Schenkerian Analysis - Schenkerian Harmony

Schenkerian Harmony

Schenker's magnum opus, Neue Musikalische Theorien und Phantasien ("New Musical Theories and Fantasies"), spans his entire publication career from the early work, Harmonielehre ("Harmony") (volume I) through the formative Kontrapunkt ("Counterpoint") (volumes II.1 and II.2) to the posthumously published Der Freie Satz ("Free Composition") (volume II.3). The organization of this work reflects the organization of Schenkerian analysis itself. The tenets of harmony and counterpoint, given by nature, combine through art to produce the musical work in free composition.

The first tenet of Schenkerian harmony is that nature, through the harmonic series, gives us the triad as the ultimate (and only possible) basis for musical composition. In fact, Schenker's explanation only secures "naturalness" for the major triad, whereas Schenker describes the minor triad as an artificial construction of musicians. Despite this difference, in practice the major and minor triads are treated equally in Schenkerian analysis.

The basic component of Schenkerian harmony is the Stufe (scale degree, scale-step). The Stufe is an abstraction of the idea of a chord and a revision of Jean-Philippe Rameau's idea of basse fondementale (fundamental bass). A chord in a piece of music may represent the stufe corresponding to its root. However, many surface phenomena in music that appear to be chords are not actually representative of Stufen themselves but are voice-leading constructions of a passing nature whose real function is the prolongation of some other Stufe. In short, not all chords represent Stufen. Furthermore, a literal chord is not necessary for the representation of a Stufe. The chord may be arpeggiated, so that all its tones are not present simultaneously. This arpeggiation may occur at a very background level so that it is not apparent on the musical surface. (In other words, the arpeggiation or chord may be prolonged, e.g. by passing motions). Sometimes a Stufe may be represented by only a single note.

Schenkerian analyses show Stufen with roman numerals; e. g., "I" indicates the tonic Stufe, "V" indicates the dominant Stufe, and so on. The practice of roman numeral analysis was developed by the theoretic work of Georg Joseph Vogler and his student Gottfried Weber, and was in common use in Schenker's time. However, Schenker and Schenkerians after him are generally at odds with the practice of roman numeral analysis, mainly because they believe that it fails to recognise the sensitivity of the meaning of a chord to its musical context (particularly its rhythmic and voice–leading context) and that it tends to project an insufficiently sophisticated theory of modulation and tonicization.

The Stufe is an elusive but important concept in Schenkerian theory. Its formulation in Schenker's earliest significant work, Harmony, is associated with the idea of "contrapuntal" or "passing" chords. That is, some chords in music are not harmonic in nature (do not represent real Stufen) but arise by contrapuntal–melodic processes of a passing nature (Scheinharmonie). In other words, they are made up of notes that are treated like dissonant notes, even though they may appear consonant. Thus, the most important aspect of the Stufe concept is the negative one: not all chords represent Stufen. Schenker gives a more detailed explanation of such passing chords in the second volume of Kontrapunkt, a more mature work. Here, the Stufe is seen as an imaginary cantus firmus tone against which the passing chords are constructed in multiple parts, dissonant with the cantus firmus but consonant with one another. This is the most accurate way to think of the roman numerals that sometimes are placed below a Schenkerian analysis, rather than thinking of them as chord roots.

Schenkerian harmonic theory holds that modulation is an illusory phenomenon in music (or at least in musical "masterworks"). Every complete musical piece projects a single key and ultimately a single stufe (the tonic). (See Ursatz). What appear to be modulations in a musical work are actually the result of prolongations. Whenever harmonic progressions suggest new tonics without disrupting the unity of a tonal background in the home key, Schenkerian analysts prefer the weaker term "tonicization" to "modulation."