Musical questions and answers thread

[umslopogaas]

Dave 2002, #625, was the book you mention 'Musical Instruments through the Ages', ed. Anthony Baines, Pelican 1961? There is a chapter on the clavichord, but no listing of 'bebung' in the index and in a quick skim of the chapter I didnt spot any mention of it.

[EdgeleyRob]

Posts 627 to 630,many thanks for the replies folks,really appreciated.

[EdgeleyRob]

Schenkerian reduction.

What's all that about ?

Just come across the term when reading up a bit about Bach's Violin music.
Googled the thing and it's about as clear as mud to me.
Plain English explanation anyone ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Schenkerian reduction.

What's all that about ?

Just come across the term when reading up a bit about Bach's Violin music.
Googled the thing and it's about as clear as mud to me.
Plain English explanation anyone ?

This is a big 'un, Edgy. Basically, it's a way of "deep listening" where a listener hears the different changes in Tonality a piece as relationships to the main Tonality of the whole work.

So, the various "modulations" in (for example) a Beethoven sonata are heard as extended chords which must at some point return to the tonic. A Schenker Graph will reduce these chord/key relationships to simple noteheads: a semibreve will be uses to show the most important key relationships - usually the Tonic and Dominant; a minim to show the next level of important key relationships, and a (tail-less) crotchet to show "passing" or less (Tonally) significant relationships. In a full analysis, horizontal lines are used to connect some of the bigger notes to show the connections between these sections in the Music (demonstrating that they continue a Tonal progression that the intervening Music has "interrupted" - like a novel where chapter 12 continues a story set up in chapter 9, but which chapters 10 & 11 have interrupted) - so a listener will "remember" that earlier Tonality and be able to continue the progression when they hear it (a process known as "Prolongation").

The point of this is to empower the listener to hear Musical structures not just as a series of themes and sensations one after another, but to hear the bigger picture that's going on - why this is happening here rather than twenty bars ago, or forty bars from now. It also enables hearing how the Movements within a Sonata/Symphony work with each other as well as internally. It makes clear the difference between the Bb major of the First Group of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony and the "Bb Major" of the Second Group of his Third - how the former works as a Tonic to which all other Key areas in the work must return, whilst the latter is a Tonal "region" which has moved away from a previously established Tonic to which it must at some point return.

There are all sorts of graphs, charts and technical language associated with Schenkerian "analysis", but this is just the shorthand that those who have been trained have learnt. Essentially, it's all about hearing how the Tonal areas in an extended Musical structure work with and against each other.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It makes clear the difference between the Bb major of the First Group of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony and the "Bb Major" of the Second Group of his Third - how the former works as a Tonic to which all other Key areas in the work must return, whilst the latter is a Tonal "region" which has moved away from a previously established Tonic to which it must at some point return.

In other words, whilst some people refer to the Second Group of the Eroica as being "in" Bb major, it's not the same "in"-ness as the First Group of the Fourth Symphony which really is in Bb Major. Not even the most enthusiastic audience member is going to start clapping if the Eroica stopped at the end of the Exposition - for all the V - I progressions, it doesn't sound like a full "conclusion": the Music needs to get back to the Tonic - in the short term, by the immediate repeat of the Exposition, in the long, by exploring the many key moves throughout the next three-quarters-of-an-hour. Everything is connected to the Tonic of the work, no matter how distant a relationship might be - Schenker helps demonstrate how this works.

He was an odd cove, old Schenker - he disliked most Music written after c1850 (only Brahms escaped his dismissive attitude) and most not written by anyone whose native language wasn't German. He believed that his methods of listening proved the supremacy of the German Music written between c1720 and 1850, and the degeneration of subsequent Musical developments. He even wrote an analysis of the second movement of Stravinsky's Piano Concerto to show that Igor's thinking was "muddled" and incompetent. And he didn't really pay much direct attention to the importance of how rhythm contributes to structure - but, with important caveats and adaptations, the basic method of listening that originates in this strange man is still, for me, the most useful (and genuine) aural training a Musician can adapt - incorporating all the Musics that Schenker himself regarded as "unworthy".

[ahinton]

He was an odd cove, old Schenker - he disliked most Music written after c1850 (only Brahms escaped his dismissive attitude) and most not written by anyone whose native language wasn't German. He believed that his methods of listening proved the supremacy of the German Music written between c1720 and 1850, and the degeneration of subsequent Musical developments.

In this one might argue that he presaged Schönberg's claim that his new system of composing with twelve tones equal to one another (I knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with democracy, whatever Churchill said in its favour!) would ensure the supremacy of German music for the next 100 years - an observation whose tongue-in-cheek nature would, one assume, be obvious but which nevertheless seems to have eluded Ronald Stevenson who wrote that it was a strange idea for an Austrian Jew to have...

[Pabmusic]

Ferney, this is an excellent overview of Schenkerian analysis. Although I don't (entirely - quite) equate it with The Emperor's New Clothes, it has always seemed to me that it over-complicates the idea of appreciating music as a palette of tonalities as much as anything else. It can become very pretentious, too. Well done!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It can become very pretentious, too.

Oh, gosh, yes! And incredibly aggressive - if you want five different analyses of a work, give it to four Schenkerian analysts, then stand well back! The advantage of the graphs is that it reduces the opportunity for pretentiousness. I think the important point (for me) is to use it as a tool for listening, rather than as a method of analysis per se. That way, too, ahinton's wise observation that everybody hears different things in a work helps explain the very different results that different analysts produce.

Well done!

Many thanks.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In this one might argue that he presaged Schönberg's claim that his new system of composing with twelve tones equal to one another (I knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with democracy, whatever Churchill said in its favour!) would ensure the supremacy of German music for the next 100 years - an observation whose tongue-in-cheek nature would, one assume, be obvious but which nevertheless seems to have eluded Ronald Stevenson who wrote that it was a strange idea for an Austrian Jew to have...

Yes - people who knew Schö/oenberg frequently report his caustic wit - his tone of voice as he made this statement (shortly after he'd cut short a holiday because he refused to give evidence of his Christianity - from someone who had served as a soldier in the Austrian Army during the First World War) has to be at least partly ironic (and partly sincere).

Schönberg also had deep reservations about Schenker's graphs - believing that they "demeaned" some of the most wonderful passages in his favourite works ("Oh! There they are, in those little notes"). The point he missed was that why the notes are where they are on the graph, and why they're "little" (here, size really doesn't matter!) - but then Arnie had his own - and at least equally powerful - analytical methods.

[EdgeleyRob]

This is a big 'un, Edgy

Wow,and a big answer ferney,how do you know all this stuff ?
Many thanks ferney,pabs and ahinton.
Not sure I fully understand but I'll persevere.
Presumably this is a bit beyond basic music theory

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

ferney,how do you know all this stuff ?

Total lack of any social/sexual activity until I was forty.

Presumably this is a bit beyond basic music theory

A little bit

[EdgeleyRob]

Total lack of any social/sexual activity until I was forty.


A little bit

[mercia]

.... you know how in a classical concerto you reach that orchestral chord which tells you that the solo cadenza is next ...... does it have a name ? - I think when I did 'O' level music we called it the '6-4 chord' 'cos it has the dominant in the bass with the fourth and sixth note intervals above (if you see what I mean)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

.... you know how in a classical concerto you reach that orchestral chord which tells you that the solo cadenza is next ...... does it have a name ? - I think when I did 'O' level music we called it the '6-4 chord' 'cos it has the dominant in the bass with the fourth and sixth note intervals above (if you see what I mean)

Yes - in most Classical Concertos, it's a second inversion Tonic chord, then the soloist does his/her stuff ending on a Dominant, and then the orchestra has a quick Coda emphasizing the Tonic (in root position) - so the whole thing is an extended Ic V7 I cadence. Which is why it's called a "cadenza".

A "6-4 chord" is as good a name as any!

[mercia]

Yes - in most Classical Concertos, it's a second inversion Tonic chord, then the soloist does his/her stuff ending on a Dominant, and then the orchestra has a quick Coda emphasizing the Tonic (in root position) - so the whole thing is an extended Ic V7 I cadence. Which is why it's called a "cadenza".

ah yes, thank you, that all sounds familiar and better expressed

a sudden feeling of deja vu, I may have asked that question before in this thread and you answered me then too It was tonight's prom that made me think of it