Alexander Scriabin was one of a few major composers who revolutionized musical style in the first decade of the twentieth century by eliminating key as a structural principle and by establishing a new use of dissonant harmonies. This book by James M. Baker is a study of Scriabin's twentieth-century music, the first thorough analysis of the composer's evolution from conventional tonality to his later atonal structure. Baker demonstrates that in Scriabin's transitional music, tonal and atonal procedures-generally considered mutually exclusive-work together to create unified compositions. Baker places Scriabin's harmony in the perspective of voice leading, applying Schenkerian techniques of analysis to his music for the first time. He explains the great variety of sonorities and their complex relations within the framework of set-complex theory and introduces an original method of statistical analysis to survey Scriabin's harmonic practice from 1903 to 1914. Offering comprehensive analyses of a considerable number of complete compositions, including such important works as the Fifth Piano Sonata and the Poem of Ecstasy, Baker concludes with a penetrating examination of Prometheus, Scriabin's largest and most complex composition. The literature thus far on Scriabin has emphasized aspects of his often eccentric personality and has focused narrowly on his use of certain characteristic harmonies, especially the famous "mystic chord." This thought-provoking theoretical treatise takes an important step toward a deeper understanding of the composer's accomplishments.

Historical, theoretical and analytical studies of principally 19-20c topics, reflecting current musical research. This collection of nineteen essays, all by leaders in the field of music theory, reflects the rich diversity of topics and approaches currently being explored. The contributions fall within three principal areas of study that haveremained at the heart of the discipline. One is historical research, which includes efforts to trace the development of theoretical ideas and their philosophical bases. Representing this broad category are essays dealing with issues like Scriabin's mysticism, neoclassicism, modern aesthetics, and the development of the concept of pitch collection in twentieth-century theoretical writings. The second area embraces the theory and analysis of common-practicetonality and its associated repertoire (including chromatic and 'transitional' music). Within this category are several studies related directly to or derived from Schenkerian theory, covering repertoire from Bach through Schubert and Chopin to Gershwin. Complementing these articles are a study of a chromatic work by Liszt and an essay on Schoenberg's concept of tonality. The third broad category includes the large body of work associated with the theoryand analysis of post-tonal music. Representing this extensive area of inquiry are essays dealing with voice leading in atonal music and extending Allen Forte's theory of the set complex, and analytical studies dealing with works by Schoenberg and Webern. Adding to these contributions are articles that deal with works by composers less frequently discussed in the analytical literature, Milhaud and Peter Maxwell Davies, and an empirical study of aural cognition of atonal and tonal music. These essays, all by colleagues, friends, and students of Allen Forte are intended as a celebrationof his enormous contribution to the discipline of music theory. James Baker is Professor of Music at Brown University; David Beach is Dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto; Jonathan Bernard is Professor of Music at the University of Washington.

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