| Component intervals fromroot | |
|---|---|
| major second | |
| major sixth | |
| major third | |
| minor seventh | |
| augmented fourth | |
| root | |
| Forte no. | |
| 6–34 |
Inmusic, themystic chord orPrometheus chord is a six-notesynthetic chord and its associatedscale, orpitch collection; which loosely serves as theharmonic andmelodic basis for some of the later pieces by RussiancomposerAlexander Scriabin. Scriabin, however, did not use the chord directly but rather derived material from itstranspositions.
When rooted in C, the mystic chord consists of thepitch classes: C, F♯, B♭, E, A, D.
This is often interpreted as aquartalhexachord consisting of anaugmented fourth, diminished fourth, augmented fourth, and twoperfect fourths. The chord is related to other pitch collections, such as being a hexatonic subset of theovertone scale, also known in jazz circles as theLydian dominant scale, lacking the perfect fifth.
The term "mystic chord" appears to derive fromAlexander Scriabin's intense interest inTheosophy, and the chord is imagined to reflect this mysticism. It was coined byArthur Eaglefield Hull in 1916.[1]
It is also known as the "Prometheus chord", after its extensive use in his workPrometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60. The term was invented byLeonid Sabaneyev.[1]
Scriabin himself called it the "chord of thepleroma" (аккорд плеромыakkord pleromy),[1] which "was designed to afford instant apprehension of -that is, toreveal- what was in essence beyond the mind of man to conceptualize. Its preternatural stillness was agnostic intimation of a hidden otherness."[2]
Jim Samson[3] points out that it fits in well with Scriabin's mainly 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 theFrench sixth (also prominent in his work) of which the synthetic chord can be seen as an extension. The example below shows the mystic chord rewritten as a French sixth with notes A and D as extensions:
The pitch collection is related to theoctatonic scale, thewhole tone scale, and theFrench sixth, all of which are capable of a different number of transpositions.[4] 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.[5]
Leonid Sabaneev interpreted the Prometheus chord as harmonics 8 through 14, without 12 (1,9,5,11,13,7 = C, D, E, F↑, A
♭, B
♭), but the 11th harmonic is 48.68 cents away from the tritone (F♯), the 13th harmonic is 59.47 cents away from a major sixth (A♮).
However, to quoteCarl Dahlhaus, "the interval-distance of the natural-tone-row [overtones] [...], counting up to 20, includes everything from the octave to the quarter tone, (and) useful and useless musical tones. The natural-tone-row [harmonic series] justifies everything, that means, nothing."[6] Elliott Antokoletz says the "so-called 'mystic chord'" approximates harmonics 7 through 13 (7,8,9,10, (11,)12,13 = C, D
-, E, F♯, (G↑-,) A, B♭-).[7]Playⓘ
The notes of the chord also conform to aLydian dominant quality, the fourthmode of themelodic minor scale.
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 so as to supply a variety of harmonic or melodic material. Certain of Scriabin's late pieces are based on othersynthetic chords orscales that do not rely on the mystic chord.
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)[8]
In in his 2023-2024 essay "Scriabin's Compositional Methods: Analysis and Review," Reise updated his position noting that Scriabin's close colleague and biographerLeonid Sabaneyev wrote that "Scriabin often said his music was based on his 'synthetic harmony.'"[9] Since this is how the composer himself described his famous chord, Reise has adopted the term in place of “mystic chord” (a term Scriabin never used) throughout his essay. Reise further points out (as have others) that in many of the late pieces, Scriabin extends the synthetic harmony by adding the note G - the next ascending P4. Reise posits that this expanded harmony, which contains all the notes of theacoustic scale, might be reasonably called the synthetic harmony+.
The synthetic harmony(+) is the referential element for the orthography, the procedures governing the voice leading of the whole tone andoctatonic scales, the registral distribution of the harmony, and the derivation of the complete octatonic scale. According to Reise, all scales (including the 9-note scale of the Poème Op. 71 No. 1) either resolve or impliy resolution to the octatonic or whole scales.
Matthew Bengtson writes, “...the mystic chord acts as a kind of mediator, a convenient means of transit, hovering, as in mid-air, between the whole-tone and octatonic harmonic worlds."[10]
Other sources suggest that Scriabin's method of pitch organization is based on ordered scales that feature scale degrees. Since the mystic chord is asynthetic chord, the scale from which it derives, sometimes called the "Prometheus scale", is an example of asynthetic scale.
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 theoctatonic scales.[11]
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.[a] A rare example of purely quartal spacing can be found in theFifth Piano Sonata (mm. 264 and 268). Measures 263–264 are shown below.
Incomplete versions of the chord spaced entirely in fourths are considerably more common, for example, in Deux Morceaux, Op. 57.
According toGeorge Perle, Scriabin used this chord in what he calls a pre-serial manner, producingharmonies,chords, andmelodies. However, unlike thetwelve tone technique to which Perle refers, Scriabin, like Perle, did not use his Mystic chord as anordered set and did not worry about repeating or omitting notes or aggregatecombinatoriality.[b][c]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fwikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(April 2012) |
With the increasing use of moredissonant sonorities, some composers of the 20th and 21st centuries have used this chord in various ways.[citation needed].
Injazz music, on the other hand, such chords are extremely common, and in this setting the mystic chord can be viewed simply as a C13♯11 chord with the fifth omitted. In the score to the right is an example of a Duke Ellington composition that uses a different voicing of this chord at the end of the second bar, played on E (E13♯11).
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