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Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz since Music Theory in Concept and Practice
1945: Essays and Analytical Studies Edited by James M. Baker, David W.
Edited by Elizabeth West Marvin Beach, and Jonathan W. Bernard
and Richard Hermann
The Pleasure of Modernist Music:
Elliott Carter: Collected Essays and Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology
Lectures, 19371995 Edited by Arved Ashby
Edited by Jonathan W. Bernard
Schumanns Piano Cycles and the
Historical Musicology: Sources, Novels of Jean Paul
Methods, Interpretations Erika Reiman
Edited by Stephen A. Crist and
Roberta Montemorra Marvin The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqu
Paul Griffiths
Music and Musicians in the Escorial
Liturgy under the Habsburgs, Theories of Fugue from the Age of Josquin
15631700 to the Age of Bach
Michael Noone Paul Mark Walker
Matthew Brown
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Figures vii
Preface xiii
Notes 239
Bibliography 267
Index 281
Figures
Few terms in music theory are more profound and more enigmatic
than tonality. First coined by Alexandre-tienne Choron in his
Sommaire de lhistoire de la musique (1810), it was popularized
by Franois-Joseph Ftis in the 1830s and 1840s and has subse-
quently remained an essential part of theoretical discourse. Choron
originally used the term to denote music in which notes are related
functionally to a particular tonic, the tonic triad. This particular
brand of tonality is often known as functional tonality and is char-
acteristic of works written by composers such as Handel, J. S. Bach,
Scarlatti, C. P. E. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert,
Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Brahms. But, as Chorons
term has gained currency, so it has expanded its meaning consider-
ably. Nowadays, the term is often used in a very general sense to
denote any music that focuses melodically and/or harmonically on
some stable pitch or tonic. This definition covers a broad range of
music from many cultures and many time periods, from Medieval
plain chant to various twentieth-century idioms.
Of the many attempts to explain the nature of functional
tonality, perhaps the most comprehensive was undertaken by
Heinrich Schenker (18681935).1 In his monumental triptych,
Neue musikalischen Theorien und Phantasien, he systematically inves-
tigated the ways in which lines and chords behave in functional
tonal contexts. In the first volume, Harmonielehre (1906), he
explained how functional harmonies (or Stufen) are organized into
progressions (or Stufengang).2 In the second volume, Kontrapunkt
(1910, 1922), he explained the basic properties of tonal voice lead-
ing (or Stimmfhrung).3 And in the final volume, Der freie Satz
(1935), Schenker showed how the principles outlined in the
Harmonielehre and Kontrapunkt operate recursively across entire
monotonal compositions.4
But what sorts of relationships did Schenker count as tonal or,
to be more precise, functionally monotonal? Why do these rela-
tionships work in some ways and not others? Why should we prefer
Schenkers theory of functional monotonality to its competitors?
xiv Preface
Cambridge University Press, for permission to use materials from the English
translation of Schenkers Das Meisterwerk in der Musik: (The Masterwork
in Music, ed. William Drabkin, trans. I. Bent, R. Kramer, J. Rothgeb, and
H. Siegel), vols. 1 and 2, 1994, 1996.
MIT Press, for permission to use the figure showing the derivation of J. S. Bachs
Prelude in C Major, WTC 1, from Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Gen-
erative Theory of Tonal Music, 1983.
John Rothgeb, for permission to use materials from his edition/translation of
Schenkers Kontrapunkt I & II (Counterpoint I and II, ed. John Rothgeb,
trans. John Rothgeb and Jrgen Thym, 2 vols., [New York, Schirmer, 1987]).
Universal Edition, for permission to use materials from Schenkers Harmonielehre
(1906) and from Schenkers Der freie Satz (1935), copyright Universal
Edition A.G. Vienna.
Introduction
the climax to the cadence (figure I.2e). Sixth, fill in any details and
check to see that the melody has a good overall shape and satisfies
any general laws of tonal voice leading, for example, that leading
tones normally ascend by half step onto the tonic (figure I.2f).
The preceding discussion has highlighted the central role con-
cepts, laws, and procedures have traditionally played in tonal theory,
but it is important to realize that these components are a lot more
difficult to deal with than we might initially suppose. Take, for
example, concepts. While it is certainly possible to find necessary
and sufficient conditions for many concepts, cognitive scientists
have found that certain concepts cannot be defined in this manner.
Instead, they tend to define such concepts by appealing to the
notion of prototypes.3 As Alvin Goldman explains:
Concepts are represented in terms of properties that need not be strictly
necessary but are frequently present in instances of the concept. These
6 Explaining Tonality
is unclear not only how to ensure that they are relevant in any given
context, but also that they can be used to support all law-like gener-
alizations.
It is also debatable whether law-like generalizations are always
necessary and sufficient for explanations. Certainly, many experts
believe that scientific research is fundamentally law seeking or nomo-
thetic.11 This prompted Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim to
advance The Covering-Law Model of explanation.12 According to
them, explanations are arguments in which the premises are sets of
covering laws and initial conditions, and the conclusion is some
statement about the phenomena to be explained (see figure I.5,
The Covering-Law Model). If the laws are universal and the argu-
ments are deductively valid, then the result fits The Deductive-
Nomological Model, and if the laws are not universal and the
arguments are only inductively valid, then they conform to The
Inductive-Statistical Model. Figure I.6 (Explaining suspensions)
illustrates what Hempel and Oppenheim had in mind. Suppose, for
example, that we want to explain why a particular suspension C
resolves by step to B (see figure I.6a). We might do so by invoking a
simple law of tonal voice leading: namely, that suspensions normally
resolve down by step onto consonances (see figure I.6b). Given the
initial conditions that the seventh CD on the down beat of m. 2 is
dissonant and that the dissonance is a suspension, this law-like gen-
eralization allows us to deduce that the dissonant tone C on the
down beat of m. 2 will resolve down by step onto the consonant
tone B in m. 2. This is a perfectly acceptable explanation.
Although The Covering-Law Model certainly produces
acceptable explanations, it is unclear whether covering laws are
absolutely necessary for all plausible explanations. In particular,
Theoretical and Meta-Theoretical Issues 9
b. c.
Initial The seventh C-D on the down The sixth B-D on the weak
Conditions beat of m. 2 is dissonant beat of m. 2 is consonant
c. Displace the first note of the upper voice over the second note of the lower voice to cre-
ate a 76 suspension.
true predictions.25 He suggests that this property is the only one that
allows us to project what will happen in the future. Tonality is just
such a predicate; it is a trait that we naturally project from past
observation to future expectation. Gronality is not, however,
because we have no reason to suppose that Burt Bacharach wrote
music that can been classified as tonal at one point in time and
atonal at some later date.26
The Grue Paradox leads to a more general problem in confir-
mation; even if we agree on the same body of evidence, there is no
reason to suppose that this data can be explained by only one
theory; as we have seen, we can always invent new predicates, such
as grue-ness or gronality, that capture some aspect of the piece.
This means that, in principle at least, the evidence always underde-
termines theories; there are always a variety of theories that will
accommodate any given set of data. Pierre Duhem and W. V. Quine
have gone even further to claim that, taken on its own, a particular
piece of experimental evidence is seldom used to falsify an entire
theory, because each element of the theory is somehow related to
another element in the theory. As Quine puts it, our statements
about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not
individually but only as a corporate body.27 In other words, any
seemingly disconfirming observational evidence can always be
accommodated to any theory.28 This claim is usually known as
The Duhem-Quine Thesis.
Although extremely controversial, The Duhem-Quine Thesis
is significant because it threatens to undermine the most famous
alternative to H-D. Given the many paradoxes of confirmation,
Karl Popper and others have suggested that, instead of defending
their theories by finding more and more supporting evidence,
scientists should actually spend their time trying to show that some
hypotheses are false.29 In this sense, the guiding principle of test-
ability is not confirmation but falsification. The rationale behind
Poppers thinking is simple enough and is apparent from the argu-
ments given in figure I.9 (The logic of falsification). According to
Popper, H-D seems to follow the plan given in figure I.9a. Let us
assume that, if a particular explanation E is valid, then it will make
a given prediction P. When researchers test this prediction and find
that it is indeed accurate, they regard this as confirmation of their
16 Explaining Tonality
sailors rely on the remaining timbers to keep the craft afloat. But
as one leak is patched so another appears; bit-by-bit the boat
becomes transformed into something new. In fixing the leaks,
music theorists typically try to balance what Quine has described
as the drive for evidence and the drive for system.36 According
to him, the former demands that theoretical terms should be sub-
ject to observable criteria, the more the better, the more directly
the better, other things being equal while the latter insists that
these terms should lend themselves to systematic laws, the sim-
pler the better, other things being equal. Quine adds, If either of
these drives were unchecked by the other, it would issue in some-
thing unworthy of the name scientific theory: in the one case a
mere record of observations, and on the other a myth without
foundation.37
Evidence System
Accuracy Consistency
Scope Simplicity
Fruitfulness Coherence
thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle and then thin
again at the far end, this account is so general that it is trivial. The
notion of Theory Reduction has likewise been questioned. While
there are certainly situations in which the model seems to apply, it
does not explain every option. Kuhn, for example, has suggested
that explanatory scope can expand through conceptual innovations
or paradigm shifts, rather than the addition of new laws or the
reduction of one theory into another.46 To overcome these difficul-
ties Philip Kitcher and others have advocated the notion of Theo-
retical Unification. According to Kitcher, the success of theories
depends on minimizing the number or patterns of derivation
employed and maximizing the number of conclusions generated.47
When evaluating the success of our theories, we do not simply
want to keep duplicating results in familiar pieces; we also want to
use our concepts, laws, and procedures to predict how things will
behave in other, perhaps novel, works and disclose new phenomena
or previously unnoted relationships among those already known.48
To do this, we must be able to predict every consequence and not
merely a smattering of special cases.49 This idea represents the third
criterion in figure I.10, namely fruitfulness. Very simply, given two
theories of functional monotonality, we prefer the one that makes
the more fruitful predictions, other things being equal. According
to Kuhn, the criterion of fruitfulness deserves more emphasis than
it has yet received.50 Just as it is hard to measure the accuracy of
rival theories, it is also difficult to assess their fruitfulness, especially
if the theories draw on widely different bodies of empirical data.
This issue is troubling because successful theories often evolve
considerably over time; it may take a long while for theorists to
appreciate just how fruitful a theory may be and even longer to con-
sider all of its ramifications. As a result, fruitfulness may not play a
significant role when a theory is originally presented to the world
but will become more significant as that theory matures.
Whereas our first three criteria concern the drive for evidence,
our fourth criterion concerns the drive for system. When formulat-
ing a music theory, we will want it to be as internally consistent as
possible, other things being equal. Inconsistencies are bad because
they prevent us from making concrete predictions; if we cannot
make concrete predictions, then we cannot subject our work to
22 Explaining Tonality
b. Interval content.
U m2 M2 m3 M3 P4 A4 P5 m6 M6 m7 M7 P8 Total
Melody 1 2 5 1 1 1 10
Melody 2 2 3 2 1 1 9
Melody 3 1 5 2 2 1 11
Melody 4 1 4 2 3 3 13
Melody 5 4 4 2 1 11
Melody 6 3 4 2 1 1 11
Schenker and the Quest for Accuracy 31
Figure 1.4. Prototypical counterpoints in Fifth Species. From Fux, The Study of
Counterpoint, Figs. 82 and 87.
Figure 1.7. First Species in three voices. From Fux, The Study of Counterpoint,
Figs. 104, 105, 106.
38 Explaining Tonality
Three-voice cadences.
321 and 171 are completely invertible at the octave, 543 is partially invertible at
the octave (never in bass), and 151 is never invertible at the octave (only in bass).
Four-voice cadences.
321 and 171 are completely invertible at the octave, 5 4 3 is partially invertible
at the octave (never in bass), and 151 is never invertible at the octave (only in bass).
Figure 1.9. Parallel and direct perfect octaves and fifths in two, three and four
voices. From Fux, The Study of Counterpoint, Figs. 29, 27, 28, 120, 173.
Reordering of diminutions.
c. First Species.
d. Third Species.
e. Tonal Counterpoint.
Major Minor
o o
a. Diatonic |I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii | i, II, ii , III, iv, v, VI, VII| b. Diatonic
c. Secondary |I, II, III, IV, V, VI, vii, VII | i, ii, iio, iii, iv, v, vi, vii | d. Secondary
i vii/II, ii/vii
ii vii/II, iio/vii
iii vii/III, ii/ii
iii vii/IV, ii/ii
iv vii/IV(V), ii/iii
iv/v vii/V, ii/iii
iv/v iv/II, iii/II, iii/III, ii/III, ii/IV, vii/V, vii/VI, vi/VI, vi/VII, v/VII
IV/V IV/II, III/II, III/III, II/III, II/IV, VII/V, VII/VI, VI/VI, VI/VII, V/VII
v vii/VI, ii/iv
vi vii/VI, ii/iv(v)
vi vii/VII, ii/v
vii vii/VII, ii/vi
If a cantus firmus moves from one note to LM If a melody moves from one note to
another, then successive notes are usually another, then successive notes are
a whole- or a half-step apart and never usually a step apart.
repeat the same note.
If leaps do occur, then they are never LS If leaps occur, then they do so
larger than an octave and never when the melody shifts from one
encompass diminished/augmented harmonic tone to another or from
intervals or the interval of a seventh. one contrapuntal voice to another.
b. Bach, Partita No. 1 for Solo Violin, BWV 1002, Sarabande: Double, mm. 18.
b. Accented and unaccented passing tones. Cherubini, Missa Solemnis in D Minor, Kyrie
2, mm. 7073. From Schenker ed., Brahms Octaven und Quinten, Ex. 55.
c. Simultaneous neighbor tones. Mozart, Cosi fan tutti, Act 2, No. 19, m. 22. From
Schenker ed., Brahms Octaven und Quinten, Ex. 53.
If the counterpoint moves from one LM If the contrapuntal lines move from
note to another, then each note is one note to another, then each
normally consonant with the cantus verticality is basically triadic.
firmus.
But by the time Schenker completed Der freie Satz, he had softened
his position; in par. 66 he claimed that the dissonance appears
only as a passing tone or as a syncopation, and in par. 10612 he
included neighbor motion as an independent transformation.37
Now he simply claimed that the traversal of the Urlinie is the most
basic of all passing motions.38
Given that non-harmonic tones arise from step motion between
harmonic tones, how do we explain cambiatas, appoggiaturas, chang-
ing notes, and other leaping dissonances? Once again, Schenkerian
theory offers two types of explanation. The first relies on implied
tones. In figure 1.20a (Chopins Mazurka, Op. 30, no. 4, mm.
12930), Schenker explained in his graph the string of parallel sev-
enth chords by invoking implied suspensions.39 The second explana-
tion treats leaping dissonances as byproducts of motion between
polyphonic voices. We can see how this might work in figure 1.20b.
Here the nota cambiata is explained in terms of an implied motion to
an inner voice: the alto voice passes BCD, while the soprano
temporarily moves down through D to hit the alto C.
Schenkerian theory uses much the same strategy to explain the
behavior of consecutive non-harmonic tones. Although such
things rarely occur in strict counterpoint, they are a dime a dozen
in tonal composition. As John Rothgeb has pointed out, The lin-
ear progression is but an extension of the basic passing-tone con-
cept of second species counterpoint in that it allows for passing
motions within larger intervals than a third.40 Sometimes, how-
ever, consecutive non-harmonic tones arise from motion between
different polyphonic voices. For example, a double neighbor tone
CBDC might be derived from flipping between the soprano and
alto voices: in this case, the B might belong to the alto line,
whereas the D might belong to the soprano.
Rothgeb cites a more extreme example from Schenkers unpub-
lished Generalbasslehre that seems to contain adjacent seventh
chords (see figure 1.21, Consecutive seventh chords). According to
Schenker, this passage, basically reduces to an 87 motion [above
a stationary bass]; but the passing tone [A] in the bass disguises this
54 Explaining Tonality
Figure 1.23. Beethoven, Piano Sonata, Op. 81a, 1st movement, mm. 23042.
From Schenker, Harmonielehre, Ex. 132.
If a triad appears, then it always has the LS If a triad appears, then it has the
root and the third, with any member in root and the third, with only these
the bass (inversional equivalence). members in the bass.
If the triad doubles notes, then it S If the triad doubles notes, then it
normally doubles the root, then the normally doubles the root, then
fifth, then the third, but not 7. the fifth, then the third, but not 7 .
way. But what about the II Stufe in figure 1.25d? This one seems to
be derived from the upcoming dominant rather than from the pre-
ceding tonic.54 The same can also be said of the D-major Stufe given
in figure 1.25e. In other words, figure 1.25 indicates that different
predominant chords may serve the same function, even though
they may be generated in quite different ways. Schenkerian deriva-
tions are simply more accurate than functional explanations.55
Assuming that Schenkers seven Stufen cannot be reduced to
three functional categories, how can we explain the behavior of har-
monic progressions? The answer is, in fact, surprisingly easy; accord-
ing to Schenker, they arise from the process of composing out:
As a consequence of voice-leading constraint[s], all those individual har-
monies that arise from the progression of the various voices are forced to
move forward. All the transient harmonies which appear in the course of a
work have their source in the necessities of voice-leading [par. 178, 180].56
Figure 1.28. Rectification of Phrygian II. Adapted from Schenker, Five graphic
Analyses, No. 5, Chopin, tude in C Minor, Op. 10, no. 12.
Quine adds that it is the tension between the scientists laws and his
own breaches of them that powers the engines of science and makes
it forge ahead.67 Given that Schenker left us with an empirically
testable theory of functional monotonality, our next job is to find the
anomalies that it surely contains; if we are able to fix them up, then
we can keep the engines of music theory firing on all cylinders.
2
Conceptual Origins
As mentioned above, Schenkers thinking about functional tonality
is dominated by the basic idea that complex tonal progressions can
be explained as transformations of simple tonal prototypes. For him,
68 Explaining Tonality
Figure 2.2. The non-recursive nature of Fuxian species counterpoint. From Fux,
The Study of Counterpoint, Figs. 11, 36, 57, 76.
of the same issues arise in mm. 45 of figure 2.2c. But the problems
are even more acute in figure 2.2d. Here, the string of suspensions is
created by displacing the counterpoint over the cantus firmus. If we
try to normalize this displacement, then the resulting First Species
prototype consistently violates the law prohibiting parallel perfect
fifths (c.f., mm. 37).
Whatever their similarities, it seems that Fuxs concept of
species counterpoint and Schenkers system of prototypes, transfor-
mations, and levels have quite different goals. Whereas Fux used
his cantus firmi to illustrate a well-composed melody in each mode,
Schenker used his prototypes to explain the general principles of
72 Explaining Tonality
Prototypes
For anyone concerned with the explanatory scope of Schenkerian
theory, it is important to reconsider the various covering laws
mentioned in chapter 1. In very general terms, these laws cover six
areas: 1) how individual lines move and reach closure; 2) how
polyphonic lines move in relation to one another; 3) how unstable
tones behave in relation to stable tones; 4) how stable harmonies
are distinguished from unstable harmonies; 5) how successive har-
monies are arranged to create typical functional progressions; and
6) how chromatic harmonies arise in functional tonal contexts. As
such, these laws seem to be necessary and sufficient for explaining
tonal relations. Within each domain, we classified these laws in
several ways. On the one hand, we distinguished main laws from
subordinate laws: the former explain how melodies normatively
behave, whereas the latter explain significant exceptions to that
norm. On the other hand, we distinguished local laws from global
laws; the former explain how one note moves to the next, whereas
the latter explain how the melody moves as a whole.
The great advantage of classifying the covering laws in this way
is that it allows us to structure our knowledge about tonal music; this
structure becomes very important when we reformulate our laws as
prototypes, transformations, and levels. As we saw in chapter 1,
Schenker believed that, locally, melodies mainly move by step and,
globally, they are maximally closed if they begin on 8, 5 , or 3 and
end 2 1. Similarly, he acknowledged that contrapuntal lines tend to
move in contrary motion or in parallel thirds, sixths, and tenths and
Semper idem sed non eodem modo 73
Figure 2.3. Schenkerian Urstze in C Major. Adapted from Schenker, Der freie
Satz, Figs. 9, 10, 11.
74 Explaining Tonality
Transformations
So far, we have seen that Schenkers prototypes summarize the main
laws of tonal voice leading and harmony in an optimally compact
way. They are the simplest possible expressions of a given key. But
we also know from chapter 1 that these particular laws do not
explain every aspect of functional tonality; on the contrary, we also
introduced a number of subordinate laws to cover deviations from
these norms. Among other things, these exceptions allow us to
explain why leaps can occur in melodic lines, why melodic lines can
contain a whole host of dissonances and not just the simple passing
tone, why functional progressions can include harmonies other
than I and V, and why these progressions can contain a variety of
Semper idem sed non eodem modo 77
voices (see figure 2.4f). Here the soprano E in the first Stufe
becomes the alto E in the second Stufe, while the alto C in the first
Stufe becomes the soprano C in the second. The final transforma-
tion, reaching over (bergreifen), seems to combine unfolding and
voice exchange; as shown in figure 2.4g, the soprano and alto E/C
of the first tonic Stufe are horizontalized, and then the soprano
E connects with the alto D of the second Stufe and the alto C
connects with the soprano F of the second Stufe.
Semper idem sed non eodem modo 79
or reorders tones that have already been generated (see figure 2.7a,
Reordering transformations). These new transformations cannot
normally be used recursively, though they can be used at early
stages in the generative process. The first of these is known as
deletion. Schenker clearly believed that the effect of a particular
tone can sometimes be felt, even though this tone is not actually
present in the score (see figure 2.7b). He described these virtual or
deleted tones under the rubric of substitution (Vertretung); this
more general idea suggests that particular notes do not behave
exactly as they appear and can therefore by replaced by other
notes. Schenker normally placed such implied notes in parenthe-
ses in his graphs.25 The second transformation is displacement and
it shifts tones from one point to another (see figure 2.7c).26
Schenker referred to these tones as displaced or inauthentic inter-
vals (Die uneigentliche Intervalle) and notated them with a diagonal
line. As we noted in chapter 1, displacements can be applied to
non-harmonic, as well as harmonic tones.
Now that we have surveyed Schenkers list of transformations,
we are still left with a couple of nagging questions: why, in fact,
should we suppose that this list is complete and why should we
suppose that this list of transformations is powerful enough to
generate all and only all tonal pieces? In answering these questions,
it is important to remember that Schenkers transformations are
intimately related to the subordinate laws of tonal voice leading
and harmony outlined in chapter 1; the list of transformations is
Semper idem sed non eodem modo 83
Levels
Besides proposing that any complex tonal surface can be explained
as a composing out of some simple progression, The Recursive
Model also presumes that whenever a given progression is
expanded by the recursive application of a given transformation,
the resulting progression conforms to the same laws of voice lead-
ing and harmony as the starting progression. To quote from Der freie
Satz, The principles of voice-leading, organically anchored, remain
the same in background, middleground, and foreground, even when
they undergo transformations. In them the motto of my work is
embodied, semper idem sed non eodem modo.28 According to our
classification of laws given in chapter 1, it is only the local laws
that are preserved from one level to the next: these local laws guar-
antee that melodic motion will mostly move by step, that contra-
puntal lines will not include parallel perfect octaves or fifths
between successive harmonic tones, that harmonic progressions
will mostly be triadic, diatonic, and follow the basic law of har-
monic closure. It is important to mention, however, that Schenker
84 Explaining Tonality
any parallel perfect octaves and fifths, and it contains lines that
converge on the tonic 7 1 and 2 1 .
Although figure 2.8 illustrates several distinct stages of transfor-
mation, it marks a significant point in the generative process.
Schenker referred to this stage as the deep, or first-level, middle-
ground. In part 2 of Der freie Satz, Schenker cataloged a broad range
of deep-middleground paradigms.29 These are listed in figure 2.9
(Schenkers deep-middleground paradigms). Looking through these
paradigms, it soon becomes clear that the main feature of this level
is to fill in the tone space created by the first two notes of the bass
arpeggiation. For Schenker, the most basic motion involves hori-
zontalizing the opening tonic Stufe to produce the progression
II6VI or IIIIVI, the latter giving rise to what he referred to as
a Terzteiler (third divider).30 But Schenker also supposed that the
Semper idem sed non eodem modo 87
that it is even the basis of the extended form of the sonata, with
exposition, development, and recapitulation.36
Provocative as they may be, divisions of the upper line do,
however, raise an interesting question: how, in fact, do divided
lines derive from prototypes? Unfortunately, Schenker gave incon-
sistent answers to this question.37 On certain occasions, he seems
to suggest that the first 2/V belongs to the prototype and that the
subsequent IV progression is front-related to the final I. This
interpretation seems to conform with graphs published in Der freie
Satz, especially figures 21, 2328, 32.7, and 3335. At other times,
however, he intimated that the final 2/V belongs to the prototype.
This alternative implies that the dividing dominant is back-
related to the opening I. Such a view seems more consistent with
the analyses presented in Fnf Urlinie-Tafeln, such as his sketch of
Bachs setting of the chorale Ich bins, ich sollte bssen from the
St. Matthew Passion.
If we accept the claim that prototypes summarize the main laws
of tonal voice leading and harmony, then the latter response seems
preferable to the former. In particular, we know that one of the
main goals of the prototype is to explain why a given piece closes in
the tonic. It is for this reason that the upper line descends 2 1, the
alto line ascends 7 1, and the bass descends VI. Unfortunately,
the front-related prolongation of the final I advocated by Schenker
in Der freie Satz seems to obscure the connection between the back-
ground dominant and the final tonic. Figure 2.11 (Derivation of
divided Urlinien) shows how we might derive a divided upper line
in the manner implied by his sketch of the Bach Chorale Ich bins,
ich sollte bssen. First, the headtone is repeated; second, the open-
ing repeated tone is harmonized with a tonic Stufe; third, this
derived tonic is arpeggiated in the bass; and, fourth, the new bass
tone G is harmonized with a new dominant Stufe.
Besides adding intermediate Stufen and divisions of the upper
line, the deep middleground is also the source of other transforma-
tions, though they appear at a slightly later stage of generation. For
example, Schenker allowed the headtone to be composed out by
preceding or front-related material, provided this material ascends
onto the headnote. He referred to this as a preliminary ascent
(Anstieg). Such ascents can derive from an ascending register
90 Explaining Tonality
Fallout
The preceding sections have shown that, according to Schenkerian
theory, any complete, continuous, functional monotonal piece can
be generated from a single prototype by the recursive application of
certain transformations. As shown in figure 2.12 (The explanatory
scope of Schenkerian theory), this idea expands the scope of tradi-
tional tonal theory not only by showing how line and chord interact
with one another, but also how they do so both locally and globally.
However, given the complexity of most functional monotonal
pieces, we have every reason to suppose that there may be more
than one way to derive a particular surface from a given prototype,
provided that each derivational scheme follows the prescribed laws.
In practice, however, it is clear that Schenker endorsed some deriva-
tions and not others. Our next job is to find suitable criteria for mak-
ing such a choice. Why, in fact, are some readings deemed preferable
to others?
Unfortunately, this question is not an easy one to answer.
Certainly, there is no magic formula. When pressed, Schenker
92 Explaining Tonality
and his disciples generally throw their hands in the air and insist
that analysis is a creative not a scientific activity; they vehe-
mently deny that it can be reduced to any sort of algorithm.42 Yet,
in actuality, Schenker did leave us with a few tantalizing clues. In
particular, his sketches show that he put a premium on analyses in
which the same patterns of derivation appear not only at the same
level of transformation, but also between different levels. This
point was clearly made by Milton Babbitt some forty years ago:
95
96 Explaining Tonality
This chapter has shown just how important The Recursive Model
and The Global Paradigm were to Schenkers thinking. Accord-
ing to The Recursive Model, Schenkerian transformations can
generate an almost limitless range of tonal surfaces when they are
recursively applied to their own output. Since the prototypes and
Semper idem sed non eodem modo 97
In this study, the beginning artist learns that tones, organized in such and
such a way, produce one particular effect and none other, whether he wishes
it or not. One can predict this effect: it must follow. Thus tones cannot pro-
duce any desired effect just because of the wish of the individual who sets
them, for nobody has the power over tones in the sense that he is able to
demand from them something contrary to their nature. Even tones must do
what they do.3
Sequences Reconsidered
To shed light on the nature of sequences, we will begin by looking
at some familiar patterns, starting with the one in figure 3.2 (A typ-
ical ascending-fifth sequence). This particular phrase has two main
components: a sequence and a cadence. The former consists of pairs
of fifth-related harmonies that are transposed down a third: CG,
104 Explaining Tonality
Next, figure 3.9d repeats each new member of the alto and tenor
voice; it also displaces them so as to create the pattern
3434343. Finally, in figure 3.9e, this pattern is then harmo-
nized by alternating root and first inversion triads. As in figure 3.5,
a few chromaticisms have been added; these allow us to treat the
6/3 sonorities as applied dominants.
113
Next, the soprano part is elaborated with escape tones (see figure
3.10b) and the resulting line is harmonized by a string of parallel
thirds (see figure 3.10c). Figure 3.10d then harmonizes the soprano
and alto lines exclusively with root chords. Again, this harmoni-
zation is the only one possible. Although the third A/F in m. 2
belongs to triads on D and F, the former is impossible because it pro-
duces parallel perfect octaves and fifths with the opening tonic
chord. Similarly, when the third A/F leaps to F/D, the latter can be
harmonized only by a triad on B because a triad on D creates paral-
lel perfect octaves and fifths with the preceding F harmony. Notice
how the D harmony II serves as a pre-dominant at the cadence.
Figure 3.11 follows the same strategy, though the double mixture is
created by changing the quality of the triads on B, E, and A from
major to minor.
To sum up, figures 3.33.11 resolve the problems of generating
sequences in two quite different ways. On the one hand, they
overcome the The Top-Down/Bottom-Up Problem by deriving
sequences within the context of a phrase. This move guarantees
that the goal of the sequence is always specified before its surface
features are completely worked out. On the other hand, figures
3.33.11 sidestep The Parallel Problem by deriving the sequence
from parallel motion in the upper voices and not necessarily from
the counterpoint between the outer voices. Not only does this
approach contrast with most conventional accounts of sequences,
but it also confirms the notion that sequences are basically contra-
puntal, rather than harmonic in nature. Indeed, by showing that
the bass motion is ultimately controlled by the upper-voice coun-
terpoint, figures 3.33.11 also imply that harmonic function in a
Riemannian sense emerges from contrapuntal motion. This point is
evident both inside the sequence, where functionally related har-
monies derive from parallel step motion, and at the cadence, where
the penultimate dominant chord converges on the final tonic, with
the soprano descending 2 1, the alto ascending 7 1, and the pre-
dominant chord converges on the dominant chord, with 4 and 6
both moving to 5. These derivations even suggest that interesting
connections can be found between sequences and pedals. But this
contrapuntal view of the sequence begs its own set of questions: to
what extent can we find precursors of sequences in traditional
What Price Consistency? 117
Figure 3.13. Typical two-voice counterpoint in First Species. From Fux, The
Study of Counterpoint, Fig. 22.
What Price Consistency? 119
Figure 3.14. Typical two-voice counterpoints in Fourth Species. From Fux, The
Study of Counterpoint, Figs. 73, 74.
Figure 3.15. Fuxs three-voice prototypes. From Fux, The Study of Counterpoint,
Figs. 91, 92.
Figure 3.16. Typical three-voice counterpoints in Fourth Species. From Fux, The
Study of Counterpoint, Figs. 141, 142.
What Price Consistency? 121
Figure 3.17. Parallel motion in mixed species with three and four voices.
a. From Fux, The Study of Counterpoint, Fig. 204.
Figure 3.18. Parallel linear progressions within a single Stufe. From Schenker,
Der freie Satz, Fig. 97.2.
each other.15 This crucial idea fits with our observation that the
soprano and alto parts in figure 3.3 make contrapuntal sense in
their own right.
Matters become more complex when Schenker shifted his
attention from the purely intervallic world of strict counterpoint to
the triadic world of functional monotonality. Now the stepwise par-
allel strings are constrained by the underlying harmonic motion of
the music. Schenker took up this particular issue with a vengeance
in his discussion of parallel linear progression in par. 22426 of Der
freie Satz.16 In fact, these paragraphs appear in a general discussion
of the various ways in which two or more linear progressions can be
combined (par. 22129); they mention sequences only in passing.17
The main thrust of Schenkers argument is clear: when two or more
linear progressions are combined, one is primary (or leading) and
the others are secondary. To prioritize one linear progression over
another, Schenker insisted that each progression must be evaluated
according to the order in which it is generated from the back-
ground.18 This is readily apparent from figure 3.18 (Parallel linear
progressions within a single Stufe). Here Schenker sketched a short
passage from the third movement of Mozarts Piano Sonata in A
Minor, K. 310. He suggested that the soprano voice leads and the
alto follows, and that both voices move over a pedal A. Given the
essential role that Urlinien play in generating the melodic profile of
a piece, leading progressions are frequently found in the soprano
voice. But, as Schenker was quick to point out, they need not
be confined to this register: once one has decided whether the
leading linear progression is in the lower or in the upper voice, one
must understand the counterpointing progressions as upper or
124 Explaining Tonality
Analytical Implications
Having solved The Parallel Problem and The Top-Down/Bottom-
Up Problem and grounded these solutions in contrapuntal princi-
ples and combined linear progressions, let us now consider some
analytical implications. We will try to show how particular sequen-
tial patterns can be derived within the context of specific pieces. A
good place to start is with Bachs Little Prelude in C Major, BWV
924. This short through-composed prelude contains two sequences
and a dominant pedal. The first sequence appears in mm. 13 and
consists of the pattern CG, DA, E in the bass. This pattern leads
to a second sequence in mm. 36 that descends ABC; EF
GA; CDEF. The long dominant pedal in mm. 717 eventually
resolves onto a tonic chord at the final cadence in m. 18.
Schenker himself analyzed this prelude on at least two occa-
sions: in Der Tonwille 4 (1923) and again in Der freie Satz.23 His
feadings are conflated in figure 3.20 (Schenkers analysis of Bachs
Little Prelude in C Major, BWV 924). In Der freie Satz, Schenkers
main insight was to suggest that the Urlinie is composed out at the
deep middleground by a pair of unfoldings EC and BD (see figure
3.20ab).24 He suggested that the unfolding EC is inverted contra-
puntally to create an upper sixth and that this interval is filled to
create a sixth progression EFGABC. This sixth progression is
then split into two segments, EFG and ABC, with the latter
segment transferred down an octave (see figure 3.20c).25 In Der freie
Satz and Der Tonwille, Schenker derived the first sequence from the
127
Figure 3.20. Schenkers analysis of Bachs Little Prelude in C Major, BWV 924.
Adapted from Schenker, Der Tonwille, vol. 4, and Der freie Satz, Fig. 43.b.
128 Explaining Tonality
Figure 3.21. Alternative analysis of Bachs Little Prelude in C Major, BWV 924.
130 Explaining Tonality
the soprano and bass. According to Schenker, the main body of the
sequence, mm. 511, is generated from a string of descending 76
sequences, akin to those found in Fourth Species textures like the
one cited in figure 3.14a. His view of the prototypical voice leading
is given here as figure 3.22c. Notice how Schenker suggested how
the line might continue in mm. 1218; he added the hypothetical
bass tones FEDC in parentheses.
Although this interpretation initially seems plausible, it seems
less satisfactory when we compare figure 3.22 with figure 3.23 (Alter-
native analysis of Bachs Prelude in C Minor, WTC 1, BWV 847,
132 Explaining Tonality
mm. 118). In figure 3.22a, Schenker proposed that mm. 511 proj-
ect a string of parallel first-inversion chords, separated by applied
chords. For example, the motion from A6 in m. 5 to G6 in m. 6 is
elaborated by an applied harmony that tonicizes G6. But in figure
3.22b these applied chords are reduced out, leaving a succession of
parallel perfect fifths E/AD/GC/FB/E. Figure 3.23 tries to
overcome these problems: it circumvents The Parallel Problem that
mars figure 3.22 and it maintains Schenkers position that
dissonances are ultimately passing in nature. Like figure 3.7 this der-
ivation places the string of parallel tenths in the soprano and bass
What Price Consistency? 133
Figure 3.24. Two analyses of the Prelude from Bachs Partita No. 3 for Solo
Violin. BWU 1006 From Schenker, The Masterwork in Music 1, pp. 4041.
(see figure 3.23a) and, like figure 3.9, it repeats each successive
soprano note (see figure 3.23b). Finally, instead of harmonizing the
repeated tones with root chords, figures 3.23c and 3.23d support
them with inversions; this strategy preserves the prominent parallel
tenths between the outer voices.
One of the most interesting features of Bachs C-minor prelude is
the fact that it uses apparent sequential motion to support an octave
descent in the upper voice. The descent occurs at the middleground
in figure 3.22. But it does raise the possibility that such motions
might occur at even deeper levels. This possibility is clearly shown in
Figure 3.24 (Two analyses of the Prelude from Bachs Partita No. 3
for Solo Violin, BWV 1006).31 Significantly, Schenker supported
the descent 8 1 in the Urlinie with a sequential harmonic progres-
sion IV/VIVIV/IV IVV/IIIIVI (see figure 3.24a). However,
figure 3.24b presents an alternative derivation analogous to the one
presented in figure 3.5; in particular, it adapts Schenkers reading to
134 Explaining Tonality
Figure 3.25. Analysis of Bach, French Suite in D Minor, BWV 812, Minuet II.
136 Explaining Tonality
have also noted that sequences and pedals are actually related
phenomena. This point is interesting for a couple of reasons. On
the one hand, it provides further justification for 8- and 5-line
Urstze; instead of thinking of them as containing unsupported
stretches, we can think of them as descending across a pedal. On
the other hand, by showing connections between pedals and
sequences we can explain why both often appear in the same piece.
As we saw in our analysis of Bachs Little Prelude in C, BWV 924,
the underlying counterpoint of both can, in fact, be very close
indeed.
Another important consequence of this solution is that it under-
scores a fundamental methodological difference between Schenkers
concerns and those of many other music theorists. As mentioned in
the Introduction, there are important differences between describ-
ing what happens in a piece of music and explaining why these
things happen or how to make them happen. While many music
theorists are concerned with describing music in bottom-up terms
as a string of surface events, Schenker was intent on explaining
how these surfaces are generated top-down from tonal prototypes.
This dramatic shift in perspective does not mean that conventional
descriptions of sequences are necessarily wrong or that Schenker
himself never took time to describe surface events. Nothing could
be further from the truth. All empiric inquiries must start from
careful descriptions of phenomena and, like any good empiricist,
Schenker often provided the reader with extremely vivid descrip-
tions of how a piece sounds. For example, in his analysis of Bachs
Little Prelude No. 1 in C Major, BWV 924, he described the music
in narrative terms, suggesting that Bach wanted to spin a tale and
create suspense by exquisite tensions and convolutions . . . an insa-
tiable desire for first-rate suspense and intricacy.34 Yet, Schenkers
emphasis on top-down processes underscores that there is more to
understanding music than describing its local effects; describing
pieces and deriving them are simply not the same thing. Derivation
requires something more.
But why should top-down derivations mean more to Schenker
than bottom-up descriptions? Who, in fact, needs to understand
the significance of global prototypes? To answer these questions,
it is helpful to take Schenkers narrative metaphor a bit further.
138 Explaining Tonality
and different ranges, whereas others stemmed from the fact that
each line was constrained by a growing sense of triadicity. Even
today, the task of explaining mode in polyphony remains one of the
thorniest problems in contemporary music scholarship.
The problems of applying melodic categories to harmonic systems
multiply when we try to use major and minor scales to explain tonal
music written from the Common-Practice Period. Certainly, there has
been no shortage of attempts to do so. Many music theory textbooks
claim that the properties of functional triadic tonality derive from
those of diatonic scales. According to William J. Mitchell, for exam-
ple, [T]he major and minor scales, which form the basis of this study
of harmony, are diatonic.9 Similarly, Edward Aldwell and Carl
Schachter claim that [f]rom the time of the ancient Greeks through
the nineteenth century, most Western art music was based on dia-
tonic scales.10 Scholarly publications have likewise promoted this
point of view. For example, Pieter van den Toorn has remarked:
Tonality is viewed here in its more restricted sense as a hierarchic system of
pitch relations based on the diatonic major scale (the C scale) . . . the his-
torical development of which can be traced from the beginning of the seven-
teenth century to the end of the nineteenth.11
The series of tones thus created in the Urlinie, represents diatony (Diatonie).
In the narrowest sense, Diatony belongs only to the Urlinie. But, in accord
with its origin, it simultaneously governs the whole contrapuntal setting [of
the Ursatz], including the bass arpeggiation and the passing tones . . ..
Diatony therefore does not stem from the so-called Greek or Gregorian
modes, but rather from the composing-out process, which is governed by the
principle of the fifth.21
In other words, diatonic scales are not the basis of functional monot-
onality; rather they result from composing out triadic prototypes.
But Schenker went further. Since he believed that tonal sur-
faces could be fully chromatic, Schenker proposed that modal and
exotic effects could be produced by mixture and tonicization. For
example, in the Harmonielehre, he included two charts that demon-
strate how various modal inflections can arise from varying degrees
of mixture (see figure 4.2, Schenkers account of mixture).22 Figure
4.2a shows the major system, with its natural third, sixth, and sev-
enth degrees, on the top staff, whereas the minor system, with its
lowered third, sixth, and seventh degrees, appears on the bottom
staff. Between these two extremes, there are six rows, each one cor-
responding to the six possible combinations of natural and lowered
degrees. In Rows 1, 2 and 3, the lowered third, sixth, and seventh
degrees appear individually: Row 1 illustrates the ascending melodic
148 Explaining Tonality
able to reject the notion that the modes were systems equivalent to
tonality. To quote him:
loss is merely apparent only. The tone itself bravely stood its ground, and it
seems it was the tone itself that forced the artist to leave the door ajar for
relationships of a Mixolydian, Dorian, etc. character, even when the artist
no longer believed in the validity of those systems.25
Finally, a parallel exists in that the Orientals, exactly like our ancestors
and this is proof enough!submit to the puerile preoccupation with scale
systems they commit to paper simply by following the horizontal direction of
the melodies. They assume, for example, a pentatonic system consisting of
five degrees: C D E. G A.C or C D E. G A.C; or a heptatonic system con-
sisting of seven degrees: F G A B C D E F (Chinese), D E F G A B C D
(Japanese), C D E F G A B C (Gypsy), F G A B C D F (Chinese whole-
tone scale), or C D E F G A B C (Indian), and so forth. In addition,
all these so-called systems, like our old church modes, can begin with any
of its tones, whereby the number of systems is increased to monstrous
proportions.27
But once again, he suggested that these phenomena stem not from
alternative systems, but from transformations within the tonal
system:
Skillful artists, still, have always successfully limited the problem of musical
exoticism in practice. They solved it by attempting to make the original
melodies of foreign peoples (often original only because of their imperfec-
tions and awkwardness) accessible to us through the refinements of our two
tonal systems. They expressed the foreign character in our major and minor
such superiority in our art, such flexibility in our systems!28
Figure 4.3. Beethoven, Heiliger Dankegesang, String Quartet, Op. 132. From
Schenker, Harmonielehre, Ex. 47.
major. They result from a trivial chromatic trick, which we use everyday and
on only slight occasion to emphasize the cadence and to underline the F
major character of the composition.33
Figure 4.4. Graph of Beethoven, Heiliger Dankegesang, String Quartet, Op. 132.
Figure 4.5. Brahms, Vergangen ist mir Gluck und Heil, Op. 14, no. 6. From
Schenker, Harmonielehre, Ex. 50.
Glck und Heil, Op. 48, no. 6). These qualities are not hard to
spot. The song is written in four-part chorale style and is clearly
centered on the tonic D. Except for a single B triad in m. 23,
Brahms consistently favors the pitch B to its diatonic counterpart.
To emphasize the modal qualities even further, Brahms frequently
uses the lowered leading tone, C.
Nonetheless, Schenker insisted that these modal inflections
stem not from the Dorian system, but from mixtures within the key
of D minor. His analysis is worth quoting at length:
The artist here clearly aims at writing in Dorian mode on D. This results
from the mere fact that he omitted the key signature B in a composition
really written in D minor. Brahms, too, guided by his desire to compose in
156 Explaining Tonality
Dorian mode (just like Beethoven, in the previous example, aiming at the
Lydian) strictly avoids any B with one single exception in the second-to-last
measure.40
He continued:
And yet I insist: None of the Bs occurring in this beautiful chorale is to be
derived, as Brahms believed, from the Dorian scale as such; we must substi-
tute, rather the following explanations. The first bars constitute, basically,
the A minor scale; hence the B is justified merely in consideration of that
key. It is true that, with the C of m. 2, the composition changes to D minor.
If in this D minor the IV Stufe is presented with the third B natural rather
than with the diatonic third B, the idea of D minor remains nevertheless
alive in the listener. More than that, we recognize here the very B natural
which we employ in our daily practice in D major/minor (cf. par. 38ff.) and,
to boot, in this same sequence IV3V3, without sacrificing in any way the
identity of the D minor! That Brahms abstains from using the B in the sub-
sequent development (mm. 1013) is simply explained by the motion that
the composition is taking toward C major.41
Figure 4.6. Graph of Brahms, Vergangen ist mir Glck und Heil, Op. 14, no. 6.
Figure 4.7. Chopin, Etude, Op. 10, no. 5. From Schenker, The Masterwork in
Music 1, p. 92.
Figure 4.8. Graph of Debussy, Prlude LAprs-midi dun faune? mm. 3037.
two perfectly good diatonic motives; as soon as the other voices contribute
the C and F to these, the major diatonic mode [Dur-Diatonie] is secured.46
Figure 4.9. Van den Toorns analysis of the opening of Stravinsky, Petrouchka.
From Van den Toorn, The Music of Igor Stravinsky, Exx. 20 and 21.
pitch content of both passages is exactly the same, even though the
two pieces sound quite different stylistically. This point is all the
more ironic if we recall the two progressions given in figures 4.1c and
4.1d: not only do these two progressions have exactly the same pitch-
class content, but these pitches belong to the same octatonic scale,
DEFGABBCD. Whether or not we regard these passages
as genuinely octatonic is a matter for debate, but the two examples
should certainly erode our blind faith in The Myth of Scales.
explanatory power. Although some will find this concern with par-
simony quite liberating, others will find it utterly perverse. After
all, scales and modes are among our most cherished theoretical
concepts. And yet, recent research by music psychologists has also
challenged The Myth of Scales. Mary Louise Serafine, for exam-
ple, has suggested that scales . . . have figured disproportionately
in music research, chiefly through their influence on the design and
conception of studies.68 David Huron has reached similar conclu-
sions: according to him, In comparison to most of the worlds
music, Western music tends to be highly harmonically oriented.
Where scales provide the basis for predominantly melodic music,
examining the harmonic properties of these scales may be inappro-
priate.69 It is remarkable that we are only just beginning to realize
the full implications of Schenkers most audacious ideas.
5
Figure 5.4. Extreme chromaticism. Graph of Reger, Piano Quintet, Op. 64,
mm. 18.
b. Bach, Prelude in C Minor, BWV 999. From Schenker, Der freie Satz , Fig. 152.6.
c. Chopin, Mazurka, Op. 30, no. 2. From Schenker, Der freie Satz, Fig. 152.7.
interpolations, and, in short, retardations of all kinds. Therein lies the source
of all artistic delaying, from which the creative mind can derive content that
is ever new.27
Each of the three verses has six lines that rhyme a, a, b, c, c, b, and
each one ends with a complete syntactic unit. Reading through the
poem, one is immediately struck by Verlaines preference for words
containing the sounds s and t. In verse 1, for example, we find
the phrases Cest la fatigue, and Cest tous les frissons; in verse
2, the phrases Cela gazouille and cela ressemble; and in verse 3,
the phrases Cette me and Cest la ntre. These sounds give
Verlaines text an aspirate quality that captures the main subject of
the poem, namely the fatigue of love. Three words stand out in this
regard: extase in verse 1, expire in verse 2, and exhale in verse
3. Their ordering seems to match a more general progression in the
poems meaning from declarative statements about the lovers pres-
ent feelings to more personal speculations about their future. In
verses 1 and 2, for example, Verlaine compares the lovers shivers to
particular soundsthe faint rustle of trees (les frissons des bois),
the swish of grass ([le] cri doux Que lherbe agite expire), and
the rumble of pebbles rolling under water (sous leau qui vire,
Le roulis sourd des cailloux). But in verse 3, the mood changes, as
the lovers realize that they will probably never share the same expe-
rience again.
188 Explaining Tonality
can see these connections at the start of the song. After Debussy
has introduced the sigh figure in mm. 16, he ends the voice part
with the descent CBB (mm. 79). This descent not only
implies that mm. 110 are a giant version of the sigh figure, but it
also anticipates the downward spiral of the chromatic motive. This
possibility becomes clearer in mm. 2223, when the piano part
descends from C through B to A. And, when the chromatic
motive eventually appears on C, it descends first to A (mm. 28,
30, and 32) and then to A (mm. 3334). The arrival onto A is
important because it gives rise to the common-tone progression in
mm. 3645. It subsequently resolves down by step through G to F
in m. 45, eventually reaching E in m. 48. In other words, the grad-
ual transformation of the sigh figure into the chromatic motive
inscribes an overall melodic descent from C, through B and A
to A and from A through G and F to E. This process is summa-
rized in figure 5.10 (Evolution of the sigh figure in Cest lextase
langoureuse).
The significance of this point becomes even clearer when we
compare figure 5.10 with the Schenkerian graph given in figure 5.11
192 Explaining Tonality
b. Motive Y.
counts. For one thing, the piano includes a variant of the chromatic
line that rises from B, through C, D and D, before resolving down
from E to D. This gesture becomes important later in the song.
For another, Debussy captures the image of a tomb in mm. 78 by
plumbing the depths of the vocal register. By the end of the quat-
rain, however, the music moves from G to the dominant D; this
Pleasure is the Law 195
This chord prepares for the second half of the final sestet (mm.
3045). Starting in m. 30, Debussy shifts the direction of the har-
mony yet again by recalling the opening arpeggiated figure this
time transposed into the context of C major (see figure 5.15a,
Graph of La mort des amants). Unlike the opening, however, he
omits the chromatic gesture entirely and immediately transposes
the arpeggiated figure into the context of E major. Nevertheless, in
m. 38, he returns to A7 for the word ranimer and again in m. 41
for the last line of text. This last recollection finally leads to an
emphatic cadence in the tonic. To reinforce the sense of closure,
Debussy even accompanies the final line of the sonnetLes
miroirs ternis et les flammes morteswith a descending chromatic
line. This line mirrors the rising lines in mm. 12 and 1318 (see
figures 5.15b-d). Debussy rounds off the song with a short coda for
the piano; we hear our last statements of the arpeggiated figure and
chromatic gesture over a tonic pedal.
So far, we have seen how Debussy managed to articulate the
subtle subdivisions in Baudelaires text, but we are still left to see
how he managed to convey its pessimistic message that true satis-
faction is something that cannot be achieved in the present.
Whereas Debussy created the sense of ennui in Cest lextase lan-
goureuse by initiating the long chromatic descent in the upper
line but by failing to coordinate melodic and harmonic closure at
the end, he produced similar effects in La mort des amants by the
use of incomplete progressions and parenthetical passages/interpo-
lations. These points are readily apparent in figure 5.16 (Global
view of La mort des amants), a Schenkerian reading of the entire
song. This sketch highlights the fact that the song opens with an
auxiliary cadence progression V^43%I in G and that the first quat-
rain subsequently modulates to the dominant. The long chromatic
ascent in the lower register from D to B/C in the second quatrain
creates a sense of sexual tension that seems to require resolution
through a cadence in G in m. 19. But, though the progression arrives
on the expected predominant ii7 in m. 18, the final sestet systemat-
ically delays this cadence with one digression after another: in
mm. 1929, Debussy interpolates a passage in E major that conjures
up images of Parsifal and anticipates the Prlude lAprs-midi
dun faune; in mm. 3040 he inserts sequential statements of the
198 Explaining Tonality
b. Beethoven, Leonore Overture No. 3, Adagio. From Schenker, Der freie Satz, Fig. 62.2.
c. Beethoven, Piano Sonata, Op. 81a, 1st movement, development section. From
Schenker, Der freie Satz, Fig. 62.4.
d. Bach, Prelude in C Major, WTC I, m. 24ff. From Schenker, Der freie Satz, Fig. 62.5.
These are the very problems that Laufer touches on in the pas-
sage cited earlier. In particular, he notes that, whereas functional
music prolongs triads, twentieth-century pieces may derive from
other contextually derived harmonies. He also insists that without
a clear distinction between consonance and dissonance, it is hard
to define any general principles governing contrapuntal motion.
And Laufer doubts that pieces can be generated from any generaliz-
able prototypes. But whereas Laufer does not indicate how we
might overcome these problems, chapters 1 and 2 offer some basic
guidelines. Our first step might be to isolate certain specific reper-
tories of Post-Tonal music. These repertories should be aurally
distinct from one another. Our next step might be to look for gen-
eral laws that cover the local and global behavior of the constituent
lines and chords. Ideally, these laws will cover six areas: 1) how
individual lines move and reach closure; 2) how polyphonic lines
move in relation to one another, 3) how unstable tones behave
in relation to stable tones; 4) how stable harmonies are distin-
guished from unstable harmonies; 5) how successive harmonies are
arranged to create idiomatic progressions; and 6) how stable har-
monies are inflected coloristically. Just as the precise laws of step
motion, melodic convergence, and vertical alignment must be
modified when we shift from the intervallic world of strict counter-
point to the triadic world of functional monotonality, so they must
be different when we shift to some new non-triadic context. These
new harmonic environments might be based on seventh chords,
quartal harmonies, or even more complex pitch-class sets. This
point is shown in figure 5.19 (Functional tonality and twentieth-
century tonal practices).
Once we have discovered appropriate laws of voice leading and
harmony for each repertory, we can try to represent them as a
system of prototypes, transformations, and levels. In some cases, the
prototypes and transformations will look a lot like tonal transfor-
mations, but there is no reason to suppose that they will always be
analogous. Nor should we expect that we can necessarily assume
these laws can be reformatted as a recursive and rule preserving sys-
tem; as we saw in chapter 1, even Fux was unable to formulate the
laws of strict counterpoint in such a fashion. But, while it is prema-
ture to speculate about what these new prototypes, transformations,
208 Explaining Tonality
and levels will look like, there is no a priori reason why such new
theories cannot be found for many types of twentieth-century
music. To paraphrase Laufer, the resulting theories will not be
Schenkers, but they will still owe much to him.49
6
Figure 6.2. Schenkers derivation of the major system from The Chord of
Nature.
a. Schenker, Harmonielehre, Ex. 18.
Though they aspire to fulfill the same tasks, Lerdahl and Jackendoff
concede that their focus is primarily on musical cognition.
So what aspects of human cognition do Lerdahl and Jackendoff
use to support their theory of tonality? In fact, they mostly borrow
from two quite separate traditions of cognitive psychology. On the
one hand, Lerdahl and Jackendoff base many of their hypotheses on
the principles of Gestalt psychology. They do so for several reasons.
Like Gestalt psychologists, Lerdahl and Jackendoff are keen to treat
perception as a dynamic process; they believe that it relies on the
active, though often unconscious, participation of the person, as
well as on the recognition that our local perceptions are guided by
global concerns.13 Gestalt psychologists also implied that our men-
tal representations of music consist not only of lists of pitches, but
also of abstract relations among them.14 These ideas are clearly cru-
cial to Lerdahl and Jackendoffs work, especially their discussion of
archetypes. On a more specific level, Lerdahl and Jackendoff also
connect many of their preference rules to particular Gestalt prin-
ciples. For example, they specifically invoke the Law of Prgnanz
216 Explaining Tonality
not separate these activities too sharply. For one thing, we have
absolutely no reason to suppose that when expert composers listen
to music, they process their knowledge in different ways than when
they compose. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that expert
listening requires similar mental representations to expert composi-
tion.20 For another, although ordinary listeners are unable to com-
prehend immediately every aspect of an expert composition, such
as Beethovens Eroica symphony, they can still appreciate some of
Renaturalizing Schenkerian Theory 219
its features; if not, then it is hard to understand why they are able to
recognize and value exceptional feats of musicianship.
In the second case, Lerdahl and Jackendoff focus their thoughts
exclusively on the experienced listener; they pay little or no
attention to explaining how experienced listeners actually acquire
and even refine their knowledge. This omission is most serious
with respect to their claims about the audibility of long-range
tonal motion. Although they seem to attribute the ability to hear
prototypes to all experienced listeners, there is good reason to
suppose that this is not actually the case. Nicholas Cook, for
example, has conducted experiments to show that music students
do not hear tonal closure on a large scale.21 Such a result is hardly
surprising given the fact that expert Schenkerians often disagree
when picking the prototype for a given piece. As Robert West,
Peter Howell, and Ian Cross stress, Lerdahl and Jackendoffs
model may overestimate the perceptual and cognitive propensities
as well as powers of even musically educated listeners. In fact, the
features used to pattern a piece of music on a single hearing may
well differ from those used if the listener is given time to study a
piece.22 To make matters worse, Lerdahl and Jackendoff make
no effort to interface their theory with traditional approaches to
analysis and theory; they completely ignore the idea that their
theory should be coherent with what we already know from these
areas.
To negotiate these problems, it is useful to reconsider the topics
discussed in chapters 1 and 2. As we saw earlier, Schenkerian the-
ory can be boiled down to four basic claims. First, the laws of strict
counterpoint must be transformed to explain the behavior of tonal
voice leading. This is The Heinrich Maneuver. Second, the laws
of tonal voice leading and harmony are interdependent. We
referred to this as The Complementarity Principle. Third, any
complete, continuous tonal progression can be derived recursively
from a simple string of essential lines and essential harmonies using
a finite set of transformations. We referred to this as The Recursive
Model. Fourth, any complete, continuous, monotonal composition
can be derived recursively from a single prototypical string of essen-
tial lines and essential harmonies, using a finite set of transforma-
tions. This is The Global Paradigm.
220 Explaining Tonality
triad as more stable than others, and that unstable tones generally
move by step onto stable or anchored tones.25 Leonard Meyer,
Eugene Narmour, and others have also shown that listeners expect
leaps to be followed by step motions, though their explanations of
gap filling is not immune from criticism.26 As Diana Deutsch has
shown, pitch proximity may be an advantage in processing effi-
ciency; this suggests that it might be tied to the Gestalt Law of
proximity.27 The issue of melodic closure is less clear cut. Burton
Rosner and Eugene Narmour have shown that 2 1 does indeed
produce strong melodic closure, but they also note that listeners
showed no closure preference for a VI progression with scale steps
28
2 1 over those with 7 1 or 2 3. This result essentially confirms
the closure rules for other polyphonic voices, but it does not give a
preference to 2 1 in the soprano. To account for the latter, we must
remember that, globally, well-formed melodies tend to rise before
falling to a cadence. Although this is an important aspect of what
Schenker referred to as melodic fluency, there does not seem to be
any experimental evidence to support this view.
Similarly, we can find some support for the laws of relative
motion. In chapter 1, we noted that at points of maximum closure,
the soprano voice normally ends on 2 1, the alto ends 7 1, the
bass 5 1, and the tenor 5 3; that the soprano and bass essen-
tially move in contrary motion or parallel thirds and sixths; that
parallel perfect octaves and fifths do not occur when two essential
lines move in the same direction; and that, if parallel perfect
octaves and fifths do occur, then they arise from doubling and
figuration or from combinations of non-harmonic tones. As men-
tioned above, Rosner and Narmour have effectively confirmed the
first law, even though they do not give preference for 2 1 as a
soprano. Unfortunately, less attention has been paid to the predom-
inance of contrary motion and the lack of parallel perfect octaves
and fifths. There does not appear to be a systematic study of whether
people hear permissible parallel octaves and fifths as our laws
suggest.
In chapter 1, we also suggested that melodies generally move
between triadic tones and that if non-harmonic tones occur, then
they move by step between harmonic tones or by leap between con-
trapuntal lines. The discussion of unstable tones by Krumhansl,
224 Explaining Tonality
own area of interest, so they take for granted any received knowl-
edge they might have from these other disciplines. As problems are
solved in one area, others will appear; gradually music scholarship
as a whole becomes transformed into something new. In this respect,
our knowledge of music theory is part of a more general fabric of
knowledge that Quine and Ullian refer to as The Web of Belief.60
As we propose the chart given in figure 6.7, it is important to
stress that, although music theory is placed at the center, this does
not mean that it necessarily has any epistemic priority over the
other areas of inquiry. On the contrary, music theory appears at the
center simply because it happens to be that area of inquiry that I
have chosen to discuss in this particular book; scholars working in
other areas will place their own discipline center stage and the
other disciplines on the peripheries. This is as it should be. After
all, figure 6.7 does not present a hierarchy of knowledge about
music; it simply shows a network in which ideas from one domain
flow to another. This last point is important at the present time
because scholars are constantly trying to prioritize one area of
research over another. On the one hand, many historians criticize
music theorists for ignoring the cultural context of the works they
analyze; they insist that unless such knowledge is taken into account,
music cannot be understood adequately. On the other hand, many
music theorists criticize historical musicologists for offering superfi-
cial analyses of musical compositions; they insist that there is more
to understanding a piece than understanding the cultural circum-
stances from which it came.61 By presenting figure 6.7 as a network
rather than a hierarchy, I claim that there is no a priori reason for
prioritizing one domain over another. Each discipline can offer
valuable insights about the nature of music; we should all learn to
respect these differences and look for constructive ways for allow-
ing scholars working in one domain to communicate with those
working in another.
Conclusion
Preface
1. For detailed lists of Schenkers works and works about Schenker, see
David Beach, A Schenker Bibliography, Journal of Music Theory 13, no. 1
(1969): 237; David Beach, A Schenker Bibliography 19691979, Journal of
Music Theory 23, no. 2 (1979): 27586; David Beach, The Current State of
Schenkerian Research, Acta Musicologica 57 (1985): 275387; Larry Laskowski,
Heinrich Schenker: An Annotated Index to His Analyses of Musical Works (New
York: Pendragon Press, 1978); Nicholas Rast, A Checklist of Essays and Reviews
by Heinrich Schenker, Music Analysis 7, no. 2 (1988): 12132; Benjamin McKay
Ayotte, Heinrich Schenker: A Guide to Research (New York: Routledge, 2004);
and David Carson Berry, A Topical Guide to Schenkerian Literature: An Annotated
Bibliography with Indices (New York: Pendragon, 2004).
2. Heinrich Schenker, Neue musicalische Theorien und Phantasien, vol. 1:
Harmonielehre (Stuttgart and Berlin: Cotta, 1906); in English as Harmony, ed.
Oswald Jonas and trans. Elisabeth Mann Borgese (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1954).
3. Heinrich Schenker, Neue musicalische Theorien und Phantasien, vol. 2:
Kontrapunkt I (Stuttgart and Berlin: Cotta, 1910); Kontrapunkt II (Vienna: Uni-
versal, 1922); in English as Counterpoint I and II, ed. John Rothgeb and trans.
John Rothgeb and Jrgen Thym (New York: Schirmer, 1987), corrected ed.
(Ann Arbor, MI: Musicalia Press, 2001).
4. Heinrich Schenker, Neue musicalische Theorien und Phantasien, vol. 3:
Der freie Satz (Vienna: Universal, 1935), 2nd ed. (Vienna: Universal, 1956); in
English as Free Composition, ed. and trans. Ernst Oster (New York: Longman,
1979).
5. Heinrich Schenker, Der Tonwille, vols. 110 (Vienna: A. Guttman,
192124); in English as Der Tonwille Pamphlets in Witness of the Immutable Laws of
Music, 5 vols., vol. 1 ed. William Drabkin (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004); Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, vols. 13 (Munich: Drei Masken Verlag,
1925, 1926, 1930); in English as The Masterwork in Music 13, ed. William
Drabkin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 1996, 1999); and Fnf
Urlinie-Tafeln (Vienna: Universal, 1932), in English as Five Graphic Analyses, ed.
Felix Salzer (New York: Dover, 1969).
6. Milton Babbitt, The Structure and Function of Music Theory, College
Music Symposium 5 (1965): 4960; Allan Keiler, The Syntax of Prolongation I,
In Theory Only 3, no. 5 (1977): 327; Allan Keiler, The Empiricist Illusion:
Narmours Beyond Schenkerism, Perspectves of New Music (1978): 16195; Allan
Keiler, On Some Properties of Schenkers Pitch Derivations, Music Perception 1,
240 Notes, pp. xviixix
no. 2 (198384): 200228; Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Generative Theory
of Tonal Music (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983).
7. For example, see Michael Kassler, Explication of the Middleground of
Schenkers Theory of Tonality, Miscellanea Musicologica 9 (1977): 7281; James
Snell, Design for a Formal System for Deriving Tonal Music (Masters thesis,
SUNY Binghamton, 1979); and Stephen Smoliar, A Computer Aid for
Schenkerian Analysis, Computer Music Journal 4 (1980): 4159.
8. Jonathan Dunsby, Recent Schenker: The Poetic Power of Intelligent
Calculation (or the Emperors Second Set of New Clothes), Music Analysis 18,
no. 2 (1999): 263.
9. William Benjamin, Schenkers Theory and the Future of Music, Journal
of Music Theory, 25, no. 1 (1981): 163.
10. William Rothstein, Review: Articles on Schenker and Schenkerian
Theory in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., Journal of
Music Theory 45, no. 1 (2001): 206.
11. See, for example, Matthew Brown, Review: Hedi Siegel ed., Schenker
Studies and Allen Cadwallader ed., Trends in Schenkerian Research, Music Theory
Spectrum 13, no. 2 (1991): 26573.
12. Edward Laufer, Review: Heinrich Schenker, Free Composition (Der freie
Satz), trans. Ernst Oster, Music Theory Spectrum 3 (1981): 161.
13. Laufer, Review: Heinrich Schenker, Free Composition, 15961.
14. Joseph Kerman, Contemplating Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1985), 85.
15. Felix Salzer, Structural Hearing (New York: Boni, 1952).
16. Eugene Narmour, Beyond Schenkerism (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1977).
17. Schenker, Further Consideration of the Urlinie: I, The Masterwork in
Music I (1925), trans. John Rothgeb, 105.
18. Benjamin, Schenkers Theory and the Future of Music, 160. Benjamin
is not alone is claiming that Schenker graphs can be regarded as music. For
example, to quote Arthur Maisel, Schenker was a superior music theorist
because he grew more and more to think of music as music: the graphs are
musicnot words, not pictures, not anything else. Arthur Maisel, Talent and
Technique: George Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue, in Trends in Schenkerian
Research, ed. Allan Cadwallader (New York: Schirmer, 1990), 69.
19. I am not the only person to hold this view. For example, William
Rothstein distinguishes between notes, which he regards as musical entities
represented in a score, and tones, which he treats as analytical abstractions
inferred from the piece. According to him, The tradition of Schenkerian
graphing has been that only tones, not notes, are shown in graphs, even at fore-
ground levels. See William Rothstein, On Implied Tones, Music Analysis 10,
no. 3 (1991): 295.
20. For an extensive discussion of this point, see Matthew Brown, Debussys
Ibria: Studies in Genesis and Structure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Notes, pp. 26 241
Introduction
1. For a summary of The Classical Theory of Concepts, see two articles by
Edward E. Smith, Concepts and Thought, in The Psychology of Human Under-
standing, ed. Robert J. Sternberg and Edward E. Smith, 1949 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988); and Concepts and Induction, in Founda-
tions of Cognitive Science, ed. Michael L. Posner, 5025 (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1989); see also Alvin I. Goldman, Philosophical Applications of Cognitive
Science (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 126ff.
2. See Matthew Brown and Douglas J. Dempster, The Scientific Image of
Music Theory, Journal of Music Theory 33 (1989): 65106; and Brown and
Dempster, Evaluating Music Analyses and Theories: Five Perspectives, Journal
of Music Theory 34 (1990): 24779.
3. See Smith, Concepts and Induction, 505ff.
4. Goldman, Philosophical Applications of Cognitive Science, 128.
5. Ibid., 128.
6. See Schenker, Counterpoint II, part 6, chap. 3, par. 17, pp. 23542; and
Free Composition, par. 172, p. 62.
7. For a long discussion of the role concepts play in music theory, see Mark
DeBellis, Music and Conceptualization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995).
8. For general accounts of these problems, see John Losee, A Historical
Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993); William Bechtel, Philosophy of Science: An Overview for Cognitive Science
(Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1988); Robert Klee, Introduction to the Philosophy of
Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Philip Kitcher, Explanatory
Unification and the Causal Structure of the World, in Scientific Explanation, ed.
Philip Kitcher and Wesley C. Salmon, 410505, Minnesota Studies in the
Philosophy of Science 13 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989);
Philip Kitcher, The Advancement of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993); David Papineau, Philosophy of Science, in The Blackwell Companion to
Philosophy, ed. Nicholas Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-James, 290324 (Oxford: Black-
well, 1996); Wesley Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation, in Scien-
tific Explanation, ed. Philip Kitcher and Wesley C. Salmon, 3219, Minnesota
Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1989); Martin Curd and J. A. Cover, Philosophy of Science: The Central
Issues (New York: Norton, 1998).
9. The classic presentation of this problem has been offered by Henry
Kyburg. According to him, we could explain why a sample of salt dissolves by
claiming that it does so because a magician in a funny hat has cast a spell on the
salt. If we assume that all samples of salt hexed by the particular spell dissolve in
water, then this explanation conforms to Hempel and Oppenheims version of
The Covering-Law Model. The snag, of course, is that the magicians spell has
nothing to do with the solubility of salt in water; there must be some way of
242 Notes, pp. 712
excluding accounts like this one. For details, see Henry Kyburg, Comment,
Philosophy of Science 35 (1965): 14751.
10. Nelson Goodman, The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals,
Journal of Philosophy 44 (1947): 11328.
11. To quote Peter Railton, Where the orthodox covering-law account of
explanation propounded by Hempel and others was right has been in claiming
that explanatory practice in the sciences is in a central way law-seeking or nomo-
thetic. Where it went wrong was in interpreting this fact as grounds for saying
that any successful explanation must succeed either in virtue of explicitly invok-
ing covering laws or by implicitly asserting the existence of such laws; Peter
Railton, Probability, Explanation, and Information, Synthese 48 (1981):
24849, cited in Salmon, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation, 162.
12. Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, Studies in the Logic of Explanation,
Philosophy of Science 15 (1948): 13575.
13. For an extensive discussion of the relevance of functional explanations
to music theory, see John Brackett, Philosophy of Science as Philosophy of
Music Theory (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2003).
The classic defense of historical narratives can be found in Michael Scriven,
Definitions, Explanations, and Theories, in Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-
Body Problem, ed. H. Feigl, M. Scriven, and G. Maxwell, 99195, Minnesota
Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1958); and Wesley Salmon, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of
the World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
14. See Carl Hempel, The Logic of Functional Explanation, in Aspects
of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science, 297330
(New York: Free Press, 1965).
15. Sylvain Bromberger, An Approach to Explanation, in Analytic Philos-
ophy, ed. R. J. Butler, 72105 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1968). Brombergers original
argument concerns a flagpole. Imagine a flagpole of height h casts a shadow of
length l. Knowing the length of the shadow, the angle of elevation of the sun
(initial conditions), the laws of light propagation and elementary geometry, we
can deduce the height of the flagpole. Although such an argument is deductively
valid and follows The Covering-Law Model, it does not constitute an explana-
tion because the flagpole causes the shadow and not vice versa. See also Hempel,
Aspects of Scientific Explanation, 42930.
16. For an extensive discussion of the role causality plays in scientific theories,
see Judea Pearl, Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), especially the epilogue entitled The Art and Science of
Cause and Effect, 33158. Stathis Psillos gives a nice survey of the philosophi-
cal problems posed by the concept of causation in his recent book, Causation and
Explanation (Chesham, Bucks.: Acumen, 2002).
17. W. V. Quine and J. S. Ullian, The Web of Belief (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1978), 87.
18. Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (New York: Modern
Library, 1994), 150.
Notes, pp.1217 243
43. See Richard Boyd, The Current Status of Scientific Realism, in Sci-
entific Realism, ed. Jarrett Leplin (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984), 53.
44. For a classic account of Theory Reduction, see Ernst Nagel, The Struc-
ture of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 1979), 33697.
45. Graham Chapman et al., The Complete Monty Pythons Flying Circus: All
the Words (New York: Pantheon, 1989), 2:11820.
46. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
47. Kitcher, Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure of the
World, 477.
48. Kuhn, Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice, 322.
49. According to Feynman, Every theory that you make has to be analyzed
against all possible consequences, to see if it predicts anything else as well.
Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, 32.
50. Kuhn, Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice, 322.
51. Although this notion does not appear in this form in the writings of
William of Ockham (ca. 12851347), it can be traced back as far as Aristotle, see
Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 545.
52. See W. V. Quine, Atoms, in Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical
Dictionary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 12.
53. Quine and Ullian, The Web of Belief, 71.
54. See Robert L. Causey, Unity of Science (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1977).
55. Salzer, Structural Hearing.
56. Richard Taruskin, Review: Kevin Korsyn, Towards a Poetics of Musi-
cal Influence, and Joseph N. Straus, Remaking the Past, Journal of the American
Musicological Society 46 (1993): 125.
Chapter 1
1. Schenker, Harmony, par. 88, p. 159. Used by permission of the Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.
2. For example, in Counterpoint I, he noted, The phenomena of [tonal]
composition, then, are invariably to be understood only as [transformations] the
prolongations of those principles. Schenker, Counterpoint I, introduction, p. 13.
Similarly, at the end of Counterpoint II, he claimed that tonal relationships can
be treated as prolongations of the fundamental laws. Schenker, Counterpoint II,
part 6, introduction, p. 176. For rather different interpretations of this passage,
see Joseph Dubiel, When You Are a Beethoven: Kinds of Rules in Schenkers
Counterpoint, Journal of Music Theory 34 (1990): 291340, esp. 29293; and
Robert Snarrenberg, Schenkers Interpretative Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 953.
246 Notes, pp. 2543
Chapter 2
1. Besides Free Composition, Schenker also used this motto starting with
vol. 1 of Der Tonwille (1921) and in each part of Counterpoint II.
2. See Schenker, Free Composition, par. 45, p. 25.
3. See ibid.
4. For example, Schenker claimed that his principles of reduction are
analogous to those traditionally under the rubric of diminution theory, see Free
Composition, par. 49, p. 26.
5. See ibid., par. 28, p. 17.
6. In Harmony, Schenker mainly reduced passages to fairly local prototypes.
Yet, there are times when he was also thinking in wider terms. For example, in
par. 131, he claimed: In the form of established keys we have the same progres-
sion of Stufen, albeit at a superior level. For the sake of the construction of content
in a larger sense, the natural element of Stufengang is elevated correspondingly.
Harmony, par. 131, p. 246 (used by permission of the University of Chicago Press).
For a general discussion of Schenkers views, see Matthew Brown, The Diatonic
and the Chromatic in Schenkers Theory of Harmonic Relations, Journal of
Music Theory 30 (1986): 1416; Carl Schachter Analysis by Key: Another Look
at Modulation, Music Analysis 6, no, 3 (1987): 289318; and Rothstein,
Review: Articles on Schenker and Schenkerian Theory in The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., Journal of Music Theory 45, no. 1
(2001): 2089.
7. See also Schenker, Beethoven neunte Sinfonie (Vienna: Universal, 1912),
ed. and trans. John Rothgeb as Beethovens Ninth Symphony (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1992); and Schenker, ed., Beethoven Piano Sonata, Op. 109
(Vienna: Universal, 1913); Beethoven Piano Sonata, Op. 110 (Vienna: Universal,
1914); Beethoven Piano Sonata, Op. 111 (Vienna: Universal, 1915); Beethoven
Piano Sonata, Op. 101 (Vienna: Universal, 1920). For an excellent general history,
see William Pastille, The Development of the Ursatz in Schenkers Published
Works, in Trends in Schenkerian Research, ed. Allan Cadwallader, 7185 (New
York: Schirmer, 1990); and William Pastille, Heinrich Schenker, Anti-Organicist,
19th-Century Music 8, no. 1 (1984): 3435.
8. Pastille, The Development of the Ursatz, 7476.
9. See Schenker, Free Composition, par. 8, p. 12, and par. 26870, pp. 1078.
10. For example, according to Schachter, Schenker conceives of the funda-
mental structure as a kind of second-species counterpoint with dissonant passing
tones, rather than as a first-species counterpoint restricted to consonances.
Schachter, A Commentary on Schenkers Free Composition, Journal of Music
Theory 25, no. 1 (1981): 126. More recently, Robert Snarrenberg refers to
Schenkers theory as a second-species model of tonality; see Snarrenberg,
Competing Myths: The American Abandonment of Schenkers Organicism,
in Theory, Analysis and Meaning in Music, ed. Anthony Pople (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994), 39, 54.
250 Notes, pp. 7479
11. See, for example, par. 84 (p. 154) of Schenkers Harmony, entitled The
Lack of Stufen in Strict Counterpoint.
12. Peter Westergaard, An Introduction to Tonal Theory (New York: Norton,
1975), 426n. For a very helpful survey of Westergaards work, see Stephen Peles,
An Introduction to Westergaards Tonal Theory, In Theory Only 13, no. 14
(1997): 7393.
13. Schenker, Free Composition, par. 69, p. 32.
14. For a recent survey of the relevant literature, see David Smyth,
Schenkers Octave Lines Reconsidered, Journal of Music Theory 43, no. 1
(1999): 10133.
15. David Neumeyer, The Urlinie from 8 as a Middleground Phenome-
non, In Theory Only 9, no. 56 (1987): 325; David Neumeyer, The Ascending
Urlinie, Journal of Music Theory 31, no. 2 (1988): 271303; and David Neumeyer,
The Three-Part Ursatz, In Theory Only 10 (1987): 329, esp. 3.
16. See Susan Tepping, An Interview with Felix-Eberhard von Cube,
Indiana Theory Review 6 (198283): 77103.
17. The same point can be used to counter Peter Westergaards charge that
3-lines are conceptually superior to 5 - and 8-lines, see An Introduction to Tonal
Theory, 426n.
18. Robert Joseph Lubben, Schenker the Progressive: Analytic Practice in
Der Tonwille, Music Theory Spectrum 15 (1993): 65ff.
19. Eugene Narmour, Beyond Schenkerism (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1977).
20. Schenker explained this point very nicely at the opening of Counterpoint
II: Now the triad reaches us by both routes, but with only this difference of effect:
in their vertical dimension, it sounds in its complete, palpable, physical totality, so
to speak, while the horizontal dimension unrolls step by step, through the detour
of melodic evolution. Schenker, Counterpoint II, part 3, chap. 1, par. 2, p. 2. Sig-
nificantly, he anticipated this idea in the Harmony by claiming 1) that the con-
cept of an interval is bound to and limited by the concept of its harmonizability
and 2) that the harmonic element has to be pursued in both directions: the hor-
izontal as well as the vertical. Schenker, Harmony, par. 76, p. 134.
21. Schenker confirms the idea that neighbor motion implies a prior repeti-
tion in Free Composition, par. 108, p. 42.
22. According to Schenker, The descending linear progression always sig-
nifies a motion from the upper to the inner voice; ascending linear progression
denotes a motion from the inner voice to the upper voice. See Schenker, Free
Composition, par. 203, p. 73.
23. For discussions of mentally retained tones, see Schenker, Counterpoint
II, part 3, chap. 2, par. 2, esp. pp. 57ff.; Schenker, Further Considerations of the
Urlinie: II, trans. John Rothgeb, The Masterwork in Music 2 (1996), 3ff.; and
Schenker, Free Composition, par. 93 and 204, pp. 3839 and 73, etc. William
Rothstein considers the term in detail in his thesis, Rhythm and the Theory of
Levels (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1981), 91ff.
Notes, pp. 8093 251
Chapter 3
1. Quine, Quiddities, 162.
2. Quine and Ullian, The Web of Belief, 100.
3. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part IV, p. 14.
4. Ibid., part IV, p. 16.
5. Benjamin, Schenkers Theory and the Future of Music, 163.
6. Schenker, Free Composition, par. 161, p. 56.
7. For a comprehensive account of sequences in general, see Adam Ricci,
A Theory of the Harmonic Sequence (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester,
2004).
8. Benjamin, Schenkers Theory and the Future of Music, 160.
9. As Alfred Mann observes, The forming of sequences (the so-called
monotonia) ought to be avoided as far as possible. See Fux, The Study of Coun-
terpoint, ed. and trans. Alfred Mann (New York: Norton, 1973), 54.
10. Whereas Figures 91 and 92 of Gradus ad Parnassum conform to 5-line
paradigms, Figure 98 composes out a 3-line, 3 4 321.
11. Fux, The Study of Counterpoint, 98.
Notes, pp. 122128 253
Chapter 4
1. Schenker, Free Composition, introduction, xxiii. I have changed Osters
wording slightly.
2. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 2, par. 1, 3334. Emphasis in
original.
3. See Schenker, Elucidations, in The Masterwork in Music 1 (1994),
11314.
4. See ibid., 113.
5. This maxim is usually translated as entities should not be multiplied
beyond necessity.
6. Paul M. Churchland, Ontological Status of Observables, in Images of
Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism, ed. Paul M. Churchland and Clifford
A. Hooker, 4041 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
7. Ibid.
8. For a helpful discussion, see Leeman L. Perkins, Modal Strategies in
Okeghems Missa Cuiusvis Toni, in Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past,
ed. Christopher Hatch and David Bernstein, 5971 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993), esp. 6061.
9. William J. Mitchell, Elementary Harmony, 3rd ed. (Engelwood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1965), 5.
Notes, pp. 143146 255
10. Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading, 3rd ed.
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003), 7.
11. Pieter Van den Toorn, The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1983), 460n14.
12. Richard Taruskin, Chez Petrouchka: Harmony and Tonality chez
Stravinsky, 19th-Century Music 10, no. 3 (1987): 267.
13. Ibid.
14. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 1, par. 5, pp. 2021. The purpose
of this digression was twofold: on the one hand, it allowed him to attack theorists
who used modes and scales to explain the behavior of tonal relationships (for
example, Capellan, Polak, Riemann, and Dittrichs); on the other, it allowed him
to criticize composers who tried to expand the sphere of tonality by writing in
modal or exotic styles (for example, Saint-Sans, Busoni).
15. Scholars have generally underestimated the importance of Schenkers
comments on mode. Roger Sessions did broach the question of mode in his short
review article, Heinrich Schenkers Contribution, Modern Music 12 (1935):
17075, but failed to appreciate Schenkers great insight that the properties of har-
monic systems do not depend on the properties of scales. So far as I can tell, nobody
has ever stressed the significance of this claim. Nevertheless, several Schenkerians
have undertaken analytical studies of modal music. See, for example, Peter
Bergquist, Mode and Polyphony around 1500: Theory and Practice, Music Forum
1 (1967): 9961; William J. Mitchell, The Prologue to Orlando di Lassos
Prophetiae Sibyllarum, Music Forum 2 (1970): 26473; Saul Novack, Fusion of
Design and Tonal Order in Mass and Motet: Josquin Desprez and Heinrich Isaac,
Music Forum 2 (1970): 187263; Saul Novack, The History of Phrygian Mode in
the History of Tonality, Miscellanea Musicologica 9 (1977): 82127; Saul Novack,
The Analysis of Pre-Baroque Music, in Aspects of Schenkerian Theory, ed. David
Beach, 11333 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983); Felix Salzer,
Tonality in Early Medieval Polyphony: Towards a History of Tonality, Music
Forum 1 (1967): 3498; Felix Salzer, Heinrich Schenker and Historical Research:
Monteverdis Madrigal Oim, se tanto amate, in Aspects of Schenkerian Theory,
ed. David Beach, 13352 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983); Carl
Schachter, Landinis Treatment of Consonance and Dissonance: A Study in Four-
teenth-Century Counterpoint, Music Forum 2 (1970): 13086; Lori Burns, Bachs
Modal Chorales, Harmonologia Series, 9 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1995). Jonas
summarizes some of Schenkers arguments in his Introduction to the Theory of Hein-
rich Schenker, ed. and trans. John Rothgeb (New York: Longman, 1982), 2731.
16. To quote him: And thus countless systems are assumed in a situation in
which even one system in the strict sense of the word is impossible from the out-
set, since the all too modest tonal material is simply not differentiated enough.
For that reason, the so-called systemsagain exactly as in the earliest period of
Western musicare of value at most only as mechanical-descriptive tools and
can apply only to the horizontal dimension at that. Schenker, Counterpoint I,
part 1, chap. 1, par. 5, p. 21.
256 Notes, pp. 146156
17. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 1, par. 5, pp. 20 and 39. In Har-
mony, he wrote, Hence there is no violence against the spirit of History in the
assumption that the old church modes, though they had their undeniable right
to existence, were nothing but experimentsexperiments in word and fact, i.e.,
in theory as well as practicewhence our art benefitted especially in so far as
they contributed decisively to the clarification, e contrario, of our understanding
of the two main systems. Harmony, par. 28, p. 59.
18. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 2, par. 1, p. 39.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., part 1, chap. 1, par. 5, p. 20.
21. Schenker, Free Composition, par. 4, pp. 1112.
22. Schenker, Harmony, par. 41, p. 87.
23. These arrows are missing from Mann Borgeses translation.
24. Schenker, Harmony, par. 48, p. 93. Schenkers student Oswald Jonas
went one step further to explain how Phrygian and Lydian effects can also be cre-
ated. According to him, these effects can arise when diminished triads are added
to the mix: in Phrygian mode the tonic and subdominant triads are minor and
the dominant triad is diminished, and in Lydian mode tonic and dominant triads
are major and the subdominant triad is diminished. Jonas, Introduction to the
Theory of Heinrich Schenker, 28.
25. Schenker, Harmony, par. 40, p. 86. Used by permission of the University
of Chicago Press. Translation modified slightly.
26. Ibid., par. 30, p. 76. Used by permission of the University of Chicago
Press. Translation modified slightly.
27. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 1, par. 5, p. 21.
28. Ibid., part 1, chap. 1, par. 5, p. 28. Emphasis in original.
29. Schenker, Harmony, par. 2630, 3852, pp. 5576, 84115.
30. Numerous other examples of modal works can be found in ibid., par.
2630, pp. 5576.
31. Barry Cooper, Beethoven and the Creative Process (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1990), 56.
32. Schenker, Harmony, par. 29, p. 65.
33. Ibid., par. 29, p. 63. Used by permission of the University of Chicago Press.
34. Ibid., par. 29, p. 66. Used by permission of the University of Chicago Press.
35. Ibid., par. 29, pp. 6263.
36. Significantly, Kevin Korsyn never bothers to mention Schenkers dis-
cussion of the passage in J. W. N. Sullivan and the Heiliger Dankgesang,
Beethoven Forum 2 (1993): 13374.
37. Schenker, Harmony, par. 29, pp. 6061. Used by permission of the Uni-
versity of Chicago Press.
38. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 2, par. 4, p. 57.
39. Ibid., part 1, chap. 2, par. 6, p. 57.
40. Schenker, Harmony, par. 29, p. 67. Used by permission of the University
of Chicago Press.
Notes, pp. 156166 257
41. Ibid., par. 29, pp. 6768. Used by permission of the University of
Chicago Press.
42. Ibid., par. 29, p. 68. Used by permission of the University of Chicago Press.
43. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 2, par. 1, p. 36. Schenkers dis-
cussion can be found on pp. 3439, Ex. 1314.
44. Schenker, Free Composition, par. 251, pp. 9596, Fig. 116.
45. Schenker, Counterpoint I, part 1, chap. 1, par. 5, p. 28.
46. Schenker, Chopin: Etude in G major, Op. 10, No. 5, trans. Bent, The
Masterwork in Music 1 (1925/1994), 97.
47. Arnold Schoenberg, Harmonielehre (Vienna: Universal, 1911, 3rd ed.
1922), chap. 20, trans. Roy E. Carter as Theory of Harmony (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1978), 39098; and Donald Francis Tovey, Harmony, in
The Forms of Music (Cleveland: Meridian, 1956), 69.
48. Matthew Brown, Tonality and Form in Debussys Prlude LAprs-
midi dun faune, Music Theory Spectrum 15, no. 2 (1993): 12743.
49. Burkhart, Schenkers Motivic Parallelisms, Journal of Music Theory
22, no. 2 (1978): 157.
50. Van den Toorn, The Music of Igor Stravinsky, 73.
51. Ibid.
52. Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 306.
53. Don Randel, Emerging Triadic Tonality in the Fifteenth Century,
Musical Quarterly 57 (1971): 7386. See also Robert W. Wienpahl, The Evolu-
tionary Significance of 15th Century Cadential Formulae, Journal of Music
Theory 4, no. 2 (1960): 13152. Helen E. Bush, The Recognition of Chordal
Formation by Early Theorists, Musical Quarterly 32 (1946): 238.
54. Randel, Emerging Triadic Tonality in the Fifteenth Century, 7879,
exx. 12.
55. Ibid.
56. Ernest T. Ferand, What is Res Facta? Journal of the American Musicolog-
ical Society 10 (1957): 12974; Margaret Bent, Res facta and Cantare Super
Librum, Journal of the American Musicological Society 36, no. 2 (1983): 37191;
Bonnie J. Blackburn, On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century,
Journal of the American Musicological Society 40, no. 2 (1987): 21084.
57. Blackburn, On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century, 252.
As she notes, Tinctoris gave two definitions of counterpoint, one in the Termino-
rum musicae diffinitorium (Treviso, ca. 1495) and the other in chapter 1 of the
Liber de arte contrapuncti (1477).
58. Blackburn, On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century, 252.
59. Ibid., 254.
60. For details, see ibid., 253 (emphasis in original). Incidentally, Jeppesen also
notes that repetitions are much more common in res facta than they are in note-
against-note counterpoint for two voices. Knud Jeppesen, Counterpoint: The Vocal
Style of the Sixteenth Century, trans. Alfred Mann (New York: Dover, 1992), 12.
258 Notes, pp. 166173
Chapter 5
1. Schenker, Miscellanea: Thoughts on Art and Its Relationships to the
General Scheme of Things, trans. Ian Bent, The Masterwork in Music 3 (1997), 71.
2. Ren Lenormand, tude sur lharmonie moderne (Paris: Monde musical,
1913).
3. Claude Debussy, Music in the Open Air, La Revue blanche, 1 June
1901, reprinted in Debussy on Music, coll. Franois Lesure, ed. and trans. Richard
Langham Smith (New York: Knopf, 1977), 41.
4. Claude Debussy, Debussy Letters, ed. Franois Lesure and trans. Roger
Nichols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 7677.
5. Claude Debussy, A propos de Muguette, Gil Blas, 23 March 1903,
reprinted in Debussy on Music, 155. I have retranslated the terms parfait and
imparfait.
6. Debussy, Conversations, 1890, reprinted in Debussy: Prelude to The
Afternoon of a Faun, ed. William Austin, Norton Critical Scores (New York:
Norton, 1970), 130. For a facsimile of Maurice Emanuels transcription of these
conversations, see Lon Vallas, Claude Debussy: His Life and Works, trans. Maire
OBrien and Grace OBrien (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 84.
Notes, pp. 173180 259
of chromatic phenomenon back to the basic triad. Oster, trans., Free Composi-
tion, Introduction, p. xxiii. According to Schenker: Chromaticism is an element
which does not destroy diatony (or Diatonie), but which rather emphasizes and
confirms it. Schenker, Harmony, par. 155, p. 288. Used by permission of the
University of Chicago Press.
19. William J. Mitchell, The Tristan Prelude: Techniques and Structure,
Music Forum 1 (1967): 203.
20. Schenker, Harmony, par. 89, p. 174. Used by permission of the Univer-
sity of Chicago Press. Translation changed slightly.
21. Schenker, Harmonielehre, par. 89, pp. 22022, Fig. 173. Unfortunately,
this extract is one of many passages omitted from Mann Borgeses English trans-
lation. Schenker repeated his general criticisms of Regers music in a comment
dated June 1911: One thinks, for instance of Regers silly way of writing: with
Reger, chord leads to chord, unsubstantiated by any sort of motive, and conse-
quently the succession of chords has only an external effect. Insubstantial phe-
nomena simply unload themselves at the outer doors of our consciousness. Only
substantial on the other hand, are able to penetrate into the depths. See
William Pastille, Review: Hellmuth Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker: Tagebchern
und Briefen, Journal of the American Musicological Society 39 (1986): 673.
22. See Schenker, Free Composition, par. 24445, p. 88ff.
23. See ibid., par. 244, p. 88.
24. Ibid., par. 307, p. 131.
25. See ibid.
26. For discussions of the term directional tonality or progressive tonal-
ity, see William Kinderman, Introduction, in The Second Practice of Nineteenth-
Century Music, ed. William Kinderman and Harald Krebs (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1996), 9.
27. Schenker, Free Composition, chap. 1, section 3, p. 5.
28. See Brown, Debussys Ibria: Studies in Genesis and Structure (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 13556.
29. Graham George discusses the concept of interlocking tonality in his
book, Tonality and Musical Structure (London: Faber, 1970). For a brief discussion
of Georges work, see Kinderman, Introduction, in The Second Practice of Nine-
teenth-Century Music, 9.
30. See, for example, Gregory Proctor, Technical Bases of Nineteenth-
Century Chromatic Tonality, (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1978); and
Kinderman and Krebs eds., The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century Music. To
quote Proctor, in classical diatonic tonality, chromaticism is defined as the inter-
action of different diatonic scales, but in nineteenth-century tonality, there is
but one chromatic scale from which all diatonic scales are derived as subsets.
Proctor, Technical Bases of Nineteenth-Century Chromatic Tonality, iiiiv.
31. For another response to these issues, see Robert P. Morgan, Are There
Two Practices in Nineteenth-Century Music? Journal of Music Theory 43, no. 1
(1999): 13563.
Notes, pp. 186202 261
32. For a discussion of the text, see Margaret G. Cobb, ed., The Poetic
Debussy: A Collection of His Song Texts and Selected Letters, 2nd ed., Eastman
Studies in Music (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1994), 1023.
For another reading of the piece, see Wallace Berry, Musical Structure and Musical
Performance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 144216.
33. For a discussion of the text, see Cobb, ed., The Poetic Debussy, 12223.
34. To cement the connections, both pieces contains the same chromatic
inflection 5 6 DE in La mort des amants and AB in Claire de lune.
35. Katherine Bergeron, The Echo, the Cry, the Death of Lovers, 19th-
Century Music 18, no. 2 (1994): 13650.
36. Robert Baldick, Introduction, in Huysmans, Against Nature, trans.
Robert Baldick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959), 13.
37. Jean Pierrot, The Decadent Imagination, 18801900, trans. Derek
Coltman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 12324.
38. According to Des Esseintes, [Verlaine] alone had possessed the secret
hinting at certain strange spiritual aspirations, of whispering certain thoughts, of
murmuring certain confessions so softly, so quietly, so haltingly that the ear that
caught them was left hesitating, and passed on to the soul a languor made all the
more pronounced by the vagueness of these words that were guessed rather than
heard. Huysmans, Against Nature, 186.
39. See Marcel Dietschy, A Portrait of Debussy, ed. and trans. William
Ashbrook and Margaret G. Cobb (Oxford: Oxford Univerisity Press, 1990), 42.
40. See ibid., 49.
41. See Morgan, The Dissonant Prolongation. Several other writers have
noticed this inconsistency, among them Carl Schachter, A Commentary on
Schenkers Free Composition, Journal of Music Theory 25, no. 11 (1981):
13637; William Clark, Heinrich Schenker on the Nature of the Seventh
Chord, Journal of Music Theory 26, no. 2 (1982): 22159; Allen Forte and
Steven E. Gilbert, Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis (New York: Norton,
1982), 24445; Jonas, Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker, 12022.
The most notorious analyses appear in Schenker, Free Composition, Fig. 62, 14,
and par. 215.
42. For example, in the Preface to Counterpoint I, he noted: In comparison
with the works of our masters, todays compositions have to be considered musically
too simple, even far too simple and primitive. Despite heaviest orchestration,
despite noisy and pompous gestures, despite polyphony and cacophony, the
proudest products of Richard Strauss are inferiorin terms of true musical spirit
and authentic inner complexity of texture, form, and articulationto a string
quartet by Haydn, in which external grace hides the inner complexity, just as
color and fragrance of a flower render mysterious to humans the undiscovered,
great miracles of creation. Schenker, Preface, Counterpoint I, xxi.
43. To quote Schenker, The dissonant passing tone, including the passing
seventh, is itself a means of composing-out. Therefore, as long as it retains its dis-
sonant quality, it cannot at the same time give rise to further composing-out; only
262 Notes, pp. 204214
Chapter 6
1. See Matthew Brown, Adrift on Neuraths Boat: The Case for a Natural-
ized Music Theory, Journal of Musicology 15, no. 3 (1997): 33042; Douglas
Dempster, Aesthetic Experience and Psychological Definitions of Art, Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 11, no. 2 (1985): 15365; and Dempster, Renaturaliz-
ing Aesthetics, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 21, no. 3 (1993): 35161.
2. Schenker, Free Composition, par. 1, p. 10.
3. Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), 5 (emphasis in original).
4. Schenker, Free Composition, Appendix H, p. 160.
5. See Schachter, A Commentary on Schenkers Free Composition, Jour-
nal of Music Theory 25, no. 1 (1987): 119.
6. Schenker, Harmony, par. 18, p. 40. Used by permission of the University
of Chicago Press. Translation slightly changed.
7. In response to my claims that Schenkers generation of the major system
is based on ad hoc and arbitrary assumptions, Suzannah Clark notes In each of
these cases, the factor Brown has missed is the Mysterious Five. Suzannah Clark,
Schenkers Mysterious Five, 19th-Century Music 23, no. 1 (1999): 87.
8. Schenker, Free Composition, par. 16, p. 14.
9. Schenker, Harmony, Preface, p. xxv. Used by permission of the Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.
10. Joseph Kerman, Contemplating Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1985), 85. It is worth noting, however, that Schenker did not necessarily
believe that tonal composition was exhausted; see Schenker, Harmony, par. 8, p. 21.
Notes, pp. 214224 263
47. See Robert Winter, Compositional Origins of the String Quartet in C Sharp
Minor, Op. 131 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 1982).
48. For an extensive discussion of these issues, see Matthew Brown, Com-
posers Revisions and the Creative Process, College Music Symposium 33/34
(1993/94): 9395.
49. From Edward Holmes, Life of Mozart (London: Everyman, 1924), 255ff.
See also Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and His Family, 3rd ed. (London:
Macmillan, 1985), xix.
50. Schenker, Der freie Satz, ed. Oswald Jonas, 2nd ed. (Vienna: Universal,
1956), par. 301, p. 198; and Otto Erich Deutsch, Spurious Mozart Letters Music
Review 25 (1964): 121.
51. W. R. Reitman, Cognition and Thought (New York: Wiley, 1965). For
general accounts of verbal protocols, see K. Anders Ericsson and Herbert A.
Simon, Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1984); and Alan Lesgold, Problem Solving, in The Psychology of Human
Thought, ed. Robert J. Sternberg and Edward E. Smith, 188213 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988).
52. Sloboda, The Musical Mind, 137.
53. Ibid., 149.
54. Mavromatis, The Early Keyboard Prelude as an Agent in the Forma-
tion of Schenkerian Background Prototypes, Paper delivered at the Third Inter-
national Schenker Conference, Mannes College of Music, March 12, 1999.
55. Richard Hudson, The Concept of Mode in Italian Guitar Music during
the First Half of the 17th Century, Acta Musicologica 42 (1970): 16383.
56. Schenker, Free Composition, Chap. 1, Section 4, p. 6.
57. Ibid., chap. 1, section 4, p. 7.
58. Ibid., par. 301, p. 128. As he put it: But genius, the gift for improvisa-
tion and long-range hearing, is requisite for greater time spans. Short-range hear-
ing is incapable of projecting large spans, because it does not perceive those
simpler elements upon which far-reaching structure is to be based. Yet the
geniuss ability to encompass even the largest spans is not unduly astonishing.
Anyone who, like the genius, can create the smallest linear progressions of
thirds, fourths, and fifths abundantly and with ease, need only exert a greater
spiritual and physical energy in order to extend them still further through larger
and larger spans, until the single largest progression is attained: the Urlinie.
Schenker, Free Composition, par. 30, pp. 1819. For an extended discussion of
improvisation, see Schenker, The Art of Improvisation, trans. Kramar, The
Masterwork in Music 1 (1994), 219.
59. Schenker, Free Composition, par. 51, p. 27.
60. Quine and Ullian, The Web of Belief (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970),
especially chap. 2, pp. 919.
61. For an interesting discussion of this and related issues, see Kevin
Korsyn, Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), especially 6190.
266 Notes, pp. 234236
Conclusion
1. William Rothstein, The Americanization of Heinrich Schenker, in
Schenker Studies 1, ed. Hedi Siegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), 202.
2. See, for example, Carl Schachter, Rhythm and Linear Analysis: A Pre-
liminary Study, Music Forum 4 (1976): 281334, reprinted in Schachter,
Unfoldings, ed. Joseph N. Straus, 1753 (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999); Schachter, Rhythm and Linear Analysis: Durational Reduction, Music
Forum 5 (1980): 197232, reprinted in Schachter, Unfoldings, 5478; Schachter,
Rhythm and Linear Analysis: Aspects of Meter, Music Forum 6 (1987): 159,
reprinted in Unfoldings, 79117; William Rothstein, Rhythm and the Theory
of Structural Levels; Rothstein, Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York:
Schirmer, 1989); Joel Galand, Form, Genre, and Style in the Eighteenth-
Century Rondo, Music Theory Spectrum 17, no. 1 (1995): 2752; Charles Smith,
Musical Form and Fundamental Structure: An Investigation of Schenkers
Formenlehre, Music Analysis 15, no. 23 (1998): 191297; Janet Schmalfeldt,
Towards a Reconciliation of Schenkerian Concepts with Traditional and
Recent Theories of Form, Music Analysis 10, no. 3 (1991): 23387.
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276 Explaining Tonality
IV/V Hypothesis, The, 45, 6364, Bach, Johann Sebastian, works by:
180, 225 Chorale, Gelobet seist du Jesu
accented neighbor tone, 5456 Christ, 158
accented passing tone, 6, 5456 Chorale, Ich bins, ich sollte
accuracy, xiv, 2, 18, 1920, 22, 23, bssen, 49, 89
2565, 234, 235 Minuet II, French Suite I, BWV
acoustics, 20910, 21115 812, 100, 13436
addition (of a linear progression), Prelude in A, BWV 942,
8081 17578
adjacent seventh chords, 5354 Prelude in C Major, BWV 924,
Agmon, Eytan, 248n55 12630, 137
Aldwell, Edward, 143, 255n10 Prelude in C Major, WTC I,
Anderson, Emily, 265n49 21718
Anstieg. See preliminary ascent Prelude in C Minor, BWV 999,
appoggiatura, 5556 18283
Aristotle, 245n51 Prelude in C Minor, WTC I, BWV
arpeggiation (Brechung), 7778, 83, 847, 13033
8384 Prelude, Partita No. 1 for Violin,
Artusi, Giovanni Maria, 167, 258n64 BWV 1006, 13334
Artusi/Monteverdi Debate, The, Sarabande and Double, Partita
16768 No. 1 for Violin, BWV 1002,
Audi, Robert, 245n51 4647
Ausfaltung. See unfolding Bacharach, Burt, 14, 15
Auskomponierung. See composing out background (Hintergrund), 69, 91. See
Aussensatz. See outer-voice also tonal prototypes
counterpoint Badertscher, B., 264n37
auxiliary cadence progression, 18283, Baker, James, 262n46
188, 193, 197, Baldick, Robert, 261n36
Ayer, Alfred, 244n40 bass arpeggiation (Bassbrechung), 69,
Ayotte, Benjamin McKay, 239n1 73, 74, 86, 147, 182
Bassbrechung. See bass arpeggiation
Babbitt, Milton, xiv, xix, 92, 239n6, Baudelaire, Charles, 192202
251n43 Baudelaire, Charles, works by: Les
Babbitt, Milton, works by: Philomel, fleurs du mal, 192
14 Beach, David, 96, 239n1, 246n3,
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, xiii, 13, 252n47
69, 229 Bechtel, William, 241n8, 243n19
Bach, Johann Sebastian, xiii, 13, 171, Beethoven, Ludwig van, xiii, 13, 14,
185, 204, 230 27, 182, 228, 229
282 Index
Lewin, David, 28, 246n8, 246n9 modality vs tonality, 35, 14158, 172,
limits of Schenkerian theory, 17286, 18182, 186
202, 235 model of music, xvii, 28
linear progression (Zug), 53, 62, modus tollens, 16
7980, 83, 124, 126 Monteverdi, Claudio, 16768
Liszt, Franz, 205 Monteverdi, Claudio, works by:
Lockwood, Lewis, 228, 252n49, 264n46 Anima mia perdona (Madrigals,
long-range hearing, 265n58 Bk 4), 167; Cruda Amarilli
Losee, John, 241n8, 243n19, 243n26 (Madrigals, Bk 5), 167
Lous, Pierre, 17273, Monteverdi, Guilio Cesare, 258n65,
Lubben, Joseph, 75, 250n18 258n66
Lyons, H. I., 263n22 Morgan, Robert P., 2026, 260n31,
261n41, 262n45
Maisal, Arthur, 240n18 motion from an inner voice
major-minor system, 43 (Untergreifen), 62, 7980, 83, 126,
Manktelow, K. I., 244n33 160, 167
Mann, Alfred, 246n5, 246n10, motion to an inner voice, 7980, 83
246n11, 252n9, 257n60 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, xiii, 13,
Marr, David, 216, 263n23 27, 143, 228, 229; Attwood Papers,
Mavromatis, Panayotis, xviii, 16869, 246n12
230, 236, 258n67, 265n54 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, works by:
melodic fluency (der fliessende Piano Sonata, K. 280, 96
Gesang), 45, 223 Piano Sonata, K. 310, 123
melodic prototype/upper line Piano Sonata, K. 331, 138
(Urlinie), 53, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, Piano Sonata, K. 332, 96
8790, 123, 126, 130, 147 Piano Sonata, K. 333, 96
Mendelssohn, Felix, xiii, 13 music psychology, 20910, 21416,
mental representation, 217, 218 22233
mentally retained tone or headtone (der musica practica, 232
festgehaltene Ton/Kopfton), 43, 79 musica speculativa, 232
Meyer, Leonard B., 223, 263n26 Mynatt, C. R., 17, 244n33
middleground (Mittelgrund), 69, Mysterious Five, The, 213, 234
8691; paradigms at deep Myth of Scales, The, 14070
middleground, 8689
Mischung. See mixture Nagel, Ernst, 245n44
Mitchell, William J., 143, 180, 254n9, Narmour, Eugene, xvi, 7576, 223,
255n15, 260n19 224, 234, 240n16, 250n19,
Mitchells Axiom, 180 263n26, 263n28, 264n30, 264n31,
Mittelgrund. See middleground 264n37
mixed species, 121, 122, naturalizing tonal theory, 20933
mixture (Mischung), 4344, 8081, nature vs art, 21315
11416, 14163, 18082, 22425; Naturklang, Der. See Chord of Nature
double, 4344, 81, 116; secondary, Nebennote. See neighbor
43, 81; simple, 43, 81, 11415, 148 motion/neighbor tone
288 Index
French Organ Music from the Theories of Fugue from the Age of
Revolution to Franck and Widor Josquin to the Age of Bach
Edited by Lawrence Archbold Paul Mark Walker
and William J. Peterson
The Chansons of Orlando di Lasso and
Musical Creativity in Twentieth-Century Their Protestant Listeners: Music,
China: Abing, His Music, and Piety, and Print in Sixteenth-Century
Its Changing Meanings France
(includes CD) Richard Freedman
Jonathan P. J. Stock
Berliozs Semi-Operas: Romo et
Elliott Carter: Collected Essays and Juliette and La damnation de Faust
Lectures, 19371995 Daniel Albright
Edited by Jonathan W. Bernard
The Gamelan Digul and the Prison-Camp
Music Theory in Concept and Practice Musician Who Built It: An Australian
Edited by James M. Baker, David Link with the Indonesian Revolution
W. Beach, and Jonathan W. Bernard Margaret J. Kartomi
The Music of American Folk Song Claude Debussy As I Knew Him and
and Selected Other Writings on Other Writings of Arthur Hartmann
American Folk Music Edited by Samuel Hsu,
Ruth Crawford Seeger, edited by Sidney Grolnic, and Mark Peters
Larry Polansky and Judith Tick Foreword by David Grayson
Matthew Brown