Piano Sonata No.9 Op.68 “Black Mass” (1913)

Alexander Skryabin (1872-1915)

Piano Sonata No.9 Op.68 “Black Mass” (1913)

The “Black Mass” title regularly attached to Skryabin’s Sonata No.9 derives not from the composer himself but from a friend, Alexi Podgaetsky. The composer did not repudiate it presumably because of a significant analogy with the “White Mass” Sonata No.7 and because it was close to his own view of the work. According to Leonid Sabaniev, he described it as a “satanic poem” and compared it    to a nightmare haunted by devilish visions. Playing it. he said, is “like practising sorcery.”

The music itself, constructed in one movement like its companions among the last five of Skryabin’s ten sonatas, would surely not make such a diabolical impression without its “Black Mass” associations. True, it is an unsettling work, rhythmically elusive, expressive to extravagant extremes, and virtually atonal: it cannot really be said to be in F major, even though it frequently is. At the same time – while it rather surprisingly observes the broad outlines of sonata form –    it frequently and reassuringly calls Debussy to mind. The Debussy echo is heard not in the opening “legendary” (Skryabin’s description) alternation of thirds and sixths but in the following “mysteriously murmured” motif recognisable by its prominent triplet rhythm and its falling minor third. It scarcely qualifies as a second subject: that distinction belongs to the melody built “with growing languor” out of short phrases rising and falling through a minor second. But it begins the transition towards the entry of that melody and echoes like a horn call or a percussive drum beat, depending on its treatment, through much of the work.

The development begins with the thirds and sixths of the first subject in its original Moderato quasi andante and in partnership with the Debussy motif. The tempo drops for a “pure and limpid” version of the second subject as, in renewed association with the Debussy motif, it gathers a “more and more caressing and poisoned sweetness.” The climax of the work approaches with a change of tempo to Allegro and then, on the insistence of the second subject and the Debussy motif, two more accelerations culminating in an Allegro molto with the thirds and sixths converted into a chain of semiquavers covering    much of the keyboard. One of the more sinister aspects of the work is a transformation of the second subject into a brief but heavily articulated march. Further accelerations intensify the tempo to Presto before both it and the dynamic level drop for a last reminiscence of the thirds and sixths of the first subject, again restored to its original tempo. The work ends with a quiet and somewhat disingenuous F low in the left hand.