Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Introduction. Theoretical and Meta-Theoretical Issues
- 1 Schenker and the Quest for Accuracy
- 2 Semper idem sed non eodem modo
- 3 What Price Consistency?
- 4 Schenker and “The Myth of Scales”
- 5 “Pleasure is the Law”
- 6 Renaturalizing Schenkerian Theory
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
4 - Schenker and “The Myth of Scales”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Introduction. Theoretical and Meta-Theoretical Issues
- 1 Schenker and the Quest for Accuracy
- 2 Semper idem sed non eodem modo
- 3 What Price Consistency?
- 4 Schenker and “The Myth of Scales”
- 5 “Pleasure is the Law”
- 6 Renaturalizing Schenkerian Theory
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
“My [theory] shows that the art of music is much simpler than present-day [theories] would have it appear.” For anyone reading Der freie Satz, this statement sticks out like a sore thumb. Schenker's intricate analyses often make pieces look anything but simple; at times they seem even more complex than the scores themselves. And yet, there can be no doubt that Schenker meant what he said; he expressed the same sentiment in various ways on other occasions. When discussing the structure of prototypical cantus firmi in Kontrapunkt I, for example, Schenker defended the quest for simplicity on ethical grounds, claiming that “it be may be artistically ethical to match a simple situation only with a simple beginning—that is, a beginning with a tonic—instead of contradicting its simplicity with a complicated beginning.” Similarly, at the end of his essay “Eläuterungen,” he announced:
The art of geniuses is as simple as the simplest passing-tone progression; but for precisely that reason it is for ever inimitable and unattainable to nongeniuses. The latter lack a bond that is for them unfathomably God-derived, the bond which connects back to ultimate simplicity; consequently they go in a thousand different directions, always anxious because they have no sense of origin.
In the same vein, he noted, “[W]here art is concerned, only geniuses pertain, for they bring to bear the utmost economy in feeling and creative activity.”
Just as Schenker saw simplicity as a hallmark of musical genius, so philosophers also see it as a guiding principle of theory construction. Indeed, it was regarded as a basic epistemic value, long before William of Ockham supposedly authored the famous dictum Entia non multiplicanda sunt praeter necessitatem. There are times, however, when simplicity is no longer a virtue: as the philosopher Paul Churchland notes, “simply to hold fewer beliefs from a given set is … to be less adventurous, but it is not necessarily to be applauded.” Churchland adds that the desire for simplicity may even end up being counterproductive, in which case the result is “perversity not parsimony!”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Explaining TonalitySchenkerian Theory and Beyond, pp. 140 - 170Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005