Weird note in Scriabin's Prelude

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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Hi forum,

this is Scriabin's Prelude 17 opus 11,

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Take a look at those notes circled in blue.

4 notes, 4 notes, 4 notes... and all of a sudden 5 notes.

To you, what seems to be the purpose of those notes? Why would he have done that?

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Well, on the first case it seems to me that the note is necessary since it is not duplicated anywhere. It's the seventh of the chord. Bb,Db,Fb,Ab. We can argue that probably it would have made more sense to use it one octave lower or even reverse the lower with the upper to make them within the octave, to make a sequence, but probably he wanted to avoid more paralel motion and expand the voice leading since it is at the end of a phrase.

The second case it's exactly the same. I can see this like, ok we are culminating a phrase let's "widen" the register and spread the notes through the piano instead of clutching them on the same place and making them sound like clusters. This way you have a more clear perception of all tones and the seventh is clearly audible increasing the tension necessary to the resolution.
Play fair and square!

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I'm going to call it a type of suspension from the previous chords.

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halfstep wrote: Why would he have done that?
Why not.

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Hi,

thanks for your replies.

Here goes another couple of questions: (same composer, opus 33, no.3)

1) In bar 1, why would he have written Bbb instead of A? What do you think is the logic behind that?

2) The second chords in bars 3 and 9 are 7th chords with the 5th diminished. I was going to ask what's up with that, but I followed Ogg Vorbis's advise, looked at it horizontally, and I guess I get it. But still would like to hear if you have anything to say upon that. :roll:

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The logic is simple: triadic chord logic.

If you want to build a chord on that measure one it is E-G-Bbb-Db.
With A, you couldn't build triads... it had to be E-G-A-C#. Also it means function. Because if it was A, it would be a dominant chord (probably V), and like this, it has to be read as an augmented German sixth, which makes much more sense with the following Db7 chord.
Play fair and square!

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Musicologo wrote:The logic is simple: triadic chord logic.

If you want to build a chord on that measure one it is E-G-Bbb-Db.
That's the first thing I thought of but what kind of chord is E G Bbb Db?

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Hi Halfstep,

So in the spirit of "where is this thing going?" then we are heading toward a Db Major oriented cadence (yes, inverted with the third in the bass and some other non triad tones). The next cadential area resolves into the Ab triadic area in bar 5.

The pathway he uses to get there starts on enharmonically re-spelled A major orientation. He may have weighed the pros and cons of using A natural and C#, but he's going to Db (the enharmonic equiv. of C#). So that path implies NOT using A natural because it's going to provide a cross-relation with Ab in the destination.

So I see it out of necessity that he starts of by re-spelling A natural at the beginning.

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