Table Of ContentTHE ART OF
TONAL ANALYSIS
THE ART OF
TONAL ANALYSIS
Twelve Lessons
in Schenkerian Theory
By Carl Schachter
Edited by
Joseph N. Straus
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schachter, Carl, author.
The art of tonal analysis: twelve lessons in Schenkerian theory / by Carl Schachter; edited by Joseph N. Straus.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–022739–5 (hardback: alk. paper) 1. Musical analysis. I. Straus, Joseph Nathan, editor. II. Title.
MT90.S27 2016
780—dc23
2015016976
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Prelude Editor’s Preface vii
Lesson One Linear Progressions and Neighbor Notes 1
Lesson Two J. S. Bach, Menuet in C minor from French Suite No. 2
and Chopin, Etude, Op. 10, No. 12 20
Lesson Three Chopin, G-minor and E-major Preludes from Op. 28 44
♯
Lesson Four Schubert, Sonata in B major, Scherzo 68
♭
Lesson Five Handel, Suite No. 8 for Harpsichord, Courante 89
Lesson Six J. S. Bach, Gavotte en Rondeaux from Violin Partita
No. 3 in E major 103
Lesson Seven Mozart, Sonata for Violin and Piano, K. 481, Adagio 126
Lesson Eight Beethoven, String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 6, first movement 154
Lesson Nine Beethoven, String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 6, fourth movement
(“La Malinconia”) 173
Lesson Ten Rhythm, Hypermeter, and Phrase 187
Lesson Eleven Haydn, Symphony No. 99, Adagio 222
Lesson Twelve Beethoven, Piano Sonata, Op. 53 (“Waldstein”),
first movement 244
Postlude Q and A 273
Glossary 281
Works Cited 285
Index 289
v
Prelude
Editor’s Preface
Carl Schachter is an extraordinary musician and musical thinker, and the world’s leading
practitioner of Schenkerian theory and analysis. He has written extensively on the mas-
terworks of the tonal common practice and on the analytical delights and challenges that
they present. Although his articles and books have been broadly influential, and are seen by
many as models of musical insight and lucid prose, perhaps his greatest impact has been felt
in the classroom. At the Mannes College of Music, the Juilliard School of Music, Queens
College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and at special peda-
gogical events around the world, he has taught generations of musical performers, compos-
ers, historians, and theorists in a career that began at Mannes in 1956 and continues to the
present day.
In fall 2012, Schachter taught a special doctoral seminar at the CUNY Graduate Center.
With more than thirty enrolled students and auditors from all the different musical disci-
plines packed into our seminar room, he talked about the music and the musical issues that
have concerned him most deeply. This book consists of edited transcripts of those lectures.
We have smoothed out some rough edges, deleted some digressions, added some guide-
posts and transitions, but apart from these relatively modest editorial interventions, this
book is a faithful record of the classes.
The text is accompanied by three sorts of musical examples. First, there are annotated
scores. These represent the editor’s attempt to convey visually material that Schachter pre-
sented and demonstrated from the piano. Second, there are short analytical reductions
transcribed from the classroom blackboard. Third, there are more extended analytical
reductions (Schenkerian graphs or sketches). Some of these have appeared in print before,
but most appear here for the first time.
In the course of his lectures, Schachter refers to a variety of secondary literature. Instead
of interrupting the flow of the presentation with footnotes, references in the text are indi-
cated with author/date citations in brackets, and the relevant source can be found among
the Works Cited.
We are grateful to the stellar editorial team at Oxford University Press, starting with
Suzanne Ryan, who enthusiastically supported this project from the beginning. At an early
vii
viii Editor’s Preface
stage, we benefitted from the incisive comments of three anonymous reviewers solicited by
OUP. In the preparation of the musical examples, we had the invaluable assistance of four
brilliant doctoral students at the CUNY Graduate Center: Megan Lavengood, Christina
Lee, Simon Prosser, and Inés Thiebaut. Their work was supported in part by a subvention
from the Society for Music Theory, for which we are grateful.
Musical analysis is in many ways an ephemeral art, somewhat like musical performance
in its immediacy and spontaneity. It is perhaps better suited to the classroom than to the
pages of the professional or general literature. In that spirit, we hope that the twelve lessons
in this book will give a vivid account of Schachter as a teacher, demonstrating for a wide
audience his art of tonal analysis.
Joseph Straus
New York, January 2015
THE ART OF
TONAL ANALYSIS
