History of Music Theory from Rameau and Rousseau to Schenker And

Introduction to the History of Theory (G6300) Fall 2012 Prof. Benjamin Steege Monday 10–12

History of Music Theory from Rameau to Riemann

Survey of European music-theoretical perspectives from roughly 1720 to 1920. This period witnessed the consolidation of the field of “modern” theory that continues to inform contemporary discourse. In addition to tracing the emergence of novel theoretical topics—from “form” to “function”—we will address the relation of music theory to the new or modernizing fields it productively interacted with: physics, aesthetics, historiography, hermeneutics, physiology, psychology, and so on. Texts will be read in connection with the analysis and interpretation of relevant musical repertories.

Readings are drawn from translation, but knowledge of French and/or German is very useful. Presentations and final paper.

Selected Reading List (Provisional):

Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau, Traité de l’harmonie (1722), Preface, Books I and II Rameau, Nouveau système de musique théorique (1726), Preface, chs. 1–2 and 4–6 Rameau, Génération harmonique (1737), chs. 1–2, 4–6, 9 and 11 Christensen, Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment, chs. 1–7 Brian Hyer, “Before Rameau and After,” Music Analysis 15/1 (March 1996), pp. 75–100 Jairo Moreno, Musical Representations, Subjects, and Objects: The Construction of Musical Thought in Zarlino, Descartes, Rameau, and Weber, ch. 3

Mattheson and Rousseau Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), chs. 5 and 14 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essay on the Origin of Languages (1749–1755) Joel Lester, “Mattheson and the Study of Melody,” in Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 158–76 Christensen, “Sensus, Ratio, and Phthongos: Mattheson’s Theory of Tone Perception,” in Atlas and Cherlin, eds., Musical Transformation and Musical Intuition, pp. 1–22 Cynthia Verba, Music and the French Enlightenment: Reconstruction of a Dialogue, pp. 8–50

German Theory after Rameau (to 1800) Joel Lester, “The Marpurg-Kirnberger Disputes,” in Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 231–57 Johann Georg Sulzer, General Theory of the Fine Arts (1771–74), translator’s introduction (3–24) and articles on “Sentiment” (27–32), “Invention” (55–64), “Layout” (66–67), “Disposition” and “Elaboration,” (74–80), in Christensen and Baker, trans. and ed., Aesthetics and the Art of Musical Composition in the German Enlightenment Heinrich Christoph Koch, Introductory Essay on Composition (1782–93), excerpts in Christensen and Baker, trans. and ed., Aesthetics and the Art of Musical Composition in the German Enlightenment, pp. 111–204 Joel Lester, “Koch: Toward a Comprehensive Approach to Musical Structure,” in Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 273–99

Reicha and Weber Antoine Reicha, “Aria…from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro” (1814), in Ian Bent, ed., Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, pp. 146–51 Reicha, “Analysis…with Respect to Thematic Development” (1826), in Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, pp. 152–56 Gottfried Weber, “A Particularly Remarkable Passage in a String Quartet in C by Mozart” (1832), in Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, pp. 157–83 Ian Bent, General Introduction and Introduction to Part II, Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, pp. 1–17 and 127–31 Peter Hoyt, “The concept of développement in the early nineteenth century,” in Bent, ed., Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism, pp. 141–62 Janna Saslaw, “Gottfried Weber and Multiple Meaning,” Theoria 5 (1990–91), pp. 74–103 Jairo Moreno, Musical Representations, Subjects, and Objects, ch. 4

Marx A. B. Marx, excerpts in Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven, trans. and ed. Scott Burnham, Introduction, chs. 2 and 4 G. W. F. Hegel, excerpts from Aesthetik, in Peter Le Huray and James Day, Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries, pp. 339–53 Scott Burnham, “The Role of Sonata Form in A. B. Marx’s Theory of Form,” Journal of Music Theory 33/2 (Fall 1989), pp. 247–71

Fétis and Hauptmann François-Joseph Fétis, Complete Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Harmony (1844), Book 3 Moritz Hauptmann, The Nature of Harmony and Meter (1853), pp. xxxv–xlviii, 3–53, and 189–94 Rosalie Schellhous, “Fétis’s Tonality as a Metaphysical Principle: Hypothesis for a New Science,” Music Theory Spectrum 13/2 (Fall 1991), pp. 219–40 Thomas Christensen, “Fétis and emerging tonal consciousness,” in Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism, pp. 37–56 Maryam Moshaver, “Structure as Process: Rereading Hauptmann’s Use of Dialectical Form,” Music Theory Spectrum 31/2 (Fall 2009), pp. 262–83

Helmholtz and Oettingen Hermann von Helmholtz, “On the Physiological Causes of Harmony in Music” (1857) Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (1863), Introduction, chs. 13 and 19 Suzannah Clark, “Seduced by notation: Oettingen’s topography of the major-minor system,” in Clark and Alexander Rehding, eds., Music Theory and the Natural Order from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century, pp. 161–180 Benjamin Steege, “Helmholtz, Music Theory, and Liberal-Progressive History,” Journal of Music Theory 54/2 (Fall 2010), pp. 283–310

Riemann Hugo Riemann, “The Nature of Harmony” (1882) (incl. my introduction) Riemann, Harmony Simplified (1893), excerpts Riemann, “Ideas for a Study ‘On the Imagination of Tone’” [1914] Journal of Music Theory 36/1 (Spring 1992), 81–117 (incl. translators’ intro.) Brian Hyer, “Reimag(in)ing Riemann,” Journal of Music Theory 39/1 (Spring 1995), pp. 101–38 Hyer, “What Is a Function?,” in Rehding and Gollin, eds., Oxford Handbook of Neo-Riemannian Theory Rehding, Hugo Riemann and the Birth of Modern Musical Thought, chs. 1–2 Rehding, “Tonality Between Rule and Repertory; Or, Riemann’s Function—Beethoven’s Function,” Music Theory Spectrum 33/2 (Fall 2011)