Schenkerian Analysis

As a comparative reading informed by recent work in integration theory and metaphor theory shows, Heinrich Schenker's and Arnold Schoenberg's Harmonielehren adumbrate broader theories of composition based in part on a conception of the tone as a partly unconsciously perceived, living idea, which the artist imitates in a piece of music as a manifestation or development of one particular tone by means of the motive and the key. Schenker and Schoenberg further conceive of a piece as a picture of the tone and a statement about the tone. This analysis reveals that Schenker's and Schoenberg's peculiar clashes, such as in their starkly opposed attitudes toward tonality, are the result of a mere difference in emphasis—attributable to temperament—on the absoluteness of the tone as an idea of nature versus the contingency of the artist's response to the tone in the formation of music, a contradiction inherent in both of their remarkably parallel theories. This deep unity in Schenker's and Schoenberg's musical thought invites a reassessment of the opposed historical categories of tonal and post-tonal music, which have informed our perception of a fundamental conflict between their theories and limited our perception of commonality between their theories.

This article follows on the heels of one by Holly Watkins, who argues that music, “a subsystem of the social system of communication,” can evoke the organic (the bodily and the psychic) not by forming a self-contained unity of parts and whole but through the “internal recursiveness” of musical works, their external “recursiveness vis-à-vis other music,” and – crucially – “the knowingness that music displays toward its own operations.” I adopt the premise that music evokes the organic most vividly not through recursive processes in individual systems but through the as-if intentional integration of such processes in multiple systems, of which I concern myself particularly with the harmonic, contrapuntal, and formal domains (or, more precisely, the motivic). I offer correctives to the organicist theories of Arnold Schoenberg and Heinrich Schenker, which similarly concern these domains, and especially to their reception. And I explore this direction through an analysis of Bach’s Prelude No. 7 in E-flat major from book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 852, a singular piece that billows forth like an unfathomable blossom.

One of the curious things I've noticed about Schenkerian Analysis is that the process of simplifying a work
then tends to require several pages of note-by-note descriptions of why certain decisions were made. To me,
this destroys the elegance of Schenkerian analysis. Can one really share the value of discovering a work's
relevance to oneself and the marvel of depth of meaning.

More than a century after Guido Adler's appointment to the first chair in musicology at the University of Vienna, Music, Criticism, and the Challenge of History provides a first look at the discipline in this earliest period, and at the ideological dilemmas and methodological anxieties that characterized it upon its institutionalization. Author Kevin Karnes contends that some of the most vital questions surrounding musicology's disciplinary identities today-the relationship between musicology and criticism, the role of the subject in analysis and the narration of history, and the responsibilities of the scholar to the listening public-originate in these conflicted and largely forgotten beginnings.

Resumo: Após rever um projeto esboçado por Heinrich Schenker, Die Kunst des Vortrags, no qual são discutidas estratégias interpretativas designadas por " dissimulação " e " emolduração " , ambas com referência aos níveis hierárquicos da estrutura musical, oferecemos uma análise que abrange não apenas um ponto de vista composicional, mas procura resgatar o efeito instrumental. Esta abordagem analítica do primeiro movimento da sonata K 533-494 de W. A. Mozart visa demonstrar que análise e interpretação são, para Schenker, manifestações afins e complementares de uma concepção musical orgânica. Abstract: Following a review of Heinrich Schenker´s draft of a project entitled Die Kunst des Vortrags in which interpretive strategies known respectively as Dissembling and Rahmenanschlag refer to hierarquical levels of musical structure, we offer an analysis discussing not only the compositional features but also the instrumental effects in a particular work. This approach informs an analysis of W.A. Mozart´s Sonata K 533-494, first movement, in order to demonstrate that analysis and interpretation are mutually complementary and necessary manifestations of an organic musical conception.

This is an updated version of the 1981 paper. The first part, what was published in Theory and Practice, is substantially unchanged save for some details of the analysis and several added comments. The second part, written over the past year, is an appendix that addresses the role of memory in Ives's music. There is an additional analysis of his song "The Things Our Fathers Loved" at the end.

The Ausfaltung (unfolding) is a central component of Schenker’s theory. Like the Zug and Urlinie, the Ausfaltung symbol—the diagonally beamed symbol also called the “unfolding” or “saw-tooth” symbol—represents a contrapuntal prolongation of a harmony. Conceptions of “unfoldings” are first seen in Schenker’s Harmonielehre (1906); the word “Ausfaltung” is introduced in Der Tonwille 8/9 (1924); the Ausfaltung symbol is introduced in Das Meisterwerk in der Musik 3 (1930). “Unfolding” types coexist, and an “unfolding” lexicon emerges as the result of Schenker’s consistent circulation and intermingling of many “unfolding” words to describe “unfoldings.” To describe the “unfolding” of one voice, i.e., one strand of pitches, Schenker exploits seven “unfolding” types. These types are ranked from general to specific, and progressions of trends are traced. “Unfoldings” have a history of being graphed five different ways, and examples of the most specific “unfolding” type suggest an efficient use of the Ausfaltung symbol. The Ausfaltung symbol is capable of representing a specific motion that participates in the theory’s hierarchical and recursive processes.

A presente tese realiza uma leitura da Teoria Schenkeriana a partir do conceito de organicismo. Trata-se de uma investigação da relação entre uma teoria musical e o conjuntos de imagens e metáforas que a atravessam. Sob esse viés, revisa a obra de Heinrich Schenker, contextualizando-a e refletindo sobre as filosofias nela explícitas e implícitas. Pensa como os conceitos de estrutura e organismo são associados em sua teoria e como essa associação reflete um determinado estado epistemológico em que aspectos românticos e modernos são articulados em uma singular filosofia da música. A partir dessa leitura, realiza um recorte em pesquisas neo-schenkerianas, refletindo sobre as continuidades e contrastes que estabelecem com o ideário da teoria original. Propõe o diálogo de outras imagens orgânicas com esse cenário mais atual. Finalmente, discute a metafísica da Teoria Schenkeriana sob a ótica pós-estruturalista da filosofia de Jacques Derrida.

Chapter in Unmasking Ravel: New Perspectives on the Music, ed. Peter Kaminsky (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2011), 143–179.

To discuss Ravel's dialog with sonata form, this essay (chapter in a multi-author book) provides detailed analyses of the first movements of Ravel's String Quartet and Piano Trio, including structural, motivic, and harmonic features. In the Piano Trio, the motivic and harmonic details are also linked to cyclic aspects of the four-movement cycle. A hermeneutic interpretation of the first movement's form, connecting its thematic and formal characteristics to Basque poetry, suggests possible biographical undercurrents.

A substantial analytical literature has been devoted to Syrinx. The piece’s importance for the flute repertoire as well as its unconventional harmonic language has inspired a wide variety of approaches. Through the lens of Schenkerian theory, this paper provides an alternative reading of the piece. It demonstrates how tonal infiltration affects Syrinx’s harmonic discourse, generating a unique process of directional tonality, in which 1^  in Bb minor eventually becomes 3^  in Gb major. The conclusion shows that the procedure not only defines the harmonic structure of the piece, but also reflects the programmatic content originally intended for it.

Schenker's theory has its roots in the theoretical traditions of the eighteenth century , specifically in species counterpoint and in the practice of thoroughbass: for him, these disciplines formed the basis of the " true theory, as opposed to the " false " theory that was based on nineteenth-century harmony and form. Species counterpoint and thoroughbass did indeed constitute an indispensable theoretical foundation for Schenker's concept of musical structure, but they were not sufficient to explain the nature of tonal music: two other principles were required. The first was Schenker's own theory of harmonic structural degree (Stufen) progression. The second principle was diminution, a technique used in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, consisting of substituting for a melody in long notes a passage of notes of shorter values: in itself, diminution implies a generative process from simple to complex figurations. All four of these elements contributed to the final stage of Schenker's theory as formulated in Der freie Satz: counterpoint and harmony are synthesized in the horizontal (Urli-nie) and vertical (Baßbrechung) components of the Ursatz: the principle of diminution is an essential component of the idea of structural levels, and thoroughbass supplies the basis for many techniques of prolongation. For two of these four constituents of Schenker's mature theory—species counterpoint and general bass—he referred to a specific teaching tradition: Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum and its legacy on one hand, and the thoroughbass treatises, exemplified in C. P. E. Bach's Versuch, on the other

This study will examine the opening sonata-form movements of the piano trios by Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) and Robert Schumann (1810–1856) concentrating on the interaction between analysis and performance. The aim is to consider and explore musical motion from various analytical perspectives – such as formal, structural, metrical, and a more general dramatic aspect – and see how they interact with each other. In addition, these analytical insights are related to the issues of musical ‘shaping’ in performance, and the study examines both how the analytical findings might be reflected in performers’ shaping and, vice versa, how the analytical interpretation might be influenced by the experience gained while rehearsing the works for performance. The practicing process of the piano trio ensemble (with myself at the piano) is documented in an informal rehearsal diary. By capturing the ways in which performers themselves discuss the pieces fresh and new ideas are brought to the analysis and performance studies that traditionally have been dominated by the analysis-to-performance discussion, not the other way round. As a conclusion, the study includes both a more analytical, scholarly viewpoint and an introspective, performance-related viewpoint making the study a mixed method research.

This thesis seeks to contribute towards the emerging discourse in Ravel studies concerning gender, as well as adding to the ongoing work in musical narratology, especially as regards ballet, to which very little narratological attention has been given. Employing a combination of narratological and Schenkerian analysis, this thesis argues that there are significant moments of divergence between the gendered narratives outlined by the libretto and the music in Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé. These ‘meaning gaps’ are freighted with the hermeneutic potential of Riffaterre’s ‘ungrammaticalities’, constituting a ‘guideline to semiosis’. The work is examined as an example of transvaluation, in which the musical score is understood to call into question the gendered cultural values inscribed in the libretto.
Five scenes from the ballet are considered in detail. An examination of the dance contest between Daphnis and Dorcon (Chapter 3) explores isomorphisms between narrative and voice-leading structures, and processes of tonicisation are investigated as instances of transvaluation. This scene is also considered from a broader cultural and historical context, informed by fin-de-siècle constructions of masculinity. The examination of masculinity is developed in an analysis of the ‘War Dance’ (Chapter 4), which also considers the broader significance of the god Pan.
Lyceion’s dance is contextualised as part of the contemporary ‘Salome craze’, and a close analytical reading of the ‘Pantomime’ (Chapter 5) draws out some of the more significant divorces between the narratives of the libretto and the music. Chloe emerges as a narrative subject in her own right, with Daphnis posited as narrative antisubject. Finally (Chapter 6), an analysis of Chloe’s ‘Danse suppliante’ examines the gendered connotations of the waltz. The readings proposed by these analyses suggest an emergent function for the music in Daphnis et Chloé, acting as a counter-discourse to the doxical narrative outlined by the libretto.

Many elements of and reflections on tonality are to be found in Vaughan Williams’s music: tonal centres are established and sustained, consonant triads are pervasive, and sonata form (a structure associated with tonality) is influential in the symphonies. But elements of the tonal system are also challenged: the diatonic scale is modified by modal alterations which affect the hierarchical relation of scale degrees, often consonant triads are not arranged according to the familiar patterns of functional harmony, and the closure of sonata form is compromised by the evasive epilogue ending of many movements and rotational structures. This music is not tonal or atonal, nor does it stand on any historical path between these two thoroughly theorised principles of pitch organisation. With no obvious single theoretical model at hand through which to explore Vaughan Williams’s music, this analysis engages with Schenkerian principles, Neo-Riemannian theory, and the idea of sonata deformation, interpreting selected extracts from various works in detail. Elements of coherence and local unities are proposed, yet disruptions, ambiguities, subversions, and distancing frames all feature at different stages. These are a challenge to the specific principle of organisation in question; sometimes they also raise concerns for the engagement of theory with this repertoire in general. At such points, meta-theoretical issues arise, while the overall focus remains on the analytical understanding of Vaughan Williams’s music. The text of this thesis comprises Volume One, with supporting examples, figures and tables presented in Volume Two.

This article offers a contrapuntal explanation of the “melodic-harmonic divorce,” a feature of pop and rock music discussed most recently by David Temperley (2007). I outline three types of melodic-harmonic divorce: “hierarchy divorce,” “loop divorce,” and “syntax divorce.” Each type gives rise to its own voice-leading interpretation. After discussing the contrapuntal frameworks of these three types, I investigate the rhetorical effect of “loosening” and “tightening” the melodic-harmonic relationship over the course of a rock song, showing that the divorce is not just a structural feature but can have expressive effects as well.

Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony seems to belie traditional notions of symphonic unity in that it progresses from E minor in the first movement to C major in the Finale. The repertoire of eighteenth and nineteenth century composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms indicates that tonal holism is a significant factor for the symphonic genre. In order to reconcile Mahler’s adventurous key scheme, this dissertation explores a multidimensional harmonic model that expands upon other concepts like Robert Bailey’s double-tonic complex and transformation theory. A multidimensional musical object is a nexus of several interconnected chords that occupy the same functional space (tonic, dominant, or subdominant) and can be integrated into a Schenkerian reading. Mahler’s Seventh is governed by a three-dimensional tonic object that encompasses the major and minor versions of C, E, and A-flat and the augmented triad that is formed between them. The nature of this multidimensional harmony allows unusual formal procedures to unfold, most notably in the first movement’s sonata form. To navigate this particular sonata design, I have incorporated my own analytical terminology, the identity narrative, to track the background harmonic events. The location of these events (identity schism, identity crisis, and identity reclamation) is critical to the entire structure of the Seventh.

Many musical compositions from the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century retain some elements of functional tonality but abandon others. Most analytical methods are designed to address either tonal music or atonal music, but no single method completely illuminates this body of extended-tonal music. While both tonal and post-tonal theory have been extended in various ways to address this music, the use of tonal theory for analysis of this repertoire has not been completely formalized. The main obstacle for prolongational views of extended tonality is finding sufficient conditions for establishing that certain harmonies are structural in the absence of traditional harmonic function. In this regard, acoustical measures of stability, motivic connections, and chord equivalence all may form a part in determining the structural harmonies. Prolongational analyses of music may be represented by Schenkerian notation or transformational networks based on Lewin's Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (1987). This study explores a number of specific graphing techniques, including the diatonic lattice (Jones 2002), the just- intonation Tonnetz, and mod-12/mod-7 prolongational networks. After using group theory to explore the relationship of diatonic scale theory and tuning theory to transformational and prolongational analysis, excerpts from Wolf, Wagner, and Ravel are analyzed using mod-7 transformations. In giving support for prolongational analyses of chromatic and neo-tonal music, this study provides a case for tonality-based approaches to post-functional harmony.

This dissertation explores the significance of the Salzerian analytical tradition with respect to both the Western classical and jazz idioms. The first half investigates issues of salience and subjectivity in both intuitionist and formalist approaches to reductive analysis of classical repertoire. I argue that intuitionist analysis in the Salzerian tradition of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century repertoire is both valid and necessary, despite its resistance to systematization and other criticisms that have been raised.

The second half of the study applies these lines of inquiry to jazz. As in the classical idiom, a strict Schenkerian approach to jazz works best when applied to a certain segment of the canon. A less strict approach, and one according increased weight to salience (after Lerdahl), is required to adequately address repertoire falling outside of this limited scope. The value of jazz analysis in the Salzerian tradition is evidenced in part by a transcription and analysis of a complete performance of “Green Chimneys” by the Thelonious Monk Quartet, that which appears on Columbia Records’ 1996 reissue of Straight, No Chaser (1967). This analysis reveals sophisticated large-scale organization, including motivic parallelism operating on all structural levels—that of a complete single-chorus improvisation, a complete multi-chorus improvisation, the solo section taken as a whole, and the composition itself, as well as various lower levels.

As pop-rock music is increasingly incorporated into the undergraduate tonal-harmony classroom, instructors come face to face with some of the fundamental differences between the harmonic idioms of classical and pop-rock styles. This paper suggests a method of chordal identification that can cover both repertories simultaneously without compromising the theoretical views of either group of musicians. Five categories of chordal identity are illustrated using Schumann’s ‘Aus meinen Thränen spriessen’ (song 2 from Dichterliebe) and six pop-rock songs featuring variations on the 12-bar blues cadence. These five types of chordal identity sharpen the explanatory potential of harmonic theory by offering multiple ways of identifying any given sonority and its relationships with other sonorities.

The critical literature on composers and their work is often distinguished by as much unsupported speculation as fact - Mozart is no exception to this and it is particularly in the realm of the significance and influence of key in his work that such a tradition of writing has evolved. The key of G minor has received most attention in this respect. However interesting, subjective interpretation ultimately reveals more about the speculator than the object of speculation; and although usually ventured sincerely it is, in terms of the music itself, of little value from an epistemological standpoint. This study attempts to consider musical aspects of Mozart's G minor, and aims to counter, or at least balance, the subjective interpretations which have obscured this repertory by adopting a more objective and empirical viewpoint. To this end, the G minor music will be studied in terms of several structural and compositional features common to a representative number of pieces - These include the Piano Quartet K. 478, the String Quintet K. 516 and the Symphony K-550, a number of operatic arias, and lesser-known works and movements in G minor. The inquiry is conducted within the general theoretical framework of Schenker's analytical methods. With respect to certain of these characteristics, a provisional evaluation of their predominance or exclusivity is attempted on the basis of comparisons with a representative group of movements in other minor keys. It is concluded that in his last decade Mozart was moving toward a limited, although increasing, stylistic definition of G minor.

This essay is a detailed analysis of the four-voice motet “De Profundis.” This work, formerly attributed to Josquin des Prez, but now believed to be composed by Nicolas Champion, is a setting of the opening verses of Psalm 130. The analysis will first consider the motet’s formal design, its modal structure, and its cadential points. We will then examine the motet’s contrapuntal devices, and its reuse of motivic material. Finally, we will explore its pitch content, both at the surface and at deeper levels of structure. To this end, I have developed a form of reductive analysis based upon (primarily) stepwise connections between perfect vertical intervals (PVIs), intervals that have significance for modal definition in Renaissance style.

After Schenker’s death (Vienna, 1935), the United States established itself as the principal home for Schenkerian training and research. In the first part of this essay, the author explores how Schenkerian theory came to establish its strong roots in the US; how the infrastructure for its dissemination was gradually erected from the late 1920s through the early 1980s. Attention is paid to four important means of transmission: the early advocates, initial institutional homes, receptive journals, and conference presentations. This, in turn, provides a context for better understanding the second part of the essay, in which the author surveys the current state of English-language Schenkerian scholarship. A bibliographic sampler is appended, with over 230 entries organized topically. Comments are provided about the kinds of entries gathered under each division.

The following essay argues that Caplin, Gjerdingen, and Hepokoski and Darcy explicitly and implicitly borrow ideas from the works of Heinrich Schenker while simultaneously relegating Schenkerian concepts, making anti-Schenkerian protests, and opposing certain Schenkerian interpretations in their own work. It also proposes that Schenkerian analysis can be used as a complement to the three aforementioned approaches. The first part demonstrates that Caplin’s terminology and hierarchical conception of musical form invites accompanying Schenkerian graphs. The second part suggests that Schenker, in his 1923 analysis of the first movement of Mozart’s K 545, noticed a schema similar to Gjerdingen’s Prinner. The third part contends that a Schenkerian interpretation of K 545 by Snyder aligns with Hepokoski and Darcy’s Type 2 sonata. The conclusion takes note of recent significant developments in field of Schenkerian studies that promote a healthy engagement with other theories.

This is the largest Schenkerian reference work published to date; it contains 3600 entries (2200 principal, 1400 secondary) representing the work of 1475 authors. It is organized topically: fifteen broad groupings encompass seventy topical headings, many of which are divided and subdivided again, resulting in a total of 271 headings under which entries are collected. Among the more extensive reviews of Topical Guide are the following: • John Ferri, Music Theory Spectrum 29/1 (2007): 135–139; • William Drabkin, Music and Letters 87/4 (2006): 664–666; • William Marvin, Intégral 20 (2006): 131–138.

Expanded use of mixture is a main distinguishing feature that differentiates the mostly diatonic tonal system of the eighteenth century from the chromatic tonal system of the nineteenth century, yet this process is often misunderstood and underemphasized. A clear understanding of mixture and its function is essential to the understanding of chromaticism, its relationship to the diatonic system, and its role in both large and small-scale musical structures. This is not possible without a refined and precise system of terminology to describe and discuss it.
This study suggests refinements in concept and terminology that more clearly distinguishes among various types of mixture and their derivations, and develops a methodology that demonstrates the applicability and usefulness of these refinements. Its goal is to provide a way to be more precise and consistent in discussions of mixture, with the hope that this will lead to a deeper understanding of its role within the chromatic tonal language of the nineteenth century.

This work examines formal organization in ground-bass works. While it is true that many or even most works of the ground-bass repertoire are variation sets over a ground, there also exist many ground-bass works that are not in variation form. The primary goal of this thesis is to elucidate the various ways in which such non-variation formal organizations may be achieved. The first chapter of this work discusses the general properties of ground basses and various ways that individual phrases may be placed in relation to the statements of the ground. The second chapter considers phrases groupings, phrase rhythm, and the larger formal organizations that result. The third chapter concludes this study with complete analyses of Purcell’s “When I am laid in earth” from Dido and Aeneas and Delanade’s “Jerusalem, convertere ad dominum Deum tuum” from his setting of the Leçons de ténèbres.

(Written in Japanese) A report on teaching Schenkerian techniques for the analysis of tonal music, with an example analysis of Robert Schumann's 'Ich grolle nicht' (Dichterliebe Op. 48, Nr. 7). Includes a brief introduction to the music theorist Heinrich Schenker, whose theory is not generally taught in Western music classrooms in Japan and whose writings have only very recently begun to be translated into Japanese.

The slow movement (Andante un poco adagio) of Brahms’s Sonata in F Minor for Piano and Clarinet, op. 120, no. 1, poses two significant challenges for a Schenkerian analysis: (1) pervasive, surface-level rhythmic displacements throughout the A section obscure the relationship between melody and bass; and (2) the B section is organized as a major-thirds cycle, a procedure that has often been regarded as incompatible with the underlying Diatonie of Schenker’s framework. This study develops two plausible interpretations of the ambiguous A section, of which one is selected for its clearer alignment of outer-voice counterpoint with formal function. The B section is analyzed as a ninth-progression, composed-out as a whole-tone scale. The chords of the major-thirds cycle are interpreted as consonant support for certain notes within that scale. In light of this movement’s ethereal quality (and of the nostalgia in much of Brahms’s late music), the juxtapositions of diatonic and chromatic spaces are interpreted in terms of Todesangst, since motives that require particular resolutions in diatonic contexts are relieved of such obligations when they recur in chromatic spaces.

A quarter of a century ago, William Rothstein first spoke of the “Americanization of Heinrich Schenker,” meaning the accommodation that had to be made to bring his ideas into the American academy. The focus of this process has largely been on activities following the Second World War. However, the earliest attempt at Americanizing Schenker seems to have come from an American-born pedagogue who had not studied with Schenker or his pupils: George A. Wedge, a theory instructor at New York’s Institute of Musical Art (a precursor to The Juilliard School). He started teaching something about Schenker in his classrooms as early as 1925, incorporated some of Schenker’s concepts into a popular harmony textbook in 1930–31, and subsequently distilled some of these ideas for the musical layperson, as part of a “middlebrow” or “appreciation” agenda that he and Olga Samaroff Stokowski advanced in books and at the Juilliard Summer School. Thus, Schenker’s route to Americanization took some previously unrecognized and “home-grown” turns along the way to the process outlined by Rothstein.
    In this essay, I document and contextualize Wedge’s activities in five principal sections. First, I present details about his career, and investigate how he came to encounter Schenker’s ideas. Second, I explore his writings in order to discern their Schenkerian influences (which must be filtered from related elements of American pedagogy). Third, I consider Wedge’s (and Samaroff’s) pedagogical agenda of the 1930s, which involved bringing musical education to a mass audience. Fourth, I contemplate how Wedge’s work was a portent of the “Americanized” Schenker pedagogy that developed in later years. Fifth and finally, I demonstrate how—even beyond Wedge—the Institute of Musical Art became a conduit for learning about Schenker, especially between 1925 and 1936/37, and I argue that its name should be added to the list of early institutions in New York at which Schenkerian ideas were communicated.