Heinrich Schenker

Part I of this book will serve as an introduction to Heinrich Schenker as a composer and to the theoretical and philosophical bases of the subsequent analysis by surveying the development of the organic metaphor throughout his writings. It consists of (1) a biographical sketch highlighting experiences and relationships pertinent to his development as a composer; (2) an overview of his compositions; (3) an examination of contemporaneous critical reaction based on archival research; and (4) an account of the genesis of the concepts of monotonality and the organic metaphor through his theoretical work illustrated by examples from the standard repertoire. Part II, the analytical component, consists of (1) a presentation of the main compositional techniques to be discussed, namely incomplete transferences of the Ursatzformen and hidden motivic repetition, as found in Schenker¿s writings and illustrated by examples drawn from both the standard repertoire and Schenker¿s own works; and (2) demonstrations, via analytical commentary and graphic analyses, that several of Schenker¿s unpublished vocal works show his dramatic and poetic use of auxiliary cadence rogressions.