The Masterwork in Music: Volume II, 1926

By Heinrich Schenker

The three volumes of The Masterwork in Music present complete English translations of major works by Austrian music theorist Heinrich Schenker, one of the twentieth century's leading figures in the field. First published in German between 1925 and 1930, these essays represent Schenker's greatest writings in analysis prior to the 1935 definitive formulation of his theory of music in Der freie Satz (Free Composition). This new publication of the long-awaited English translation, which first appeared in the distinguished Cambridge University Press edition, provides a valuable resource for scholars. Editorial annotations and elucidations by Dr. William Drabkin and his translators offer additional insights.
This volume features a major essay on Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor; studies of Bach keyboard and solo cello pieces; works by Haydn and Reger; theoretical writings on sonata form and fugue; and many examples of Schenkerian theory. Volume One includes analyses of keyboard works by Bach, Scarlatti, Chopin, Beethoven, and Handel and solo violin music by Bach, along with studies of other works. Volume Three's contents include Schenker's celebrated analysis of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony and other works.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Oct 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9780486799360

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1926

1

FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE URLINIE: II

FORTSETZUNG DER URLINIE-BETRACHTUNGEN {11–42}

TRANSLATED BY

JOHN ROTHGEB

LINEAR PROGRESSIONS AS VEHICLES OF COHERENCE

The following may be added to what has been said about linear progressions in Kontrapunkt I, pp.242ff/pp.178ff; Kontrapunkt II, pp.59ff/pp.56ff; and Meisterwerk I, pp.192ff/pp.107ff.

The conceptual unity of a linear progression signifies a conceptual tension between the beginning and the end of the progression: the primary note¹ is to be retained until the point at which the concluding note appears. This tension alone engenders musical coherence. In other words, the linear progression is the sole vehicle of coherence, of synthesis.

The tension in a linear progression is analogous to that in the ordered succession of a linguistic entity, whose value is likewise ensured only by a conceptual tension. Experience teaches, however, that even in language – especially that of everyday life – the tensions of sentence structure are generally bypassed; the mind is insufficiently schooled, and in addition is usually too indolent, to carry them through with tenacity. Understandably, however, people find it still more difficult to comprehend the musical tensions of linear progressions – both the individual lines and the totality of lines that forms the synthesis of the whole. The ear has still not opened itself to these lines. Yet I repeat what I stated in the first volume of Meisterwerk, on p.192/p.107: ‘Anyone who has not heard music as linear progressions of this kind has not heard it at all.’

In the [first movement of the] Piano Sonata in F major, K.332,² Mozart writes the second subject [in the recapitulation] as follows:

Fig. 1

{12} To experience the tension of the first third-progression c²–a¹ in bars 1–4 (see Fig. 1c), one must interpret the bass leaps in these bars as merely dividing, not cadential (see ‘Elucidations’, Fig. 6), and also understand the broken thirds of the diminution, which move both upward and downward. (Concerning bars 3–4 of the example, where f¹–g¹–a¹ stands for a¹–f¹ [i.e. a¹ above f¹], see Meisterwerk I, chapter 13, Fig. 1; the present essay, Fig. 7, bars 3–4; and the Foreground Graph of the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, bars 46–7, etc. [Meisterwerk II, p.67].

To deal with the tension of the second third-progression, b♭¹–a¹–g¹, far more yet is required: the consonant adjustment, by means of the root F (see ‘Elucidations’, Fig. 4), produces in bars 5–7 the illusion of a cadence IV–V–I, which at first requires justification. (Fig. 1a shows the originally dissonant passing note (8)–7; Fig. 1b shows the impending consecutive fifths: cf. Meisterwerk I, chapter 10, Fig. 2.) The bass moves to the root of IV on the last crotchet of bar 7; thus only here can one understand the internal articulation D–(f)–B♭–C of the bass in bars 5–8, where the relation D–B♭ expresses the unity of IV while the intervening root F merely makes the a¹ consonant. The neighbour note b♭¹ above B♭ serves the purpose of consonant adjustment by providing an octave, which takes the place of a seventh (see Fig. 1a).

Only now can the following conclusions be drawn.

From the third-progression c²–a¹ only the c² is to be extracted as primary note, which moves ahead only with b♭¹ in bar 5 (here representing IV as well). This leads to an amalgamation of the two third-progressions into the higher unity of the fourth-progression c²–g¹ in bars 1–8, which is answered by the complete fifth-progression c³–f² in bars 9–16. The totality, bars 1–16, thus expresses the tension of a fifth-progression: the treble presents the fifth-progression, the bass the arpeggiation F–C–F; together, they signify a complete life-cycle of the F triad, interconnection of the [subordinate] linear progressions and of diminutions, structural tension, synthesis.

Finally the last, most difficult questions arise. How does this fifth-progression {13} fit into the synthesis of the whole? How does its tension relate to the remaining tensions? The answers to these questions presuppose, however, that the remaining tensions, too, have been correctly grasped.

As a second example the theme of Chopin’s Berceuse, Op.57, may be cited.

By means of the tension of two third-progressions, f²–e♭²–d♭² and g♭²–f²–e♭², Chopin achieves the following, still more comprehensive, tension, which has the meaning of a neighbour-note formation (see Fig. 2a):

Fig. 2

in the one-line octave (this register is to be observed also in the first bar of the piece).

{14} But insight into the theme, the variations, and the whole cannot be attained until one has learned to hear those two third-progressions that make up the theme. The readings in Figs. 2b and 2c suffer, beginning with the upbeat of bar 2,³ from contradiction of triads. The third-progressions must come to terms with the accompaniment (see Fig. 2d): d♭² in the downbeat of bar 2 is followed by c² in the upbeat (against g♭¹ of the accompaniment) and finally d♭² in the downbeat of bar 3 as the final note of the first third-progression. The latter progression thus expands the content as follows: f²–e♭²–(d♭²–c²)–d♭² for f²–e♭²–d♭². True, even the latter voice-leading would have achieved the goal; but it would have too openly drawn attention to its awkward position,⁴ and would thus have been irritating. Therefore the master found it necessary to reach over in bars 2–3, above the first third-progression (which was still in progress), with f²–e♭²–d♭² as a kind of echo. The reaching-over progression masks the course of the initial one and re-fortifies the tension up to the final dt² in bar 3; but it had to be introduced by a♭² at the fifth quaver of bar 1 and embedded in the triadic arpeggiation a♭²–f²–d♭² (see the first square brackets in Figs. 2e and 2d) lest it act too obviously as a canonic imitation.

The second third-progression begins in the upbeat of bar 3. Here the diminution develops first of all an arpeggiation: e♭² at the fourth quaver of the bar comes from d♭², the final note of the first third-progression; g♭² at the fifth quaver is the embodiment of the neighbour note and maintains the relation to f² in bar 1 as primary note of the first third-progression; finally, b♭² at the last quaver belongs to a♭² of bar 1. This arpeggiation, e♭²–g♭²–b♭², answers the first one, a♭²–f²–d♭². Thus, above the principal neighbour-note motion f²–g♭²–f² there hovers yet another, a♭²–b♭²–a♭².

To hear these two examples as I have shown them surpasses the mental capacity of musicians, both theorists and practitioners. They drag themselves along from moment to moment, with the laziest of ears, without any musical imagination, hearing only a continuous alternation of tonic and dominant, cadence after cadence, melodies, themes, repetitions, pedal point. How easy they make everything for themselves with their hearing, and yet they fancy themselves more advanced than Mozart and Chopin, of whom they know nothing!

Let us recall here once again the techniques of ascending and descending register transfer by means of octave-coupling (Meisterwerk I, p.69/p.36). Seemingly aimless, a play of rising and falling, falling and rising, octave-coupling in reality has the purpose of generating content, of connecting high and low registers and maintaining the obbligato character of each (cf. Tonwille 1, p.39); but invariably – and this must be emphasized – {15} it signifies a conceptual tension and serves the coherence of the parts and, not infrequently, of a totality.⁵

THE PRIMARY NOTE OF THE LINEAR PROGRESSION

Linear progressions in the treble that descend signify motion to an inner voice of the original chord or the ensuing one.⁶ Those that rise signify motion from an inner voice to the treble.⁷

The retained primary note of a descending line thus asserts the actual register of the treble; the retained primary note of an ascending line belongs to an inner voice:

Fig. 3

To advance the content it is sufficient, in the case of a descending line, to reconnect to the primary note as though no linear progression had intervened:

Fig. 4

This does not preclude, however, that the primary note of the new linear progression, instead of being freely asserted, may be sought out by means of passing note, arpeggiation or reaching over.

It is just as easy to proceed from a primary note to an upper or lower neighbour note.⁸

The retention of the primary note thus expresses a conceptual tension of its own: it strengthens and amplifies cohesiveness. This simple process alone makes possible the construction of a larger whole out of antecedent and consequent:

Fig. 5

at the end, signifies tension throughout all parts of the form, hence cohesiveness, synthesis of the whole.

In the following illustration:⁹

Fig. 6

, and the Urlinie is completed only in the second part. Observe how d♭² in the first fifth-progressionas well.

A similar case is shown in this example:

Fig. 7

{17} In bars 1–8 the first fifth-progression of the treble is formed from two linear sub-progressions [Teilzügedoes call upon an arpeggiation of its own, I–VI–II–V–I, but only to make the originally dissonant passing 4 (see . The tension of the whole arises from the constituent tensions of the individual linear progressions, from the retention of the primary note throughout the first fifth-progression, and finally from the Urlinie.

Thus, even in a piece of larger dimensions, such as Chopin’s Nocturne Op.9, No. 2, for example, the tension of the whole – i.e. its synthesis – is better expressed as follows:

:

Fig. 8

.

APPROACHING THE FIRST NOTE OF THE URLINIE BY ARPEGGIATION

{18} Often, as in the next example, the first note of the Urlinie is approached by an arpeggiation:

Fig. 9

The outline given in Fig. 9a provides full clarification of the facts, whose comprehension is rendered more difficult by the circumstance that the bass, following the course of its own arpeggiation, deposits the root C♮³ (as a way-station, signifying scale-degree III) just at the moment that c³, delayed by the arpeggiation, appears.¹² The arpeggiation of the treble thus creates a beautiful structural tension [Spannung] to the first note of the Urlinie, and simultaneously a hesitation, which makes the bass seem impatient and forces it to move on prematurely.

The neighbour-note chord in bar 5 belongs to the C in the bass in bar 6. The impending consecutive fifths are averted by advancing the treble to a♭² already in bar 4; the chromatic alteration of III paves the way for the progression by fifths (III♮–VI–II♮–V), which supports the unfolding of the treble into a [descending] third-progression plus an [ascending] fourth-progression.

Anyone who lacks conceptual mastery of both arpeggiations, of both structural tensions, will necessarily miss the point of the composition. And I cannot recall a single truly appropriate performance of this much-played Etude: composer and performer go their separate ways already in the first bars. If the performer but understood the beginning, he would more easily discover the structure of the whole and would, at last, comprehend even the original metronome marking!

Sometimes an arpeggiation binds together formal parts.¹³ In the following example:

Fig. 10

{19} the bass moves through the third to the fifth; but the third remains within the [tonic] harmony (unlike in in bar 11 must be understood as the first note of the Urlinie. How much structural tension from the first to the second part is conferred by such an arpeggiation!

; the arpeggiation establishes cohesion of the parts.

{20} The two arpeggiations in bars 1–6 and 7–8 (see the brackets in Fig. 11c) serve merely the composing-out of the third, c²–b♭¹–a♭¹ (see Fig. 11 a).

Fig. 11

), see ‘Elucidations’, Fig. 8. Anyone who fails to hear the arpeggiations in bars 1–8, the collaboration of bass fourth-progression and treble unfolding in bars 9–12 cannot possibly find access to the cohesion of the details.

The following example shows an arpeggiation that is more difficult to read:

Fig. 12

with III♮³ in bar 9 (cf. only in bar 9, and also that of the bass, which brings the structural dominant in bar 12 (13). It is only the collaboration of both arpeggiations in the service of the fundamental line that constitutes the structural coherence here.

Fig. 13

In the Waltz Op. 34, No. 1, Chopin actually combines three short waltzes into a higher unity by means of an arpeggiation! What appears to be a loose assemblage in the manner of a potpourri reveals itself, when correctly understood, to be a tightly organized whole, whose necessity is ensured by the indivisibility of the arpeggiation and of the bass motion.

The similarly organized middle group of this Waltz [bars 80–173, not shown in (cf. Fig. 8).

THE BASS AS GUIDEPOST TO THE URLINIE

For greater ease in uncovering the course of the Urlinie, I recommend that attention be given first of all to the large arpeggiation with which the bass unfolds the tonic triad (cf. ‘Der freie Satz’, also Meisterwerk I, p.110/p.59, Fig. 2). After its divider, the dominant, has been found, one should next try to establish precisely the path to the dominant:

Fig. 14

Does it pass through the third only by arpeggiation, as in Fig. 14a? Or are both spaces of the third filled, as in Fig. 14b, in which case the unbroken step wise motion also injects a contrapuntal-melodic element into the basic arpeggiation? Or is only a single step of a second included in the traversal of the fifth, as at Figs. 14c and 14d, which also, of course, signifies progression by fifth, I–IV–V or I–II–V.¹⁴ (There is where the spirit of scale-degree rules!) {22} Only in this way is it possible to understand the many other arpeggiations of the bass as entities which, although complete in themselves, are nevertheless subordinated to the purpose of the large arpeggiation of the tonic triad. And thereby, in turn, one gains the ability to distinguish among the many linear progressions of the treble in their various meanings, and to penetrate to the actual progression of the Urlinie.

The fundamental arpeggiation of the bass, too, contains a tension of its own, with which it serves the synthesis of the whole.¹⁵

APPROACHING THE FIRST NOTE OF THE URLINIE BY AN INITIAL ASCENT

– and, indirectly, also the particular Urlinie space – that is immediately understood as a given a priori (cf. ‘Elucidations’, Fig. 2); but the initial ascent [Anstieg); but how momentous is the descent , to which no initial ascent is prefixed!

By nature infinite, the space available for visual works of art must be bounded by the painter and, in the setting of boundaries, created anew. The eye of the painter, and of the viewer, demands not merely selectivity in art, but also boundary. With music, things are different: here the spaces available to melodic motion are the spaces of the octave, fifth and third offered by Nature. Larger spaces, more distant {23} boundaries, do not exist; the musician’s only task is to fill these spaces. The spaces of tonal movement are therefore finite and small; but the possibilities for filling them are infinite.

THE TRIAD ON THE FIFTH DEGREE, AND THE DOMINANT

It is no accident that certain theorists today look askance at precisely the dominant. Born with bad musical hearing, and incapable of being instructed by the work of genius, they have failed to sense or to recognize the diversity of application of the triad built on the fifth degree. They are accustomed to groping ahead, chord by chord, like blind men along a wall. Deaf to the longer-range connections, they have no other recourse in dealing with the fifth-related triads that they find at every turn in the masterworks than to interpret them indiscriminately as representing tonics and dominants that are part of actual form-defining cadences. They remain unaware, of course, that in so doing they place in-ordinately heavy burdens on the voice-leading of the masterworks – burdens which in fact do not exist. But Nature in her honesty punishes them in equal measure with the curse of a secret, bitter repugnance. The falsifiers then try to defend themselves with various excuses: the dominant (they allege) was once a harmonic fashion in art which, like any other fashion, had eventually to pass; it was a throwback to acoustics, to a primitive theory, which has surely become superfluous in the modern age. And thus they fan the flames of their errors, their pique: the dominant becomes an object of abomination to them, a thorn in the ear that has to be expelled! And so, they simply display no more dominants among their wares!

To grant these theorists and composers that they no longer like the dominant, perhaps because they feel themselves capable of producing the same effect with more advanced means, would certainly be inappropriate, for that would presuppose that they have knowledge of the dominant: how would they have rebelled against a thing of which they knew nothing? They fail to hear that most triads on the fifth in the masterworks are in no way cadential dominants, but serve only to make consonant, for the purpose of a new arpeggiation, a passing note that would still be dissonant in the voice-leading of the background or middleground (see ‘Elucidations’, Fig. 6).¹⁸ They fail to hear it because they still have no ear for the higher-level entity represented by a linear progression that includes that passing note, and because they do not suspect the presence, behind the consonance of the triad on the fifth, of the dissonance that belongs to the passing note. {24} Alas, they imagine themselves no longer to want the same thing, and [yet] they are condemned to be no longer capable of the same thing – and herein alone lies the difference between the inartistic musicians of today and the artistic ones of earlier generations. Their clumsy churlishness, the childish pugnacity with which they try to shield themselves against the dominant, have a quixotic flavour; the real dominant is unknown to them. It would be futile to hope that the hapless self-corruptors would simply self-destruct. At least one can now understand why the tonal material disintegrates in their hands: they have deprived the triad of its divider, which is its life; they have therefore killed the triad, and thus can never forge ahead to a synthesis, which requires the life-giving unfoldings and arpeggiations as vehicles of coherence.

THE DISSONANT INTERVAL IS ALWAYS A PASSING EVENT, NEVER A COMPOSITE SOUND¹⁹

A linear progression always presupposes a passing note: there can be no linear progression without a passing note, no passing note without a linear progression. Therefore, it is only by means of the linear progression – by means of the passing note – that it is possible to achieve coherence, to achieve synthesis of the whole!

Strict counterpoint introduces the dissonance for the first time in the second species:

Fig. 15

The dissonance passes through at the upbeat, while the note of the cantus firmus is sustained.

The dissonance fills out a space of a third, and thereby yields a third-progression for the voice-leading (see the square brackets in Fig. 15).

In contrast to the arpeggiation, the third-progression establishes an element of composing-out on the horizontal-melodic plane; the dissonance becomes the vehicle of the melodic element.²⁰

The meaning of the passing dissonance consists solely in its function of forming a melodic bridge from one consonance to the next, and of creating the tension of the third-progression, for whose duration (through the dissonance and beyond) the primary note is retained (see above). There is no question of an intervallic relation between it and the sustained note of the cantus firmus (see Kontrapunkt I, p.60/pp.57–8).

{25} Therefore it contradicts the nature of the dissonant passing note to discriminate in any substantial way among the intervals of a fourth, a seventh and a ninth, to say nothing of positing an increasing scale of dissonance for these intervals: the vertical dimension is altogether excluded, everything hinges on the horizontal tension alone. It is as though there were nothing but a vacuum separating the dissonant passing note and the sustained note of the cantus firmus.

The only notes that join together to count as composite sounds are, in the vertical dimension, the two consonances at the beginning and end of the third-progression and, in the horizontal direction, the [terminal notes of the] third-progression that includes the passing note.

Between the dissonant passing note and the sustained note, therefore, no composite sound exists. Anyone who, in disregard of this fact, posits a composite sound at the upbeat – between the dissonance and the cantus firtnus note – has not grasped the nature of dissonance, of the passing note as strict counterpoint teaches it.

The characteristics that the dissonant passing note acquired at its birth in the second species of two-voice strict counterpoint remain with it also in the third species in a two-voice setting, and in the second and third species of settings of three or more voices (see Kontrapunkt n and ‘Der freie Satz’). Even in the combined species certain prolongations of the dissonant passing note rest only on the fact that in them the horizontal tension above all is emphasized, even to the point of permitting a dissonance to be transformed into a consonance without relinquishing the inner nature of a passing note. I wrote as follows about this phenomenon in the preface to the second volume of Kontrapunkt (p.xv/p.xix):

An actual dissonant passing note can even ensnare a leapwise interval, and this is the origin of the leaping passing note. The exchange of voices appears for the first time when two counterpoints are set in minims or crotchets; and when two counterpoints are combined in different durations (minims together with crotchets), a passing motion can produce for the first time a dissonant clash at the upbeat [see Fig. 16], which certainly extends the concept of passing note.²¹

Fig. 16

The consonance that comes in this way to substitute for a dissonance is then further employed by free composition to sprout additional linear progressions (see ‘Elucidations’); but all this freedom to delude, to create tensions, is drawn only from the law of the dissonant passing note!

And, once again even in the combined species, we find that the passing note, treated polyphonically, insists on an independent setting of its own;²² it would not need any such setting if it formed a composite sound with the sustained {26} or conceptually sustained note. I called attention to this fact of voice-leading at several points in Kontrapunkt II; here I quote only the following (from the preface, p.xv/p.xix):

sonorities, which should be regarded as the soul of the passing-note organism. Just as downbeats, in the framework of