Theory Orals: Schenkerian Analysis

Question 1

Describe the problem in Schenker’s theory of sonata form (esp. in the recapitulation)?

Answer 1

In an exposition, the S-theme will often modulate to the dominant, creating an Urlinie which descends from 3 to 2 through interruption. However, when that same theme returns in the Recapitulation, it is the Tonic key, thereby making the 2 Urlinie a 5. This is problematic, as Schenker cannot justify this change. To justify this, he would have to say that the recap S-Theme is less significant than the first occurrence.

Question 2

What does Schenker mean when he says, “Always the same, but never in the same way”?

Answer 2

• -Every piece is built upon a similarly generated background.
• -The Background is the same, the foreground is highly different, and the middleground is the transition between the two.
• -Schenkerian analysis is not about demonstrating that all compositions can be reduced to the same background, but about showing how each work elaborates the background in a unique, individual manner, determining both its identity and its “meaning”.

Question 3

Which form of the “interruption” did Schenker prefer: one that emphasizes the dominant before the interruption sign or one that emphasizes the dominant following the interruption sign?

Answer 3

Schenker preferred an emphasis of the Dominant BEFORE the interruption sign.

Question 4

What, for Schenker, provides musical “content”?

Answer 4

Linear Progressions, which are “horizontal manifestations of harmony.”

Question 5

What is the problem with understanding Schenker’s Ursatz in English?

Answer 5

• -This is Schenker’s own word, and like most unique words in a language, it is often lost in translation.
• -Ur- : German word meaning earliest, or primitive. = Fundamental
• -Satz : German word meaning Sentence. = Structure

Question 6

What does Schenker mean when he says the following: “In the art of music, as in life, motion toward the goal encounters obstacles, reversals, disappointments, and involves great distances, detours, expansions, interpolations, and, in short retardations of all kinds. Therein lies the sources of all artistic delaying, from which the creative mind derive content that is ever new. Thus we hear in the middleground and foreground an almost dramatic course of events.”

Answer 6

• -Composers conceal the background artistically through interruption, passing tones, neighbor tones, arpeggiation, evaded cadences, and the like.
• -Composers have a fundamental structure in mind, based on the norms of the times, but the creativity comes in how each individually composer alters and embellishes the structure.

Question 7

How does Schenker understand chromaticism in the Urlinie?

Answer 7

Chromatically altered Urlinie act in the same way was the diatonic Urlinie. The same scale degree numbers are functionally the same, but artistically different. Flat 2 = 2, flat 3 = 3, etc.

Question 8

What is the significance of figured bass (i.e., thoroughbass) practice on Schenker’s theory?

Answer 8

• -This shows a more linear line and understanding of large-scale bass motion.
• -Avoids the localized Roman Numerals that are subsumed (included) by the larger scale prolongation.