages Gris.

[@jaybeardmusic8074]

Ooo yea love me some Liszt! I’ll check out some of those pieces! Thanks!

[@OphatTaerattanachai]

Other 2 composers that I can think of are Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Debussy has some distictive colors and harmonies in his works while Ravel leans toward perfectionist harmony. (I prefer Ravel more.) Also, I feel like Ravel uses Chromatic lines in his harmony more than melody. Here is the list on Debussy; Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un Faune, Etude No.7 (on Chromatics), Prelude Book 1 No.7, and Prelude Book 2 No.7. Here is the list on Ravel; Miroirs (No.1 Noctuelles), Gaspard de la Nuit (there are a lot in both Undine and Scarbo), Le Tombeau de Couperin (Prelude, Forlane), and La Valse.

[@cthnibelungen13]

I know Nemtin made the work, but I'd love to see a video that analyzes the unique themes Scriabin created for the first section 'Universe' of the Prefatory action.

[@WhildTangeredCalymondrin]

Would you attempt analysing the harmonies of Samuil Feinberg? He often gets compared to Scriabin, but I feel like he has a completely different approach to harmony, especially when compared to Scriabin's late period. Feinberg's music is extremely chromatic while somehow still being grounded in traditional tonal centres. P.S. I think harmonically, Sergei Protopopov's Piano Sonata No.1 comes the closest to resembling Scriabin's late music (excluding works by Scriabin himself, of course). It seems like he also used set 6-z49 extensively (this is very evident in the 2nd movement).

[@GundulaRach]

Very informative Video !!!

[@ceelothatmane9421]

Man. I’m not even a classical listener, but this was a fairly interesting video 💪🏽. Found you on Reddit. I’d love to see more composers have their signatures broken down.

[@jaybeardmusic8074]

That’s great to hear :) Cheers!

[@julianbrezon]

Good stuff!

[@neilr5208]

I don't think any other composer uses advanced chromaticism like Scriabin does... We can look at Messiaen, who used similar pitch sets as Scriabin, but he just wrote notes from the set, meanwhile Scriabin uses all sorts of chromatic devices while using all these unconventional pitch sets which gives his music a synthetic sort of functionality and cohesiveness.

[@Whatismusic123]

Rachmaninoff, also messiaen is completely incompetent so there's no question.

[@manzoh2248]

I think Prokofiev is definitely up there, Idk if he’s better at chromaticism though, but he’s very good at using it

[@javmbz_schlithler]

I absolutely love Scriabin's music and his usage of chromaticism, but I would check Sorabji's pieces to really get something out of it. His music is transcendental as anything I've heard!

[@jakobhuntington2720]

what is the number of the bach fugue?

[@time8871]

Some interesting points. It seems to me Bach composed more than a 'few' works featuring a lot of chromaticism. It also seems perhaps a little misleading to call Bach's music 'triadic' since in his use of counterpoint he explored so many different rich harmonies beyond basic triads. To me ~how~ chromaticism is used makes a big difference. I find it more effective/impressive when it is used in harmonically expressive ways (often in the vertical sense), for example Bach's use through counterpoint, and even in some Mozart we can see he was a master of this. In some of these romantic flourishes it seems to be more of a case of just running through the notes of the chromatic scale - that in my view is less expert level chromaticism even if more notes of the scale are used. Granted some of the Scriabin examples you've provided are impressive. However, I'm not convinced of his 'king' status relative to someone like Bartók for example who to me seemed more contrapuntal. From Messiaen, Schnittke, Finnissy among others there are many composers whose music is often heavily chromatic. I'm not sure I feel there is one specific 'king' of chromaticism among the composers in the 20th/21st centuries.

[@gigogrom216]

I think I agree with the statement that Scriabin is the king of crhonaticism, because he's creating the most unique colors with the notes. Shostakovich, who also uses chromaticism a lot and masterfully, does it to show pain and struggles, not fantastic firework.

[@entertainer9076]

i have never understood what chromatism means... please help

[@GuillaumeB7]

From what I understand, it's basically when you have notes that are not part of the scale that the piece is currently in.

[@entertainer9076]

@@GuillaumeB7 so is secondary dominant considered as a chromaticism?

[@Whatismusic123]

It comes from the word "chroma" which means colour. Chromatic notes, like C#, are typically "coloured" versions of the counterpart. It's not much different from how you hear 440hz as A, and 441 hz as A aswell. In the key of C major, C# literally *is* C, but because of its elevated position, it holds a different function, specifically as a leading tone to D.

[@hurricane4912]

@@entertainer9076no because the secondary dominant is actually the dominant in the key you are going to it acts like a pivot chord. However, depending on how far away the secondary dominant is from the key at the time, it might be considered chromatic. I don’t really know much about music theory so this might be wrong

[@salmongod3385]

​@@GuillaumeB7it's just moving in semitones

[@jessemccree9171]

I wonder why you’re wearing a headphone, is it to protect hearing?

[@jaybeardmusic8074]

Yes

[@Brandon55638]

Scriabin was an excellent composer of chromatic music, but I think the king of chromaticism is Ferruccio Busoni, because I hear many different forms of chromaticism in his later works. kzbin.info/aero/PLhHUg8xSoZUFljXZzRI-u0ZrRkTxcMoGi&feature=shared