SMT PEER LEARNING PROGRAM: Form & Forming: Schoenbergian Analysis

Led by Áine Heneghan (University of Michigan)

Analysis, for Schoenberg, was grounded in the perception and apprehension of musical relationships. His study of form thus served a compositional purpose, concerned as it was with “form-creating principles” (formbildende Prinzipien), “formation” (Formung), and “forming” the material. This workshop will focus on Schoenberg's analysis of themes: readings, drawn from primary sources, will revolve around case studies - tonal and post-tonal - from his theoretical, pedagogical, and compositional output. Why differentiate motive and Gestalt? And why the expanded conception of repetition (encompassing variation, development, and even contrast)? Privileging the particular, the characteristic, in its manifold configurations uncovers the emerging logic that Schoenberg sought to elicit through his analyses. If understandability and memorability are prerequisites for the listener, it falls to the analyst to demonstrate how they are evoked by the composer.