Schenkerian theory

Schenkerian analysis is a method of musical analysis of tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935). The goal is to extract the underlying structure of a tonal movement. The basic tenets of the supporing theory can be viewed as a way of defining the way tonality is articulated. A Schenkerian analysis shows hierarchical relationships among pitches, and draws conclusions about the structure of the passage from this hierarchy. The analysis uses a specialized symbolic form of musical notation that Schenker devised to indicate structural status and prolongation, by which tones that are not contiguous on the surface can nevertheless be connected, and separated by musical material that arises through elaboration on lower structural levels. A key theoretical concept is that of "tonal space"; The intervals between the notes of the tonic triad form a tonal space that is filled with passing and neighbour notes, producing new triads and new tonal spaces, open for further elaborations until the surface of the work (the score) is reached.

Although Schenker himself usually presents his analyses in the generative direction, starting from the fundamental structure (Ursatz) to reach the score and showing how the work is somehow generated from the Ursatz, the practice of Schenkerian analysis more often is reductive, starting from the score and showing how it can be reduced to its fundamental structure. The graph of the Ursatz is arrhythmic, as is a strict-counterpoint cantus firmus exercise. Even at intermediate levels of the reduction, rhythmic notation (open and closed noteheads, beams and flags) shows not rhythm but the hierarchical relationships between the pitch-events.

In some respects, an analysis can reflect the perceptions and intuitions of the analyst, developed in accordance with particular principles as established by Schenker and subsequent music theorists.

Schenker was convinced of the superiority of music of the common practice period (especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, and Johannes Brahms). This led him to seek the key to an understanding of music in the traditional discipline of counterpoint, the type of theory the Masters themselves had studied. Schenker's project was to show that free composition (freier Satz) was an elaboration, a "prolongation", of strict composition (strenger Satz), by which he meant species counterpoint, particularly two-voice counterpoint. He did this by developing a theory of hierarchically organized levels of elaboration (Auskomponierung), called prolongational levels, voice–leading levels (Stimmführungsschichten), or transformations (Verwandlungen), the idea being that each of the successive levels represents a new freedom taken with respect to the rules of strict composition.

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