Schenker, Heinrich

born June 19, 1868, Wisniowczyk, Galicia, Russia

died Jan. 14, 1935, Vienna, Austria

Austrian music theorist.

Schenker studied law and composition in Vienna before settling there as a private teacher and occasional performer. He proposed that Jean-Philippe Rameau's harmonic theory had erred in making harmony fundamental at the expense of counterpoint. His own study of C.P.E. Bach led him to posit counterpoint as equally fundamental and to recognize the subtle integration of the two. Schenker's most influential perception was that tonal music consists of layers of ornamentation of simpler musical statements. His controversial theories and graphic notation

presented in texts such as Harmony (1906), Counterpoint (1910–22), and Free Composition (1935)

were widely disseminated in the 1970s and by the end of the 20th century had become the basis of the most widely employed analytical techniques for tonal music.

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▪ Austrian music theorist

born June 19, 1868, Wisniowczyki, Russia

died Jan. 14, 1935, Vienna

      Austrian music theorist whose insights into the structural hierarchies underlying much of 18th- and 19th-century music led to a new understanding of the laws of melodic and harmonic construction and form. Schenker was not well known in his time; he worked as a private teacher in Austria. He studied composition with Anton Bruckner and was an accompanist before turning his energies to the exploration of the fundamental principles of musical organization and coherence.

      Taking works of the 18th and 19th centuries as models of musical perfection, he based his analyses on the compositions of the masters of tonal harmony (prevalent c. 1650–c. 1900). In this connection he edited works of J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel and the piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. His theoretical writings include essays on particular works, among them “Beethovens neunte Sinfonie” (1912; “Beethoven's Ninth Symphony”) and the monumental Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien (three sections, 1906–35; “New Musical Theories and Phantasies”). Schenker's most important theory, expounded in Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (“The Masterpiece in Music”), was that great musical compositions grow from a single idea and that their contrasting themes represent only a different aspect of this one basic thought. His hypotheses greatly influenced 20th-century theoreticians.

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