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I'm currently working on the first movement of Scriabin's second sonata, and the rhythm is confusing me in several measures. The time signature is 3/4, yet in certain measures the right hand contains far more than 3 beats, while the corresponding left hand has exactly 3. There are no time change markings, so I'm stumped. I'm hoping someone knows why this is.


Oh and I'm new here

can you scan the score, and high-light the bits that you are talking about?
cos i'm looking at my copy of the score now, and on the RH, i don't see any such "violations" that you are talking about... ??

I looked at the score. These appear to be simple polyrhythms.

Strictly speaking, every polyrhythm should
be notated as such, but in practice this
is often not done because there are too
many different polyrhythms, and labeling
every one of them would clutter up the
already cluttered-up score. So the labels
are left off and you just understand
things from the context.

For example, in bar 33 of Dover score, you
have in the r.h. a quarter, followed by
5-16ths, followed by 3-8ths, with no
other markings. The 5-16ths
would be understood as "5 notes in the
time of one beat" and the 3-8ths would
be a triplet. In bar 34 you have in
the r.h. 5-16ths, followed by 2-8ths,
followed by 2-8ths. The 5-16ths are
in the time of one beat, and the 8th
notes are regular 8th notes. In the l.h.
in bar 34 you have three triplets,
although, in the Dover score, there are
no triplet indications. And so forth.

Yes the fact that the polyrhtyhm notation was missing confused me, but I've got it now. Thanks.