Contrapuntal Aspects of the Mystic Chord and Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 5

Abstract

We present statistical evidence for the importance of the "mystic chord" in Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53, from a computational and mathematical counterpoint perspective. More specifically, we compute the effect sizes and $\chi^{2}$ tests with respect to the distributions of counterpoint symmetries in the Fuxian and mystic counterpoint worlds in two passages of the work, which provide evidence of a qualitative change between them.