Mystic chord

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Mystic chord

Component intervals from root

major second

major sixth

major third

minor seventh

augmented fourth

root

The mystic chord is a complex six-note musical chord which loosely serves as the harmonic basis for some of the later music by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. Some sources imply that much of Scriabin's music is directly 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; much more often the notes are extensively rearranged and inverted in the course of supplying harmonic or melodic material in a passage of music. And many of Scriabin's pieces are based on other synthetic chords or scales and are not in any way derived from the Mystic chord.^{[citation needed]}

The term "mystic chord" 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 sometimes also referred to 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. It consists of the pitch classes: C, F#, Bb, E, A, D. An augmented fourth, diminished fourth, augmented fourth, and two perfect fourths. It is a quartal hexachord. 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.

Contents 1 Musical use 2 Qualities 3 See also 4 Source

[edit] Musical use

Contrary to statements often seen in print, the chord does not appear very often, complete and in its pure form, spaced in all fourths, in Prometheus, or indeed in any other work by Scriabin. Rather, the chord as spaced entirely in fourths is the raw or "basic" form of a chord from which widely-varied chordal textures are drawn in Prometheus and certain other works, inverted and switched around in various ways. For example, in Prometheus, the Mystic chord based on C, as described above, would quite likely have C and Bb as the two bottom notes, followed by E, A, etc., with F# often appearing higher up. Sometimes an F (not a member of the chord) would be at the bottom of this structure, below the C, as if dominant-7th harmony based on C7 (plus a few added notes such as a 9th, augmented 11th, or 13th) were based on a tonic pedal point, as if the tonality were F major - but in Prometheus this situation would be used as a harmonic effect in itself without this tonal implication. On other occasions, C and F# may be the bottom two notes, making a fourth at the bottom; but the third note up will more likely be an E rather than a Bb - again breaking the pattern of fourth intervals. However, although few chords in Prometheus or any other work contain the full Mystic chord spaced all in fourths, it is probably true that fourths are the commonest constituent intervals in Scriabin's late harmonic style.

A rare example of a complete and nearly pure form of this chord, spaced in fourths, can be found in the Fifth Piano Sonata (bars 264, 268). Even these chords are not quite pure examples of the chord spaced in fourths, because in both of them the top fourth is actually an octave plus a fourth, owing to the right hand's lowest note being shifted up an octave. The two upper notes in the right hand are octave doublings of notes that appear lower in the chord, thus reducing the purity of the fourths texture a little further. Despite this, the overall effect of the chord does sound very quartal. But the pure version of the Mystic chord in just fourths, without octave doublings, is very rare in any of Scriabin's works. Partial versions of the chord spaced entirely in fourths are considerably more common, however: 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.

[edit] Qualities

One interesting quality of the chord is that it contains various kinds of quartal triads - but certainly not all possible ones, unless octave doublings of certain notes are used, or various inversions of the chord adopted, or enharmonic notation used for some notes, which may not be justifiable harmonically. Here are the quartal triads found directly in the chord in its pure form. Constituent notes of each triad are named from the bass upwards, and the qualities of the 4ths also named upwards:

• C F# Bb - augmented, diminished 4ths
• F# Bb E - diminished, augmented 4ths
• Bb E A - augmented, perfect 4ths
• E A D - perfect, perfect 4ths

Quartal triads not represented here are:

• Augmented - augmented (which would result in an augmented seventh, such as C - B#)
• Diminished - diminished (which would effectively be an augmented triad)
• Diminished - perfect (this would be a minor triad in first inversion with the lowest note enharmonically notated differently from usual triad notation)
• Perfect - diminished (major triad in second inversion with the top note enharmonically notated)
• Perfect - augmented.

If the notes of the Mystic chord are rearranged or inverted so that they are no longer spaced all in fourths, then it is possible to derive most of these other quartal triads.

All four kinds of tertian triad can be found in the Mystic chord, although, because of its spacing in fourths, the tertian triads will not be in close spacing or not necessarily in root position. They are as follows:

• major (D, F#, A)
• minor (A, C, E)
• augmented (D, F#, Bb)
• diminished (F#, A, C)

In Scriabin's usage of harmonies derived from the Mystic chord, quartal harmonies tend to result more naturally than tertian ones. The presence of the various tertian triads is not an important fact in Scriabin's harmonic language.

Nicolas Slonimsky 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 Bb, one is left with a familiar dominant seventh (added ninth).

Jim Samson (1977, p.156-7) 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#, Bb with an additional D, A).

[edit] See also

• Elektra chord
• Petrushka chord
• Tristan chord

[edit] Source

• Samson, Jim (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900-1920. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-02193-9

v • d • e Chords
By Type	Triad	Major · Minor · Augmented · Diminished · Suspended
	Seventh	Major · Minor · Dominant · Diminished · Half-diminished · Minor-major · Augmented major · Augmented minor
	Extended	Ninth · Eleventh · Thirteenth
	Other	Sixth · Augmented sixth · Altered · Added tone · Polychord · Quartal and quintal · Tone cluster · Power
By Function	Diatonic	Tonic · Dominant · Subdominant · Submediant
	Altered	Borrowed · Neapolitan chord · Secondary dominant
With Names		Elektra chord · Hendrix chord · Mystic chord · Petrushka chord · Tristan chord · So What chord