From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Of Mice and Schenker
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 12:50:06 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.104333.54689@qut.edu.au> bellmann@qut.edu.au writes:

>   This semester I enrolled in MU315, the last of the technical subjects in
>the BMus career. The subject matter is Schenkerian Analysis. I knew nothing
>about it before the classes began, though I had been intrigued by some passing
>comments made between Stephen Smoliar and Roger, if I'm not mistaken, stating
>that Schenker believed that everything could be derived from Three Blind Mice.
>Being unfamiliar with that children's song, I assumed it was some kind of
>private joke. Well, it took only the first lecture to hear the same statement
>from the lecturer.

Which makes it no less a private joke.  Besides, even if strictly true, 
who cares? That's not the point -- not any of the points -- of Schenkerian
analysis.

>   At this point I'm cursing my lack of vision to cancel my enrolment when I
>still could. I cannot understand that IMHO seems to be such a truckload of
>bullshit could be taken seriously by anyone. 

Well, the list of those who *do* take it seriously is long.  Have you considered
asking a few Schenkerians on the (huge) U of M faculty what they see in it?

>I've painfully crawled through
>the first 180 pages from the Allen & Forte textbook and I've found the most
>incredible collection of pretentious nonsense I could dream of. 

Ah, right.  Species counterpoint is nonsense?  Simple reductive analysis
(a version of what you've been doing in analysis for years) is nonsense?
Perhaps you should take a look at the overall issues in the first part of
 the book.

That said, let me join you in wincing at some of the things in the book
(which is by Forte and Gilbert, btw).  I don't like their approach to
large-form analysis, which just involves chopping up and then sewing       
together the sections of a piece.  In general, the book is lacking in the
*why* of Schenkerian analysis, and doesn't do a good job of presenting
Schnker's ideas about harmony.  However, the sections on voice-leading
patterns are well worth reviewing.

>Besides, one of the lectures illuminated the mystical side of Schenker 

Gosh, we can't have *that* in class, can we?

>and his doomed efforts
>to link his 'analysis' to theology by means of having the major triad represent
>the Holy Trinity. 

Which is about as relevant to the usefulness of his method as Newton's
theology is to his physics.  There's really no need to call the Thought
Police out on this one...

>Another one brought about a discussion about the 'necessity'
>of ending in the beginning tonality, which ended with his mentioning that by
>Schenkerian standards, Mahler's music didn't work.

No, by *Schenker's* standards, Mahler's music was not well-formed in the
sense that the music of Bach-to-Brahms was.  Two completely different things.
(Besides, most of Mahler's pieces *do* begin and end in the same key.)
Another conclusion to be drawn from this is that some pieces by Bach can't
be parsed tonally, either, which is also true.

>   The following week I decided to raise a point mentioned -half seriously,
>I believe - by Roger Lustig to the effect of the feat achieved by Wagner in
>Tristan und Isolde by going on for four hours without a single perfect authentic
>cadence. In this way I ended up learning that Wagner was 'the typical composer
>that didn't work, according to Schenker'. 

I think your instructor is not being very useful.  His/her statement is
true, but not very illuminating.  Schenker was critical of Wagner's
style of putting together things (very effectively, as Schenker himself
agreed) on the surface, but not giving them any global, deeper coherence.
Now, since Schenker's theory is mainly a theory of instrumental music, and
Wagner invented a whole new musical style to do a kind of operatic story-telling
that nobody had ever tried before, it's really unimportant whether Shcenker
considered Wagner's music to be cut from the same cloth as Beethoven's.

And, indeed, Schenkerian analysis can demonstrate how radically different 
Wagner's harmonic procedures are from Beethoven's.

>   Really, my capacity for astonishment is exceeded. But I'm getting to the
>valuable idea that there must be at least one thing in common among the
>composers I prefer, and that is that their music doesn't work in the Schenker
>religion. Am I being too biased here? 

Yes, to put it mildly.  For one thing, do you like Bach, Beethoven, and
Chopin so little?  These are Schenker's top three, with nine others close
behind.  

For another, take a look around you at systems of musical analysis. Can
you imagine *any* of them existing without the background of Schenker?
Can you find much usein those that do not relate to Schenker?  (I am
including Meyer and Narmour, here, by the way.)             

Just because Schenker didn't like a composer doesn't mean that you shouldn't.
In fact, there are many valuable things to be learned from analyzing the
music that Schenker excluded -- using his methods.  Berlioz (Ed Cone),
Wagner (Mitchell and others), Bartok (Roy Travis, Ivan Waldbauer, Eliot      
Antokoletz, etc.), can all be understood in a new light using Schnker's
ideas.

(However, the book you're using may not be too useful in getting this across.)

>Can anyone offer some wisdom in the sense
>of suggesting something of any value that could be learned from this matter?

Sure.  You can learn about large-scale harmonic procedure in the works of
many composers.  You can learn about the interrelationships between sections
of a sonata form. You can develop a solid framework for motivic analysis,
one that avoids some of the errors of, say, Rudolf Reti.  

And you can learn to use the only well-developed analytic tool that 
explicitly understands that great music is something we listen to more than
once.  Schenker offers a model of how we listen when we listen again.

Roger