Book: Becoming Heinrich Schenker

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Becoming Heinrich Schenker
: Music Theory and Ideology

Robert P. Morgan, professor emeritus of music

(Cambridge University Press)

Much controversy surrounds Heinrich Schenker’s mature theory and its attempt to explain musical pitch motion. “Becoming Heinrich Schenker” brings a new perspective to Schenker’s theoretical work, showing that ideas characteristic of his mature theory, although in many respects fundamentally different, developed logically out of his earlier ideas.

Robert Morgan provides an introduction to Schenker’s mature theory and traces its development through all of his major publications, considering each in detail and with numerous music examples. Morgan also explores the relationship between Schenker’s theory and his ideology, which influenced the evolution of his ideas and was dependent upon both the empirical and idealist strains of contemporary German philosophical thought. Relying where possible on quotations from Schenker’s own words, this book offers an overview of a central music figure, considered to be the most prominent music theorist of the 20th century.

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