Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2008
Nearly half a century after gaining a solid footing in the academic world, the achievements of Heinrich Schenker remain associated more with tonal structure and coherence than with musical expression. The focus of his published work, exemplified largely by instrumental music from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, supports this view. There are just five short writings about music for voices: two essays on Bach’s St Matthew Passion, one on the opening number from Haydn’s Creation, and two on Schubert songs. To be sure, romantic lieder appear as music examples for the larger theory books, but there they serve as illustrations of harmony, voice leading and form, rather than the relationship of word to tone.