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Le 17/07/2011 20:54, Eytan Agmon a écrit :
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<p class="MsoNormal">Nicolas,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Are we really going to play the
game of a close reading of Schenker? (I played the game once,
in an <i>MTO </i>article entitled “The Bridges that Never
Were.”)</p>
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<font face="Calibri">For sure, I am engaged at present in a close
reading of Schenker, and I am very pleased with the game. My
intention is to find out how his ideas evolved and eventually
produced <i>Free Composition.</i> Because <i>Free Composition </i>probably
was translated without the possibility of a direct comparison with
earlier writings, it may not always reflect Schenker's thought. I
do not mean that Oster had insufficient knowledge of earlier
writings, merely that, unable to directly confront <i>Freie Satz</i>
with other texts that probably were not easily available during
his translation, he was not always able (and may not always have
had the desire) to reflect Schenker's ideas in their historical
context. Salzer, similarly, preferred writing <i>Structural
Hearing</i> to commenting <i>Freie Satz </i>(adding a few
concepts of his own which I consider most interesting, but which
may not be fully compatible with Schenker's own ideas).<br>
"Tonal space" certainly is a case in point. It is an idea that
Schenker first published in <i>Tonwille </i>VIII-IX (1924) and
that he repeated until <i>Das Meisterwerk </i>II (1926). It must
have helped him tremendously in developing the final concept of <i>Ursatz</i>,
first described in 1930 [it may be significant, in addition, to
note that he published nothing between 1926 and 1930]. A few
paragraphs about tonal space did survive in <i>Free Composition</i>,
mainly § 13 (but also §§ 25 and several others). However, a most
striking difference between <i>Free Composition </i>and <i>Erläuterungen
</i>which I quoted in previous postings is that in 1935 Schenker
indentifies the tonal space with the <i>Urlinie</i>, while in
1924 he linked it with the concept of chord. In the meanwhile, the
concept of <i>Urlinie </i>itself was deeply modified: up to
1926, the <i>Urlinie</i> merely was a line, a "fluent melody" (<i>fliessender
Gesang</i>) [this may have aspects in common with your
"efficient" voice leading; the idea may have originated in Fux or
earlier], ascending or descending, that directed the musical flow.
From 1930, the <i>Urlinie </i>was a single abstract descending
line expressing the tonal space. Other basic concepts (among the
most complex ones, such as <i>Quintteiler</i> or <i>Übergreifen</i>)
were involved in the development of the <i>Ursatz</i> theory.<br>
Having shortly browsed through your "Bridges that Never Were"
(which I'll reread with attention), I think that your approach is
that of a theoretician, when mine is that of a historian. I have
no judgment to make about whether the bridges are or were, I am
only interested in that Schenker thought they were or, better
still, in how he conceived them. Whether they exist "truly", or
whether any logical truth is involved in this, is not of my
concern.<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Surely the statement “there are no other
tonal spaces than those of 1–3, 3–5, and 5–8,” which of course
cannot be taken literally (due to such “tonal spaces” as
2-1-7, 4-3-2, etc.), essentially equates “tonal space” with
“diatonic system.” </p>
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In Schenkerian terms, the statement that "there are no other tonal
spaces than those of 1–3, 3–5, and 5–8" merely means that if 2-1-7,
4-3-2, etc. appear to constitute tonal spaces, it must be within an
embedded space, say, that of the dominant chord, in which the
apparent 2-1-7 (of the higher level space) becomes 5-4-3, and 4-3-2
becomes (8)-7-6-5. (I purposely leave open here the matter of the
tonal space of a 7th chord: that is a matter for Yosef Goldenberg;
Schenker obviously did not fully make up his view on this point.)<br>
I repeat what I said before, that Schenker probably would have
admitted 3-5 to be filled by 3-#4-5, or 8-7-6-5 by 8-b7-6-5, etc.,
which contradicts the equation of "tonal space" with "diatonic
scale" (I think that "system", in this context, is a much too
heavily loaded term).<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">That Schenker (apparently) wants us to
believe that his <i>Urlinie</i> is conceptually prior to the
diatonic system is one of his many conceits.</p>
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As hinted to above, Schenker changed his mind about the role of the
<i>Urlinie</i>. Your statement may be true of the final version of
the concept, the abstract "fundamental line" of the <i>Urstaz </i>theory
of the 1930's, where indeed he presents the <i>Urlinie</i> as the
source of the <i>Diatonie</i>. It is much less true of his earlier
idea of the <i>Urlinie</i>(<i>n</i>), the "line(s) or origin" (he
does at time use the term in plural). Again, I find this evolution
in his thought utmost interesting. Some would take argument of these
changes to reject the whole as nonsense. I am not really concerned
with value judgments, but I might be willing to admit that the final
version in <i>Freie Satz</i> may not be the most interesting one.<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Université Paris-Sorbonne<br>
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