Acknowledgements
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 LicenceGrateful...
View ArticleReferences
Forte, A. and Gilbert, S. (1982) An Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis, New York, W.W. Norton.Lerdahl, F. and Jackendoff, R. (1983) A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, Cambridge, MA, MIT...
View Article6.2 The idea of the background, and unit summary
Mozart's music, as we have already seen, achieves its sense of coherence through a series of tensions followed by resolutions: dissonances imply resolution to consonances, and dominant chords imply...
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6.1 Considering patterns on a larger scale
So far I have introduced some fairly sophisticated and difficult ideas in this unit, but on a very small scale. In AA314_3, you will look at two entire movements taken from Beethoven's Eighth Symphony....
View Article5.5 Interruption: a summary
As I have already stated, the principle of interruption is extremely important in music of the Classical period. This kind of antecedent–consequent phrase, with a balanced I–V ∥ I–V–I harmonic scheme,...
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5.4 Different analyses of a single theme
There is one question that always arises when beginning an analysis of this sort: ‘Which is the primary tone of the structure?’ Sometimes, as in the preceding example, the melody will contain several...
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5.3 Interrupted structure and typical features of the style
The next extract is from the last movement of an earlier sonata, K281, in the same key, B flat major. The theme is very different in rhythm and contour from that in K333, but a look at the voice...
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5.2 Identifying an interrupted structure
We are going to begin our case studies by considering the whole eight-bar opening theme of the third movement of Mozart's Sonata in B flat, K333. Activity 14Listen to Extract 9, following the score...
View Article5.1 Interruption as a structural device
Now that we have seen how a middleground linear descent can organise the structure of a whole phrase, the next main topic of this unit is to consider cases where this descent stops short of reaching...
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4 Self-contained musical structures
Most of the preceding examples, both here and in AA314_1, have been very brief and fragmentary. Now is the time to begin to deal with complete phrases. By ‘complete’ I mean phrases or passages which...
View Article3.3 Unfolding: a summary
Let's recap. An unfolding occurs when two structural voices, which belong together as part of the same harmony, are separated out through time, and are presented as a single melodic part. Both voices...
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3.2 Identifying unfoldings
For the next example of unfolded intervals at work we return to the Sonata in C, K545. This time we are going to look at a passage from the second-subject group, which acts as a transition between the...
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3.1 Unfolding in Mozart
We are now going to look at cases where Mozart creates a single melodic line which contains more than one part, as in the last example in Section 2, but where these voices work in counterpoint, more in...
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2 Melodies within melodies
In this unit we introduce two new concepts that are central to voice-leading theory: unfolding and interruption. These, especially the latter, tend to occur at a level beyond the musical surface, in...
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1.2 Moving beyond the foreground
As you know, the essence of analysing the foreground of a piece of music lies in distinguishing between consonant and dissonant notes. Dissonant notes, whether passing notes, neighbour notes or...
View Article1.1 Voice-leading concepts
Here are some ideas to explain why analysis of voice leading can help our understanding of Mozart's music.Ordinary chord-function analysis (using roman numerals) is not able, on its own, to explain the...
View ArticleLearning outcomes
By the end of this unit you should:have a deeper understanding of the complete movements from Mozart's sonatas, studied both here and in AA314_1 and an acquaintance with extracts from others of the...
View ArticleIntroduction
This unit is from our archive. It is an adapted extract from the course Studies in Music 1750–2000: Interpretation and Analysis (AA314) that is no longer in presentation, although other courses in this...
View ArticleAcknowledgements
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 LicenceGrateful...
View ArticleReferences
Forte, A. and Gilbert, S. (1982) An Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis, New York, W.W. Norton.Lerdahl, F. and Jackendoff, R. (1983) A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, Cambridge, MA, MIT...
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