- Heinrich Schenker
Heinrich Schenker (
June 19 ,1868 -January 13 ,1935 ) was amusic theorist, best known for his approach tomusical analysis , now usually calledSchenkerian analysis .Schenker was born in Wisniowczyki in Galicia in
Austria-Hungary (nowTernopil oblast , Ukraine). His musical talent was recognized early on, and at the age of 13 he was sent to study withCarl Mikuli , a student ofFrédéric Chopin , in Lemberg (nowLviv ). He moved toVienna where he studied music underAnton Bruckner and became known as apianist , accompanyinglieder singers and playingchamber music . He taughtpiano and music theory privately, andWilhelm Furtwängler ,Anthony van Hoboken ,Felix Salzer , andHans Wolf [http://www.soundfountain.org/rem/remwolf.html] were among his pupils.Schenker's ideas on analysis were first explored in his "Harmony" ("Harmonielehre," 1906) and "Counterpoint" ("Kontrapunkt," 2 vols., 1910 and 1922), and were developed in the two journals he published, "
Der Tonwille " (1921-24) and "Das Meisterwerk in der Musik " (1925-30), both of which included content exclusively by Schenker. Schenker regarded his analyses as tools to be used by performers for a deeper understanding of the works they were performing. This is demonstrated by his editions ofLudwig van Beethoven 's late piano sonatas, which also include analyses of the works.In 1932, Schenker published "
Five Graphic Music Analyses " ("Fünf Urlinie-Tafeln"), analyses of five works using the analytical technique of showing layers of greater and lesser musical detail that now bears his name. Following Schenker's death, his incomplete theoretical work "Free Composition " ("Der freie Satz", 1935) was published (first translated into English by T. H. Kreuger in 1960 as a dissertation at theUniversity of Iowa ; a second, better translation, by Ernst Oster, was published in 1979). Some English translations of his work have deleted passages that could be considered politically incorrect and irrelevant to the topic. For example, in the Preface to "Counterpoint" Schenker writes that "the man ranks above the woman, the producer is superior to the merchant or laborer, the head prevails over the foot," etc.Other music theorists, for example
Felix Salzer andCarl Schachter , both added to and disseminated Schenker's ideas: by the 1960s Schenkerian analysis had begun to attract renewed interest, and by the 1980s it had become one of the main analytical methods used by many North American music theorists. While his theories have been increasingly challenged since mid-century for their rigidity and organicist ideology, the wider analytical tradition that they inspired has remained central to the study of tonal music.Notes
External links
* [http://mt.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/schenker/index.html Schenker Documents Online]
ee also
*
Schenkerian Analysis
*Tonality
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