Talk:Heinrich Schenker

message: The article states that Der freie Satz was incomplete.  It was not completely proofread, but Schenker did complete the text, so I've removed that word. -- kosboot (talk) 13:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freie Satz "incomplete"? 

message: Has editing of the main body of this Wiki been disabled?  The bit about the Beethoven editions is incorrect; they contain analytical notes but analyses proper.  There are Dover repros of the original editions that show analytical commentary only, not full analyses.  Will someone change this? Blap Splapf (talk) 03:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beethoven editions 

message: :A 2007 book by Nicholas Cook Cook, Nicholas (2007). The Schenker Project: Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-siècle Vienna. Oxford: Oxford University Press presents a wider historical perspective on Schenker's life and work than hitherto, quite distinct from the positivistic application of a small sub-section of Schenker's ideas and methods that became institutionalised in post-war Anglo-American academia.
The above was removed from the article since, "if you're going to talk about books, make a list of them; adhere to NPOV". I don't know what that means, but I have little idea what the quote is trying to say since, as the reason for removal points out, it doesn't compare it to any of the books which it is supposedly better than. Hyacinth (talk) 17:24, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:NPOV.  The above statement makes a claim that is not supported by other literature.  To single out a recent book in the current small article seems inappropriate unless you mention it in the context of other books. -- kosboot (talk) 23:07, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: See also WP:SOAP. -- kosboot (talk) 05:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Books

message: When did Schenker move to Vienna? ҃҃҃17:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe he was studying in Vienna by 1888. - kosboot (talk) 17:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

text: Schenker arrived in Vienna in 1884, to begin his studies in law at the University in the fall-winter semester. 62.235.207.98 (talk) 12:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Vienna

message: The statement that "Schenker's original conception of the Urlinie was of a line that rose from ^1 to reach its top note exactly midway through the piece, and then descended back to ^1" is pure fantasy: there is no such description of the Urline in any of Schenker's writings. The original conception was that some melodic lines (usually by conjunct movement, but not necessarily the most conspicuous ones) where at the origin (Ur) of the subsequent melodic developments of the work: it is, in a way, a motivic conception. It is only in his late writings (1930-1935) that Schenker said that the line should be descending, and supported by the characteristic harmonies I-V-I. 62.235.207.98 (talk) 12:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Urlinie

message: This article should be a biographical article;  information about his theory should go into the article Schenkerian Analysis.  Unless someone comes up with a good reason, I intend to remove the sections on the analytical method and put them in the appropriate article. -- kosboot (talk) 04:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Developments after Schenker's death?  That is not about Heinrich Schenker but is more appropriate for the article Schenkerian Analysis. -- kosboot (talk) 22:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I propose to remove the sections about the theory to Schenkerian analysis.  If anyone has objections, let's discuss. -- kosboot (talk) 22:23, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biography or not? 

message: I made a minor change in the list of Schenker's writings: the text about Eugen d'Albert in Die Zukunft 9 does not include "Eine Lebenskizze", which is by Eugen d'Albert himself. Schenker's text, titled merely "Eugen d'Albert", starts on p. 33. This is unimportant, but the faulty reference is often found in texts about Schenker (including another fault, "Lebellskizze" instead of "Lebenskizze").
Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 08:51, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography 

message: Someone added the category of Jewish Ukrainian musicians.  When Schenker was born, his town was part of Poland.  Scholarly literature states that Schenker grew up knowing four languages, but Ukrainian was not one of them.  I am therefore removing the category. - kosboot (talk) 15:18, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I once spoke of Schenker in the Conservatoire in Kiev and mentioned that he was born near Lvov (Lemberg). My hearers did not seem impressed and hardly were prepared to consider him Ukrainian. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

text: When Schenker was born, his town was part of Poland - Poland didn't exist at the time of his birth as the independent state. The place of birth (Vyshnivchyk) was (and is) an ethnic Ukrainian territory and not Polish. Vyshnivchyk was not a big town, hence it was unlikely he was growing isolated and didn't know Ukrainian language at all. Besides, Ukrainians were often referred as Rusyns or Ruthenians, which may have mislead researchers, as well. Finally, Schenker is present in other lists referred to Ukraine, therefore his inclusion to Category:Jewish_Ukrainian_musicians is highly recommended. Unas964 (talk) 17:29, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Schenker is not at all Ukrainian but identified mostly with Galician Jews. We know he and his family spoke Polish; nothing is ever mentioned about his speaking Ukrainian or Russian.  Remember that although today the town is in Ukraine, it was not thought of such in Schenker's childhood years. - kosboot (talk) 17:56, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: nothing is ever mentioned about his speaking Ukrainian or Russian -- noone talked about Russian language: it is completely unrelated to the issue. Instead, Ukrainian birthplace location can be used as cross-reference for those interested in the history of Ternopil_Oblast, which could help to navigate in Wikipedia. I presume such paradigm is beneficial especially when it comes to such diverse historical region as Austria-Hungary was. "Galician Jews", "Austro-Hungarian Jews" and "Ukrainian Jews" - all look relevant (Polish and Russian are not).</br>Unas964 (talk) 20:33, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ukrainian? 

message: I've noticed many Ukrainian towns/cities are inconsistently named in this article: some in Polish way (Wiśniowczyk, Podhajce), while others in German (Lemberg). Didn't check other geographical names, therefore recommend to check all them thoroughly. </br>Unas964 (talk) 17:36, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: They're named that way because that's the way Schenker would have known of them. (I'll refrain from making an editorial statement about how history is corrupted by nationalism.) - kosboot (talk) 17:57, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. There would be no reason to use "Lemberg" instead of "Lvov", was it not that it is the name that Schenker himself used and that will be found in his (and other) writings. Geographical names, and geography itself, has been quite mobile in these areas in the 20th century. When I mentioned in the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Kyiv, some 20 years ago, that Schenker was born in what in his time was Austria-Hungary, but was now Ukraine, few of the hearers (particularly among the elder ones) appeared to consider this an interesting information. But, like kosboot, I should better refrain from comments on nationalism. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 19:13, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: How the proposal to verify geographical names can be connected to nationalism? There could be only two options: use current names (completely unpractical for cross-references to contemporary documents) or the names assigned in that time. I have doubts Austria-Hungary widely approved Polish names hence pointend at the examples (e.g. German Wikipedia version gives "Podhayce" instead of "Podhajce"). </br>Btw, "Lvov" is the most inappropriate name of the largest city in Western Ukraine (Galizia during the period): it's mere transliteration of Russian "Львов". </br>Unas964 (talk) 20:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with all that you have stated.  It appears to me you are unaware of Schenker's biography and your opinions are not based on history but a desire to put a Ukrainian mark where there is none at all. - kosboot (talk) 01:45, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: You must have chosen the wrong thread to answer: here, I discuss geographical names used in the article and not Schenker's biography. Diverse opinions help to find the optimal solution if treated as a dialogue. You may have the point that Schenker nas no affiliation with Ukrainian people, but the fact remains that he was born on Ukrainian land. Therefore it is essential to give relevant name of the location, whether it is Wiśniowczyk or Vyshnivchyk, Podhajce or Pidhaitsi.</br>Back to geography - I found at least one other major inconsistency in the description of the tour with Johan Messchaert. Czech name "Ústí nad Labem" is used in the same sentence, as German "Brünn". German name for the former, Aussig or Außig, will match the shared formula (as in the case of Lemberg). I would also refrain from using Italian form "Trieste" instead of German "Triest". </br>Unas964 (talk) 07:19, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  And you are totally unaware that the notation of Ukraine did not exist in that town in that time.  It was Poland.  Another example of a famous person born in that town is the soprano Marcella Sembrich who, not Jewish, always thought of herself as Polish, never Ukrainian. - kosboot (talk) 12:26, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're right that the "notation of Ukraine" didn't exist, as well as the "notation of Poland". Both Polish and Ukrainian territories were occupied by different countries at the time. But that doesn't mean Poles and Ukrainians didn't exist either. The region Galicia where Vyshnivchyk is located was constituted by Ukrainian majority: it's their ethnic territory, which eventually and logically became a part of independent Ukraine, after centuries of Polish, Austrian and Soviet occupation. It wasn't monoethnic, of course, and there lived a lot of Poles and other nations. Lviv, for instance, was mostly Polish-Jewish. I see no contradiction in Marcella Sembrich and Heinrich Schenker born in Galicia, as well as other non-Ukrainians.</br> But, again, what does it have to do with geographical names?Unas964 (talk) 16:27, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geographical names? 

message: @kosboot, you wrote today in the article that Schenker was "Polish-born." I see that you already mentioned this above, in the discussion about whether Schenker was Ukrainian. It seems to me that Lemberg (or Wisniowczyk or Podhajce) ceased to be Polish in 1772, when the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was created, and came back to Poland only in 1918. What is the meaning of "Polish-born"? Is it a matter of nationality, of mother tongue, or what? Would it not be less controversial to say that Schenker was Galicia-born? — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 11:34, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually for people like Schenker who was born in a place that has undergone geographic transformation, I don't like any identification. But I agree with you that identification of Galicia is probably the best solution. - 12:58, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. As to "Austrian from Galicia," one might argue that "Austro-Hungarian from Galicia" would be better. (The same with "Austrian Galicia", at the beginning of Heinrich_Schenker#Early_years_and_education.  Let's avoid the problem, and keep to "Galician-born." Something else, in order to improve my English: does one write "an Galician-born Austrian music theorist", or "a Galician-born ..."? — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 16:31, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly the latter, changed now. Thanks to you both for this. Aza24 (talk) 08:10, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schenker Polish-born ? 

message: @CurryTime7-24 writes in the summary of his recent modifications of this page that he is "an admirer of Schenker’s work, but was not familiar with [Schenker's] personal views on race." The claim (by Ewell) that modern Schenkerians "whitewashed" Schenker's racism easily is contradicted by the Schenkerian literature. I quote here from Meeùs' Open Letter on Schenker's racism:
:• Célestin Deliège’s Fondements de la musique tonale, Paris, Lattès, 1984 (²Delatour-France, 2020), devoted its pp. 47-49 to the “ethical objection” against Schenker’s theory.
:• Hellmut Federhofer, one of the most ardent advocates of Schenker in Europe, discussed Schenker’s Politik, among which his racism, in a long section of Chapter V, Schenkers Weltanschauung, of his Heinrich Schenker. Nach Tagebüchern und Briefen in der Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection, Hildesheim, Olms, 1985, pp. 324-330.
:• William Rothstein, “The Americanization of Heinrich Schenker”, In Theory Only 9/1 (1986), pp. 5-17
:• In his short book Heinrich Schenker. Une introduction, Liège, Mardaga, 1993, Nicolas Meeùs commented both on the probably excessive devotion of Schenker’s disciples to their master and their silencing his politic and social ideas (p. 10), and on his nationalist excesses in the Erläuterungsausgabe of Beethoven’s op. 101 (pp. 16-17).
:• Martin Eybl devotes a full book to the question: Ideologie und Methode Zum ideengeschichtlichen Kontext von Schenkers Musiktheorie, Tutzing, Hans Schneider, 1995. [Timothy Jackson rightly argues that this book wrongly is quoted by Ewell in support of his argument.]
:• Carl Schachter, "Elephants, Crocodiles, and Beethoven: Schenker’s Politics and the Pedagogy of Schenkerian Analysis", Theory and Practice 26 (2001), pp. 1-20.
:• William Drabkin, "Heinrich Schenker", The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, Th. Christensen ed., Cambridge University Press 2002, pp. 812-43.
:• Suzannah Clark, "The Politics of the Urlinie in Schenker’s 'Der Tonwille' and 'Der freie Satz'", Journal of the Royal Musical Association 132/1 (2007), pp. 141-64.
:• Nicholas Cook, The Schenker Project: Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-siècle Vienna, Oxford University Press, 2007.
And there are several others. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 22:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the bibliography. This is very useful. I hope my edit summary was not misunderstood. I did not mean for my admission of ignorance about Schenker's racial/political views to lend weight to Ewell's argument. Rather, my point was whether there was any "whitewashing" or not, such controversies tend to be secondary, if that, in my personal appreciation of artists and academics. In general, these are not topics I follow. There are probably many other musically literate people out there like myself who think similarly. Therefore, contrary to Hucbald.SaintAmand's edit summary, not everybody may know the details about these controversies. However, having learned of them, I do feel that they are more than notable enough to mention in the lead and body of Schenker's article. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 22:28, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: CurryTime7-24, you are right that the controversy should remain secondary. Let's hope it will soon shade away. For the time being, however, as Stephen Soderberg wrote on the discussion forum of the Society for Music Theory (this page, October 3), members of the SMT are "making complete fools of [them]selves." Rather than facing such criticism, the SMT closed its forum. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 11:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

text: This is the talk page to discuss the article on Schenker. PianoDan (talk) 14:05, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

text: Relevant policy: WP:TALK#TOPIC PianoDan (talk) 14:09, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did modern Schenkerians ignore or whitewash Schenker's racism? 

message: Mea culpa.  I referred to WP:REFSPAM in my last edit summary, when I meant to refer to WP:CITEKILL.  The five separate citations halfway through the first sentence in the (newly retitled) "Views On Race" section are clearly not commercial solicitation.  However, they probably ARE over the line for the latter Wikipedia policy.  Given that those sources mostly cite one another, a reference to the one or two most recent would probably suffice to verify the claim, which is what citations are for. PianoDan (talk) 22:21, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation overkill 

message: Just to make it easier for everyone to follow this back-and-forth, I initiated this thread to discuss the latest Schenker quarrel. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 01:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The fracas is there once again... An anonymous IP contributor wants us to modify the mention of "Schenker's view of race" into "Schenker's well known virulently racist views," while we somehow agreed that Schenker's view was not so well know, at least by WP standards. If this anonymous contributor were to read this, she or he should perhaps first read several sections above on the same topic. We obviously don't agree on the matter, but we at least reached a gentleman's agreement. The matter remains much discussed today and there are other places than WP where her or his advice could be uttered – there, as here, though, it would need references and sources. – Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 20:24, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The IP edits definitely were not acceptable per MOS:RACIST. Things should be cooling down now, though, as the page is under temporary protection from IPs and new users. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 20:41, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schenker fracas 2022... the story continues