The essays contained in this volume provide a focus on the work of the music theorist Heinrich Schenker - a figure of legendary status who has had an incalculable influence on developments in music theory and analysis in this century. His theories, not always fully understood, have aroused some controversy. The broad spectrum of essays presented here will help clarify Schenker's ideas and their application and will also serve as a useful introduction to his work for music theorists. The essays, written by fourteen leading theorists, originate in papers delivered at the Schenker Symposium held at The Mannes College of Music, New York in 1985.

This is the first comprehensive study of this century's most influential music theorist, Heinrich Schenker.

The first detailed study of Schenker's pathbreaking 1906 treatise, showing how it reflected 2500 years of thinking about harmony and presented a vigorous reaction to Austro-Germanic music theory ca. 1900.

Publisher description

SchenkerGUIDE is an accessible overview of Heinrich Schenker's complex but fascinating approach to the analysis of tonal music. The book has emerged out of the widely used website, www.SchenkerGUIDE.com, which has been offering straightforward explanations of Schenkerian analysis to undergraduate students since 2001. Divided into four parts, SchenkerGUIDE offers a step-by-step method to tackling this often difficult system of analysis. Part I is an introduction to Schenkerian analysis, outlining the concepts that are involved in analysis Part II outlines a unique and detailed working method to help students to get started on the process of analysis Part III puts some of these ideas into practice by exploring the basics of a Schenkerian approach to form, register, motives and dramatic structure Part IV provides a series of exercises from the simple to the more sophisticated, along with hints and tips for their completion.

The first two volumes of Heinrich Schenker's masterwork Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien, Harmonielehren (1906), and Kontrapunkt (1910 and 1922), laid the foundations for the harmonic aspect of his theory. The specific voice-leading component was a later development, progressing with brilliance over the last 15 years of his life. It is in Free Composition (Freie Satz, 1935) that the idea of voice-leading receives its most detailed and precise formulation. Pendragon Press is honored to make this distinguished reprint available once again, with a new preface by Carl Schacter.

Introduces the fundamental principles of Schenkerian analysis within the context of the music itself.