Scriabin's monstrous climax

A long overdue video on Scriabin. I always wanted to do a video on mid-late Scriabin but as one would expect, a concise but accurate harmonic analysis takes a while to formulate for such a developed harmonic language. That's why I turned to early Scriabin, where the influence from Chopin is still largely tangible - frequent modulations, chromatic chords (bII and German 6) and dissonance from appoggiaturas. In fact, the reprise of the main theme seems to adopt its pianistic configuration from Chopin's Nocturne Op.48 no.1 with its thick repeated chords and thundering bass notes. (Perhaps the advantage of repeated chords is a finer control in dynamics by the pianist especially in sequences like 00:40 where the melody is comparatively static)
The melodic material is also particularly minimal - the motifs used by Scriabin are constantly repeated in succession while the underlying harmonies vary, which creates quite a strong unified melodic structure compared to Chopin's often more improvisational and continuous melodies.

Scriabin's Etude Op.8 No.12

Recording(Sultanov):    • Scriabin - Etude Op. 8 No. 12 (Sultanov)