Heinrich Schenker

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Photo by Hermann Clemens Kosel (1912)

Heinrich Schenker (born June 19, 1868 in Wiśniowczyk , Austria-Hungary ; died January 14, 1935 in Vienna ; pseudonym: Arthur Niloff ) was an Austrian music theorist and composer of Galician origin.

Life

Grave in Vienna's central cemetery, 4th gate
Obituary in the NFP

Heinrich Schenker grew up in an observant Jewish family. He attended high school in Lemberg and Bereschany . In 1884 Schenker moved to Vienna. He studied law and at the same time piano and composition at the Conservatory and music theory with Anton Bruckner until he graduated in 1889 . In the 1890s he accompanied singers and chamber musicians, wrote music reviews in Maximilian Harden's Berlin weekly Die Zukunft and in Hermann Bahr's Die Zeit, and began to compose. He published critical editions of works by Johann Sebastian Bach , Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach , Handel and Ludwig van Beethoven . Eventually he gave up composing and from then on devoted himself to questions of music theory. He continued to earn his living as a private piano teacher.

Well-known followers of Schenker include Walter Dahms , Wilhelm Furtwängler and Paul Hindemith , who wrote enthusiastically to Schenker: “For the first time you say correctly what a good musician hears, feels and understands.” Schenker had no school, his closest musical friend was Maurice violin .

Schenker confessed to Judaism throughout his life. He was a vehement enemy of democratization after 1918. He believed in the superiority of German culture. In a letter to his student Felix-Eberhard von Cube on May 14, 1933, he welcomed Hitler's political rise as a sign of cultural reversal. He did not live to see persecution by the Nazis because he died in Vienna in January 1935. His wife Jeanette (August 31, 1874 - January 8, 1945) was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto and murdered there. Schenker's works and editions were ostracized under the Nazis. This contributed to the fact that his theory was hardly received in Germany in the decades after 1945. Many of his students emigrated to the USA and established the idea of ​​tonal music in Anglo-American music theory.

Schenker was an ardent nationalist and tended to self-stylization bordering on arrogance, as the draft for his own tombstone exemplarily shows: "Here rests, who has heard the soul of music, proclaims its laws in the interests of the great like no one before him." May 1934)

For Schenker's life, the masterpiece in music (the title of one of his main writings) was the focus. In numerous analyzes of works by great composers ( Bach to Brahms ), he demonstrated how individual compositions emerge organically from elementary basic structures of tonal music ( original line and original movement ) and, conversely, can be traced back to them. Schenker already says of Wagner that he no longer extends the tonality , but loses it.

Ursatz

The reduction analysis established by Schenker is based on the assumption that tonal music is built in hierarchical layers. While the foreground also includes small note values , the middle and background form a simple, stable structure. Heinrich Schenker calls the last possible reduction in tonal polyphony the Ursatz .

In the original, melody and harmony appear connected in their elementary form. While the upper part of the Terzraum (3 - 2 - 1) diminution falling (dissolves into smaller denominations), the lower part occupies the per se dissonant passing tone (2) consonant (I - V - I), so that the melodic 2 as a fifth of the V. appears. This progression is so elementary that it can occur e.g. B. can be played on natural horns with the material of the first 10 overtones (clarin bubbles). While the overtones 2 - 3 - 2 sound in the bass, another voice plays the overtones 10 - 9 - 8. However, a falling fifth (5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1) or a falling octave (8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1) form the upper part of the original sentence.

Each tonal work and each tonally closed work section can be traced back to an underlying original sentence, which at the same time represents the last possible reduction stage of the voice guidance analysis . Since the original movement works in the background and can extend over many bars, it does not give any details about the rhythm .

Motive and reduction analysis

The reduction analysis tries to trace the superficial note image back to a supporting sentence in the background. In the graph that expresses this, rhythmic and motivic movements of the foreground are missing. Nevertheless, Schenker did not dispute the importance of the motif and, for example, worked out motivic parallelisms between different layers of the voice-leading analysis. He thus understood the term differently from the traditional theory of forms, as he also tried to reform the meaning of the terms "harmony" and "counterpoint".

Urtext editions

The reprints of musical works of the classics appeared to Schenker increasingly watered down by a theory that is more intellectual speculation than the result of practical listening experience. As early as 1902, he criticized the fact that the printed music contained serious errors, and then suggested Urtext editions (classic editions of the Universal Edition ).

Schenker published his theories in magazines, articles and books.

Works

Fonts

Main work:

  • New musical theories and fantasies :
    • Volume 1: Harmony . J. G. Cotta, Stuttgart / Berlin 1906 ( archive.org ). Translated into English by Elisabeth Mann Borgese , edited by Oswald Jonas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1954.
    • Volume 2: Counterpoint :
      • 1st half volume: Cantus firmus and two-part movement . J. G. Cotta, Stuttgart / Berlin 1910 ( archive.org ).
      • 2nd half volume: three-part and polyphonic movement. Transitions to the free sentence . Universal Edition, Vienna 1922 ( archive.org ).
    • Volume 3: The Free Sentence . 1935. Edited and edited by Oswald Jonas, Universal Edition, Vienna 2nd edition 1956.

Periodicals:

  • The tone will. Leaflets to the testimony of unchangeable laws of sound art presented to a new youth , 10 volumes Vienna / Leipzig 1921–1924.
  • The masterpiece in music. Three yearbooks . Drei Masken Verlag, Munich 1925, 1926 and 1930.

Smaller fonts:

  • A contribution to ornamentation as an introduction to Ph. Em. Bach's piano works, including the ornamentation of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven etc. Universal Edition, Vienna 1903. 2nd edition 1908 ( archive.org ).
  • Instrumentation table . Vienna 1908 (under the pseudonym Arthur Niloff).
  • Beethoven's ninth symphony. A presentation of the musical content with ongoing consideration of the lecture and the literature . Universal Edition, Vienna 1912 ( archive.org ).
  • Five Urlinie panels . Vienna 1932.

Editions and adaptations:

  • Piano works by Philipp Emanuel Bach. New critical edition . 2 vols. Vienna 1902-1903.
  • G. F. Handel: Six Organ Concerts. Adapted from the originals for piano for 4 hands . Vienna 1904.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue (D minor). Critical edition with appendix . Vienna 1910.
  • Beethoven's last five sonatas. Critical edition with introduction and explanation . Op. 109, Vienna 1913; op. 110, Vienna 1914; op. 111, Vienna 1915; op. 101, Vienna 1921.
  • L. van Beethoven: Sonata Op. 27, no. 2. With three sketch sheets by the master. Edited in facsimile reproduction, Vienna 1921.
  • L. van Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas. Reconstructed from the autograph . Vienna 1921-1923. Revised edition by Erwin Ratz , Vienna 1947.
  • Johannes Brahms: octaves, fifths a. a., from the estate, ed. and explained . Universal Edition, Vienna 1933.

Compositions

  • Six songs (op. 3; 1898) for voice and piano. Texts: Detlev von Liliencron , Ludwig Jacobowski , Wilhelm Müller
    1.  Hidden Jasmines (Liliencron) - 2.  Lullaby (Liliencron) - 3.  Bird in the Bush (Liliencron) - 4.  End (Jacobowski) - 5.  Alone (Jacobowski) - 6 .  Cladding (Müller)
  • Drei Gesänge (Op. 6) for voice and piano. Texts: Richard Dehmel , Joseph von Eichendorff , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    1.  And still in the old parental home (Dehmel) - 2.  Gardener (Eichendorff) - 3.  Sea silence (Goethe)
  • Mondnacht for 4-part mixed choir and piano. Text: Richard Dehmel

Documents

Letters from Heinrich Schenker are in the holdings of the Leipzig music publisher CFPeters in the Leipzig State Archives .

literature

  • Thomas Wozonig: Hellmut Federhofer's early reception by Schenker . In: Journal of the Society for Music Theory , 15/1 (2018).
  • Harald Kaufmann : Progress and reaction in Heinrich Schenker's theory of analysis . In: Harald Kaufmann track lines. Analytical essays on language and music , Vienna 1969, pp. 37–46.
  • Patrick Boenke: On the American reception of Heinrich Schenker's theory of layers . In: Journal of the Society for Music Theory 2 / 2–3 (2005), pp. 181–188 ( gmth.de) .
  • Martin Eybl: ideology and method. On the historical context of Schenker's music theory . (= Viennese publications on musicology 32). Hans Schneider, Tutzing 1995, ISBN 3-7952-0816-5 .
  • Martin Eybl: Schenker, Heinrich. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3046-5 .
  • Hellmut Federhofer : Heinrich Schenker, based on diaries and letters in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection . Olms, Hildesheim 1985, ISBN 978-3-487-07642-3 .
  • Björn Michael Harms: Heinrich Schenker's theory of layers . Section I.3 in: ‹Motivation from below›. On the version constitution of ‹Virginal› and ‹Laurin› , table of contents De Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-029695-2 , ISBN 978-3-11-029712-6 .
  • Ludwig Holtmeier :  Schenker, Heinrich. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 14 (Riccati - Schönstein). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1134-9 , Sp. 1288-1300 ( online edition , subscription required for full access).
  • Kevin C. Karnes: Primordial Line. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 6: Ta-Z. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-476-02506-7 , pp. 228-230.
  • Klaus Peter Richter:  Schenker, Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 682 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Florian Vogt: Otto Vrieslander's commentary on Heinrich Schenker's theory of harmony. A contribution to the early reception of Schenker. In: Journal of the Society for Music Theory 3/2 (2006), pp. 183–207 ( gmth.de) .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The future magazine (1892–1922) in Berlin
  2. ↑ Kevin C. Karnes: Urlinie , 2015, col. 230
  3. ^ Jeanette Schenker in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial
  4. ↑ Ludwig Holtmeier : From music theory to music theory. On the history of a subject without history
  5. ↑ Schenker's will on Schenker Documents online
personal data
SURNAME Schenker, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Niloff, Arthur (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian music theorist
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiśniowczyk
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1935
Place of death Vienna