Skryabin’s Mystical Space and the Spectral Attitude

Abstract Following Marilyn Nonken in isolating the Russian pianist-composer Alexander Skryabin as one of spectralism’s principal progenitors, this chapter’s main focus is the pitch construction of Skryabin’s two miniatures Masques and Etrangeté op. 63 (1912), comparing their harmonic and rhythmic gestures with Tristan Murail’s suite for piano Les Travaux et les Jours (2002). The ultimate aims of this chapter in this comparison are two-fold: first, using the more recent phenomenon of spectral music, it sheds new light on a debate that stretches back at least a century to reassess the influence of the spectrum of upper partials on Skryabin’s compositions, showing how the terms of the debate need to be placed in a framework in which his stated intentions are critically assessed alongside the “music itself”; second, it explores the possibilities, realized by Skryabin and Murail in turn, hopefully of inspiration to future composers, of drawing creativity from the untempered overtone series in compositions that are limited to equal-temperament—in this case the piano—creating, under the banner of what might be called the “spectral attitude,” effects analogous to those produced by electronics and acoustically more dextrous instruments.