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Heinrich Schenker as an Interpreter of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas
... For example, in Schenker's Argument, Leslie Blasius wrote that "as a simple, commonsense rule of thumb, we assume the notion that events farther back in the derivation need stand (as it were) in the shadows. In other words, a truly vivid performance would allow the background events to fend for themselves" (1996,57; see also Rothstein 1984). Where Schenker's, Blasius's, and Rothstein's advice is negative-don't overemphasize-the advice of others such as Carl Schachter (1994 and and Janet Schmalfeldt (1985) is positive, recommending slight accent-what Nicholas Cook calls a "page-to-stage" conception (2013,41). ...
... [6.3] We know that Schenker was primarily concerned with surface phenomena in performance (Rothstein 1984), but this fingering, like some of his others, could function to express the underlying voice leading. In The Art of Performance, Schenker calls this type of fingering pa+ern a "long" fingering; Heribert Esser writes that long fingerings constitute "those fingerings in which the passing under of 1 or the crossing over of 3 or 4 is avoided as much as possible" (Schenker 2000, 89n4). ...
... This is not to explicitly associate legato articulation with the conceptual tension of spans. For Schenker, legato is a complex issue requiring keen awareness of musical context (Rothstein 1984), to say nothing of spans and conceptual tension. Indeed, it is entirely possible to express conceptual tension through staccato, assuming it follows the composer's notated effect. ...
This article addresses the discrepancy between Schenker’s lifelong devotion to performance and the limited treatment of performance issues in the secondary literature on Schenker — a discrepancy exacerbated by the delayed publication of his performance manual The Art of Performance (2000). This study helps to ameliorate the discrepancy by examining his analysis of the Chopin Berceuse op. 57 in D-flat major in Das Meisterwerk II (1926) in comparison to his own annotated score of the piece, with the ultimate goal of creating a clearer picture of how Schenker’s conception of performance intersects with his theories. Following Rings 2011, the article develops a Lewinian transformational model of conceptual tension based on Schenker’s understanding of retention and anticipation in passing motions, and applies it to the rather complex intentional structure of finger choice (the finger chosen at various critical junctures in piano performance). Given the epistemological separation between Schenker’s Berceuse analysis and his annotated score, the article refers to The Art of Performance to formulate a “neo-Schenkerian” legato fingering (“neo” in that it represents my own performance values and participates in the modernist project of American Schenker reception) for the Berceuse theme that serves as a backdrop for understanding not only the conceptual tension of that fingering (according to the transformational model) as it relates to his analysis, but also the conceptual tension of his own fingering, taken from his personal copy of the piece. However, Schenker’s fingering largely ignores his own recommendations for legato and, unlike the underlying voice leading and neo-Schenkerian fingering, does not sustain conceptual tension throughout the theme. Nevertheless, it engages the bodily core in a manner that—in light of the large-scale push to the subdominant (G♭ major) later on in the piece, and the bodily actions associated with playing almost exclusively in the black-key plane—serves the organic coherence of the Berceuse as a whole. This coherence, which arises from the performer’s physical actions, also resonates with some of Schenker’s comments regarding the relationship of The Art of Performance with his mature theory, and his appreciation for what he called Chopin’s “particular synthesis.”
... Cook (2007, p.90) comenta a importância dessa atividade para Schenker, em decorrência de sua relevância para outras atividades musicais (composição, performance, escuta, elaboração de estudos musicais e ensino musical). Schenker também se voltou à elaboração da edição crítica da Fantasia cromática e fuga, de J. S. Bach, publicada em 1909(ROTHSTEIN, 1984. A leitura do prefácio dessa edição revela um aspecto concernente à relação análise--performance. Schenker apresenta duras críticas à "escola de dedilhado cujos adeptos, em decorrência da ignorância ou falta de compreensão, prescrevem uma sucessão de dedilhados, inteiramente determinados por critérios externos" (SCHENKER, 1984[1910], p.69 apud COOK, 2007. ...
Performance experience is the perspective of this article’s discourse, which starts from the contextualization of Schenker’s first two phases, based on the publications Die Kunst des Vortrags (“The art of performance”), Der Tonwille (contextual music analysis) and Das Meisterwerke in der Musik (“The masterpieces of music”). Contextualized by a discussion about his theoretical-analytical influence and conception of performance in studies related to the Analysis and Musical Performance subarea, it identifies links between structure and expressiveness in Schenker and neo-schenkerian theorists’ analyses. It demonstrates how the perception of the interlocution between metrical events and voice leading served as basis for sound modelling issues in studies elaborated by Charles Burkhart, Steve Larson, Carl Schachter
and David Beach. This work does not fail to consider the strongly prescriptive aspects present in these proposals, but seeks to study them from current research perspectives. / Resumo: Tendo a experiência em performance como perspectiva do discurso, o artigo parte da contextualização das duas primeiras fases de Schenker com base nas publicações Die Kunst des Vortrags (“A arte da performance”), Der Tonwille (“Análise musical contextual”) e Das Meisterwerke in der Musik (“As obras-primas da Música”). Discute a sua influência teórico-analítica e a concepção de performance em estudos relacionados à subárea Análise e Performance Musical, identificando vinculações entre estrutura e expressividade em análises do próprio Schenker e de teóricos neoschenkerianos. Demonstra como a percepção da interlocução entre eventos métricos e de vozes condutoras serviu como embasamento a questões de modelagem em estudos de Charles Burkhart, Steve Larson, Carl Schachter e David Beach. Este estudo não se furta de considerar os aspectos fortemente prescritivos presentes nessas propostas, mas procura estudá-los sob perspectivas de pesquisa atuais.
... Heinrich Schenker's (1868Schenker's ( -1935 monograph on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, published in 1912, is well known in musicological scholarship for the role it played in the evolution of Schenkerian theory, as well as its polemical and ideological content (e.g. Treitler, 1980;Rothstein, 1984;Cook, 1995;van den Toorn, 1995). Presenting an acrimonious criticism of a particular interpretative approach to the symphony promoted by Wagner, and fiercely attacking the hermeneutical discourse the German musicologist and music critic Hermann Kretzschmar (1848Kretzschmar ( -1924 espoused in his popular concert programme notes, the monograph has attracted attention as an "irreversible event" (Cook, 2010, p. 254) in the reception history of the Ninth Symphony. ...
Twentieth-century musicology frequently invoked the music of Beethoven to validate its work-centred, textualist and structuralist agenda. This article reorients Beethoven's music towards the performance studies paradigm, which places the music making body and material contexts of performing at the centre of its disciplinary epistemology, by weaving a novel discursive context around the composer's unusual dynamics markings. Through a historical case study of the premiere of his Op. 70 No. 2 piano trio, I explore the connections between the performance experience of Beethoven's dynamics and some of the philosophical and cultural discourses emerging in Europe during the early nineteenth century on the body and the self, and thereby construct novel meanings for his expressive performance practice. By bringing together interdisciplinary historical scholarship, phenomenological reflection, analytical thought and practice-based enquiry, I open up a neglected area of research that lies at the intersection of the performance experience of musical dynamics, sensory history and somatic musical archeology.
... According to Uhde, "'Remoteness' is always expressed in the tonal system by distancing oneself from the center, that is, from the home key." 85 William Rothstein has noted that Schenker was well aware of the structural weight of the sixth scale degree in this particular work, in which the harmonic dichotomy of the sixth scale degrees C\ and Cb (=B\) permeate not only the first movement, but the entire Sonata (Example 10). 86 Beethoven, having said farewell to the anticipated Eb major triad in m. 2 with deceptive cadences (Example 10, C minor and Cb major triads), then uses an expanded 6, 5, 1 bass sequence to lead back to the home key of Eb major (Example 85, mm. 17-21). ...
THIS IS THE FULL TEXT OF Towards a New Edition of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor: Sources, Editorial History, Symbolic Issues. Tibor Szász (with Gerard Carter and Martin Adler) “New wine into old wineskins”—such is the reception history of Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. Ever since its publication in 1854 the score has suffered from textual misinterpretations which are reproduced as a matter of longstanding tradition in current editions and performances. What has led to these widespread misinterpretations of the Sonata? The answer must be the music itself—a continuum in statu nascendi (in the state of being born)—for which analysts have yet to develop adequate means of analysis and synthesis. Liszt was not a good proofreader of his own compositions, and this circumstance, together with his failure to transfer his piecemeal revisions to all similarly affected structures has led to his Sonata being misunderstood by generations of musicians. Liszt’s Sonata has in the past been viewed through the spectacles of distorted tradition. Accustomed to look for a featured “tune” in the soprano, analysts have failed to detect the completely novel structure of the opening Lento assai which comprises two interacting polyphonic elements, of which the “melodic” voice is found not in the traditional soprano but in the bass. Unable to find the expected structures, interpreters have forced out of the printed notes of the score fictional “tunes” fitted into a bed of habitual “soprano melodies.” They have been labeled with two unrelated names, “Phrygian” and “Gypsy” and incorrectly referred to as “descending scales.” Typically, the opening Lento assai was misinterpreted as unisons (staccati on G, mm. 1, 4, 7) broken up in mm. 2–3 and 5–6 by a descending scale starting on high G and a drone starting on the same high G. The Sonata in B minor was published in 1854 with flaws which continue to be restated uncritically in current Urtext editions. These flaws manifest, not as wrong notes, but as details of notation which obscure the two-voiced polyphony in octaves of the Sonata’s Urmotiv (or thème générateur). Liszt’s failure to transfer his autograph revisions of the Urmotiv to all similarly affected structures resulted in a first edition that contained seven flaws in the opening three measures which reappear in mm. 4–7. The present authors have re-examined all the extant and relevant sources: the autograph manuscript (the so-called “Lehman Manuscript”), the two Henle facsimiles thereof, the only extant sonata sketch (GSA 60/N 2), an undated “Sonate” fragment in E minor (old catalogue S701t / new catalogue S692f), the Urtext and critical editions published in the last two centuries, as well as other scholarly contributions to the literature on the Liszt Sonata. Their re-examination has yielded the following conclusions: Urtext policies perpetuate many of the flaws of the first edition and ignore Liszt’s autograph revisions; no edition of the Sonata reflects Liszt’s intended graphic layout of the score; many current performances and analyses of the Sonata are flawed; a correct edition that constitutes his Fassung letzter Hand (final authorized text) is urgently needed. The likelihood of misinterpreting the confusing graphic layout of the first edition of the Sonata was recognized by a number of pupils close to Liszt. In particular, Arthur Friedheim, José Vianna da Motta, and Alexander Siloti produced rectified graphic layouts intended to prevent misinterpretations of the Sonata’s opening measures. However, these solutions remain mostly unknown today. The aim of this article is to provide an impulse for the publication of a more correct Urtext edition of the Liszt Sonata which is free of the numerous flaws contained, not only in the first edition of 1854, but in all published Urtext and non-Urtext editions since then. Indeed, the time is ripe to excuse Liszt’s deficient proofreading, to remedy the resulting textual misinterpretations by performers, scholars, and editors, and to rehabilitate the text of the Sonata in a reliable Urtext edition based on Liszt’s previously ignored revisions. Implementation of this project will not be difficult, time-consuming, or expensive. It largely consists of amendments to the fourteen crucial measures 1–7 (Lento assai) and 453–59 (Quasi adagio). Besides making suggestions for a correct Urtext edition, the present authors have strived to point out the far-reaching consequences for performance of the rehabilitated Sonata text.
... According to Uhde, "'Remoteness' is always expressed in the tonal system by distancing oneself from the center, that is, from the home key." 85 William Rothstein has noted that Schenker was well aware of the structural weight of the sixth scale degree in this particular work, in which the harmonic dichotomy of the sixth scale degrees C\ and Cb (=B\) permeate not only the first movement, but the entire Sonata (Example 10). 86 Beethoven, having said farewell to the anticipated Eb major triad in m. 2 with deceptive cadences (Example 10, C minor and Cb major triads), then uses an expanded 6, 5, 1 bass sequence to lead back to the home key of Eb major (Example 85, mm. 17-21). ...
PREVIEW: Towards a New Edition of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor: Sources, Editorial History, Symbolic Issues
Tibor Szász
(with Gerard Carter and Martin Adler)
“New wine into old wineskins”—such is the reception history of Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. Ever since its publication in 1854 the score has suffered from textual misinterpretations which are reproduced as a matter of longstanding tradition in current editions and performances. What has led to these widespread misinterpretations of the Sonata? The answer must be the music itself—a continuum in statu nascendi (in the state of being born)—for which analysts have yet to develop adequate means of analysis and synthesis. Liszt was not a good proofreader of his own compositions, and this circumstance, together with his failure to transfer his piecemeal revisions to all similarly affected structures has led to his Sonata being misunderstood by generations of musicians.
Liszt’s Sonata has in the past been viewed through the spectacles of distorted tradition. Accustomed to look for a featured “tune” in the soprano, analysts have failed to detect the completely novel structure of the opening Lento assai which comprises two interacting polyphonic elements, of which the “melodic” voice is found not in the traditional soprano but in the bass. Unable to find the expected structures, interpreters have forced out of the printed notes of the score fictional “tunes” fitted into a bed of habitual “soprano melodies.” They have been labeled with two unrelated names, “Phrygian” and “Gypsy” and incorrectly referred to as “descending scales.” Typically, the opening Lento assai was misinterpreted as unisons (staccati on G, mm. 1, 4, 7) broken up in mm. 2–3 and 5–6 by a descending scale starting on high G and a drone starting on the same high G.
The Sonata in B minor was published in 1854 with flaws which continue to be restated uncritically in current Urtext editions. These flaws manifest, not as wrong notes, but as details of notation which obscure the two-voiced polyphony in octaves of the Sonata’s Urmotiv (or thème générateur). Liszt’s failure to transfer his autograph revisions of the Urmotiv to all similarly affected structures resulted in a first edition that contained seven flaws in the opening three measures which reappear in mm. 4–7.
The present authors have re-examined all the extant and relevant sources: the autograph manuscript (the so-called “Lehman Manuscript”), the two Henle facsimiles thereof, the only extant sonata sketch (GSA 60/N 2), an undated “Sonate” fragment in E minor (old catalogue S701t / new catalogue S692f), the Urtext and critical editions published in the last two centuries, as well as other scholarly contributions to the literature on the Liszt Sonata. Their re-examination has yielded the following conclusions:
Urtext policies perpetuate many of the flaws of the first edition and ignore Liszt’s autograph revisions;
no edition of the Sonata reflects Liszt’s intended graphic layout of the score;
many current performances and analyses of the Sonata are flawed;
a correct edition that constitutes his Fassung letzter Hand (final authorized text) is urgently needed.
The likelihood of misinterpreting the confusing graphic layout of the first edition of the Sonata was recognized by a number of pupils close to Liszt. In particular, Arthur Friedheim, José Vianna da Motta, and Alexander Siloti produced rectified graphic layouts intended to prevent misinterpretations of the Sonata’s opening measures. However, these solutions remain mostly unknown today.
The aim of this article is to provide an impulse for the publication of a more correct Urtext edition of the Liszt Sonata which is free of the numerous flaws contained, not only in the first edition of 1854, but in all published Urtext and non-Urtext editions since then. Indeed, the time is ripe to excuse Liszt’s deficient proofreading, to remedy the resulting textual misinterpretations by performers, scholars, and editors, and to rehabilitate the text of the Sonata in a reliable Urtext edition based on Liszt’s previously ignored revisions. Implementation of this project will not be difficult, time-consuming, or expensive. It largely consists of amendments to the fourteen crucial measures 1–7 (Lento assai) and 453–59 (Quasi adagio).
Besides making suggestions for a correct Urtext edition, the present authors have strived to point out the far-reaching consequences for performance of the rehabilitated Sonata text.
... 7. The most comprehensive account of the diverse ways in which a Schenkerian analysis can be projected in performance is given in Rothstein (1984). See also Burkhart (1983), Pierce (1994) and Turner (2003). ...
It is proposed that one musically interesting way to characterise and compare different performances or recordings of the same piece is by correlating them with different Schenkerian interpretations through the medium of grouping. This approach is demonstrated through an examination of four ‘either/or’ passages from the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E Major, Op. 81a, passages in which at least two Schenkerian interpretations are possible. Schenker's own published and unpublished sketches, among others, are considered alongside recordings by Vladimir Ashkenazy, Emil Gilels, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia and Artur Rubinstein. The approach is not meant to be self-sufficient, but rather to contribute a new set of tools to the emerging multidisciplinary field of performance studies.
p>In recent years, the nature of analysis and performance relations has become a concern among music theorists. While many wish to see the practical applications of analysis to performance, they refuse to concede to any simplistic position that sees a direct correlation between structural insights and performance. However, it is rare that the investigations get beyond attempts to make technical analysis more relevant to performers, which virtually turns the analysis-and-performance problem into one for analysts alone.
This thesis attempts to reconstrue the issue of analysis and performance in order that performers can play a genuine part in the discussion of it. Its premise is that the nature of musical performance is such that neither analysts nor performers can ever describe it adequately, and its prime concern is to identify the real issue behind that we ought to be dealing with. This I see as the lack of authentic discourse in academic musical writings: writers do not normally attend to the fictional status of words about music. Consequently, most studies of performance by analysts distort performances by moulding it according to analytical terms. With this in mind, I endeavour to expose the limitations of structuralist approaches to performance in a broad sense, those which see performance primarily as interpretations. This is achieved through critiquing contemporary theoretical literature on analysis and performance, and through commentaries based on a comparative listening of recordings. The discursive nature of musical writings about performance and analysis is then enhanced through a reading of performers' own writings and a case study of different discourses on a performance attribute.</p
............(Media Examples: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3ysm72AO88vzyzIZdJDxAaUSSris4RSP)
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This thesis engages with complex issues of musical expression and movement, and their relation, on the one hand, to musical structure and, on the other hand, to embodied musical experience. It aims to fill a gap in music theory and analysis: most methods overemphasise abstract conceptualisation of structural relations at the expense of the more dynamic, intuitive aspect of musical experience. As a solution, it offers a specific analytical method that can be used to explore dynamic aspects of music as experienced through the whole body. Drawing mainly on nineteenth-century piano music, I analyse aspects of structure in both composition and performance in terms of expressive and motional qualities, revealing the relationship between musical and physical movement. Expressivity in music derives its meaning, at least partly, from the embodied experience of music: performers shape expression through their whole body while listeners react to it in a comparable way, albeit less overtly. Two related systems of graphic notation are introduced, which provide a non-verbal means of representing expressive movement and at the same time encourage an immediate, visceral relationship to the music. The first notation captures the animated quality of expressive movement by analogy with the motion of a bouncing ball, while the second breaks down the expressive musical flow into discrete gestural patterns of specific motional character. While the ultimate value of this method lies in the analytical process it instigates, it also provides a novel theoretical framework that sheds light on the interaction, as well as integration, between structures such as metre, rhythm, harmony and voice-leading, which are traditionally studied mostly independently. In addition, it provides a useful tool for the study and communication of performance interpretation, based on data extracted from recordings in the form of tempo and dynamic fluctuation graphs.
Die Anweisungen zum Spiel von Wolfgang Amadé Mozarts Klavierfantasie c-Moll KV 475 aus dem Nachlass der Pianistin Friederike Karger geben detaillierte Auskünfte über Schenkers Klavierspiel und ermöglichen Rückschlüsse auf deren analytische Begründungen. Ausgehend von einer Rekonstruktion der Analysen fragt der Beitrag nach Schenkers Verständnis von Analyse und Aufführung.
Drawing on letters, diaries, lesson-books and contemporary accounts, this article highlights the importance of piano playing in Schenker's daily life. He was active as a pianist on the concert stage early in his career (in 1899 he toured with the baritone Johannes Messchaert), but after the first decade of the twentieth century he played mainly alone or in the company of his family, friends and pupils. At social gatherings in Vienna and during summer vacations he quite frequently performed for and with his friends. He made music with members of his family, playing duets with his wife, Jeanette, and accompanying his nephew Georg, a cellist. When teaching, he gave demonstrations at the piano for his pupils and also often played duets with them. His pianism gave rise to the valuable sections on performance in his analytic essays and influenced his choice of examples for Free Composition.
Anton Webern first attempted dodecaphonic composition in the summer of 1922 when he wrote twelve-tone sketches for the poetic text "Mein Weg geht jetzt vorueber." Although he completed the song as an atonal work, Webern continued experimenting with serial writing from 1923-24, composing a series of sketches which led to his exclusive adoption of the technique in fall 1924. After completing two serial works, Kinderstueck for piano (M. 267) and Drei Volkstexte, Op. 17 from 1924-25, Webern composed Drei Lieder, Op. 18 in 1925, his first multimovement work written exclusively within a twelve-tone idiom. Despite this stylistic achievement, Op. 18 has been rarely studied, cited merely as a transitional work leading to Webern's fuller realization of the technique in his "mature" twelve-tone works. In addition, scholars have erroneously described the intricate musical texture as being chaotic in nature, noting its discrepancy with that of the folkloristic texts on which Op. 18 is based.
The following study establishes an intimate link between the poetic texts and texture of Drei Lieder, Op. 18. The rows imbue the songs with a limited number of interval and set formations that draw associations between words of the individual texts. In addition, recurring contours recall both the mood and the narrative events depicted in each poem. These repeated sonorities are interwoven into a texture in which shifting meters, rapidly-changing dynamics, extreme registral shifts, articulation markings, and rhythmic figures enhance their aural presence. Op. 18 represents a musical realization of Goethe's Urpflanze concept, a notion Webern looked to in defining his twelve-tone technique. Just as the Urpflanze, or primeval plant, represents an underlying sameness among differing plant parts, the rows and contours establish perceptible aural unity throughout the Op. 18 songs.
This article examines Adorno's thinking on the relationship between musical analysis, interpretation and performance. Adorno's work is set in the context both of its aesthetic antecedents, particularly in the work of Schoenberg as composer and as music theorist, and of its subsequent critics. At the centre of the article is a discussion of the analysis seminars which Adorno gave during the Darmstadt Ferienkurse in the mid-1950s, on Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and Phantasy for violin and piano and Webern's Six Bagatelles for string quartet, op. 9.
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