Viennese Harmonic Theory from Albrechtsberger to Schenker and Schoenberg

Revised Auflage
ISBN: 978-1-878822-52-9
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, 216 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 139 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 288 g

The study of Viennese harmonic theory has developed widely since Schoenberg educated a generation of American musicians during the 1930s and 1940s. This volume is a critical survey of primary materials: Viennese treatises on harmony, together with some unpublished material, from the late eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, concentrating on the dominant line of fundamental bass thinking which extends throughout the nineteenth century to Schenker and Schoenberg. Taking a chronological approach, it traces the roots of Viennese harmonic theory to the figured bass theory of the eighteenth century, discusses the mixture of figured bass and Rameauian harmony that characterizes most Viennese theory between roughly 1800 to 1850, and considers Sechter's mid-century revival of Rameau's basses fondamentale. Of especial importance is an exploration of Bruckner's reinterpretation of Sechter's system, and its later revisions. Finally, the author discusses the early twentieth-century attempts to resolve the crisis in which the theory found itself at the hands of Bruckner. The book also synthesises the results of a large number of recent German and Austrian studies of nineteenth-century harmonic theory, presenting these from the point of view of an American theorist.
Reissue; first published in 1985.ROBERT WASON is Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wason, Robert W

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik Geschichte der Musik: Klassik (ca. 1750-1830)
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Einzelne Komponisten und Musiker
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik Geschichte der Musik: Romantik (ca. 1830-1900)
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musiktheorie, Musikästhetik, Kompositionslehre

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
Introduction

Part I: Figured Bass and Harmonic Theory in Vienna During the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
1. Eighteenth-Century Theory in Nineteenth-Century Vienna
2. Foreign Influences on Viennese Harmonic Theory
3. The Viennese Treatises of the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Part II: Simon Sechter and the Fundamental Bass
4. Sechter's First Theoretical Works; the Grundsätze
5. The Fundamental Bass
6. The Extension of the Fundamental
7. Progression in Minor; Chromatic Progression
8. Sechter's System of Harmony: Its Methodological Basis and Historical Origins

Part III: Viennese Fundamental Bass Theory in the Second Half of the Century
9. Anton Bruckner, the Leading Apostle of Sechter's Teachings
10. "Romantic Harmony" and the Fundamental Bass
11. Sechter's System at the End of the Century

Part IV: The Influence of Viennese Fundamental Bass Theory at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
12. Systems of Harmony at the Beginning of the Century
13. Viennese Fundamental Bass Theory and the German Function Theory: A Synthesis
14. The Viennese Reaction: Schenker and Schoenberg

Notes
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index

Über Autor(innen)

Wason, Robert W
Robert W. Wason is Professor Emeritus of Music Theory and Affiliate Faculty in Jazz and Contemporary Media at the Eastman School of Music.