Heinrich Schenker (19 June 1868 – 14 January 1935) was an Austrian music theorist whose writings have had a profound influence on subsequent musical analysis. His approach, now termed Schenkerian analysis, was most fully explained in a three-volume series, Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien (New Musical Theories and Phantasies), which included Harmony (1906), Counterpoint (1910; 1922), and Free Composition (1935).
Born in Wiśniowczyk, Austrian Galicia, he studied law at University of Vienna and music at what is now the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna where his teachers included Franz Krenn, Ernst Ludwig, Anton Bruckner, and Johann Nepomuk Fuchs. Despite his law degree, he focused primarily on a musical career following graduation, finding minimal success as a composer, conductor, and accompanist. After 1900 Schenker increasingly directed his efforts toward music theory, developing a systemic approach to analyze the underlying melodic and harmonic material of tonal music. His theories proposed the presence of fundamental structures (Ursatz) occurring in the background (Hintergrund) of compositions, which he illustrated with a variety of new specialized terms and notational methods.
Schenker's view on race has come under scrutiny and criticism in the 21st century.
Early years and education Heinrich Schenker was born in Wiśniowczyk, Austrian Galicia in 1868Many reference works and sources give conflicting dates as to the year of Schenker's birth: Some say 1867 (including archival documents from Schenker's educational institutions), and some say 1868. In requests for biographical data, Schenker always gave the year of his birth as 1868. Schenker himself explained this discrepancy in a letter to his childhood friend Moriz Violin (dated 29 December 1927) in which he described his parents asking the officials to add a year to Schenker's birth so that he'll be able to attend school at an earlier age. His place of birth has also been disputed: Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (the leading music reference work in German) gives it as Podhajce. The clarification is that, when Schenker was born, Wisniowczyk was a town in the district of Podhajce. Although there is no birth certificate, a document from the Jewish Community Board of Podhajce dated 28 July 1877 testified that Schenker was born in Wisniowczyk on 19 June 1867. to a Jewish family of Johann Schenker and his wife,In official records, Johann Schenker's (spelled Szenker, born about 1833) marriage to Julia Mosler (born about 1834) is given as 1876, after all their children were born. Schenker explained this discrepancy in a letter to Violin, that Jewish marriages were originally handled only by Jewish authorities; only later were such marriages recognized by the state. Information about the marriage record can be seen in the JRI-Poland database where it is listed: Podhajce PSA AGAD Births 1890–93, 96, 98, 99, 1902 Marriages 1847/99, 1900, 01, Deaths 1896, 98, 99, 1900, 04, 05. Fond 300, AGAD Archive, Tarnopol Wojewodztwa, Ukraine. JRI-Poland, accessed 18 August 2012. Julia (née Mosler). Schenker's father was a doctor who had been allowed to settle in Wiśniowczyk, a village of only 1,759 inhabitants, according to the 1869 census. There is very little information about Schenker's parents. Moriz Violin, Schenker's life-long friend recalled Schenker describing "the seriousness of the father and the hot temper of the mother".
Schenker was the fifth of six children: Markus (allegedly died 1880 in Lemberg); Rebeka (allegedly died 1889 in Gradiska); Wilhelm, a doctor; Schifre; and Moriz (Moses), born 31 August 1874.Federhofer refers to documents preserved in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection, University of California, Riverside, Group I, G, box 35. There is little documentation concerning Schenker's childhood years. Schenker himself said nothing about his secondary-school education. His musical instincts must have been discovered at an early age, for he went to Lemberg (present-day Lviv, Ukraine) and studied with Carl Mikuli and then continued his studies in Berezhany.
Schenker received a scholarship to move to Vienna, where his family followed. Documents at the University of Vienna show him on the roster at the beginning of the 1884/85 season, where he pursued a law degree. In addition to his studies at the University of Vienna, he was enrolled at the Konservatorium of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (today, the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna) from 1887 through 1890. His entrance examination results indicate that he initially studied composition with Franz Krenn and piano with Ernst Ludwig. Schenker and his father asked that he be exempted from the first year's fees. Other documents indicate that in his first year, Schenker majored in harmony under Anton Bruckner. Schenker's father died in 1887,A citation to the death record is given in the JRI-Poland database, accessed 18 August 2012. leaving the family destitute.
Carl Flesch, also in attendance at the Konservatorium, left a description of Schenker as a student "who seemed half-starved, and who towered far above the rest of us ... It was Heinrich Schenker, who later came to enjoy high esteem for his original musical theories and his all-embracing practical and theoretical musicality."Carl Flesch, The Memoirs of Carl Flesch translated and edited by Hans Keller and C.F. Flesch (New York: MacMillan, 1959), p. 26–27.
Schenker's negative feelings toward Bruckner are revealed in a quote in his Harmony (1906, written nearly twenty years after instruction), in which he stated that "If the teacher is unable to explain his own propositions ..., the student ... may be content not to understand the proffered doctrine ... The teacher closes his classes in harmony; he closes his classes in counterpoint, finishes them off in his own way; but not even the first step toward art has been taken."Heinrich Schenker, Harmony, edited and annotated by Oswald Jonas, translated by Elisabeth Mann Borgese (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), pp. 177–178. A footnote adds "My teacher, a composer of high renown [Bruckner, obviously], used to say on such occasions: Segn's, mein' Herrn, dass ist die Regl, i schreib' natirli not a so."Which, in Austrian dialect, means "Look, gentlemen, this is the rule. Of course, I don't compose that way." Heinrich Schenker, Harmony, ibid, p. 177. In Schenker's Harmonielehre, Stuttgart and Berlin, Cotta, 1906, p. 228, the quotation reads: Segn's, meini Herrn, dos ist die Regl, i schreib' natirli net a so. In Counterpoint, vol. I, Schenker quotes examples from Bruckner's works as examples of badly constructed lines.Heinrich Schenker, Counterpoint, vol. I (1910), translated by John Rothgeb and Jürgen Thym (New York: Schirmer, 1987), pp. 96–99. Schenker nevertheless recognizes that Bruckner "often enough could also write the most beautiful, original, and moving melodies". Schenker had better memories of Ernst Ludwig. Ludwig accepted Schenker on the basis of his initial scholarship. Upon seeing some of Schenker's musical compositions, Ludwig recommended them to the pianist Julius Epstein. Ludwig sent students to study with Schenker, who remembered him fondly and thought he would have appreciated his Harmonielehre and Kontrapunkt.When Ludwig died, Schenker wrote is his diary (14 March 1915): "When my Harmonielehre and Kontrapunkt were published, it was already too late for him to benefit from the blessing of the truth" (Federhofer, 1985, p. 7). Schenker's Harmony had been published in 1906, the first volume of his Counterpoint in 1910.
In the 1888–89 season, Schenker studied counterpoint under Bruckner and continued piano study under Ludwig, always receiving the highest grades. The following season, Schenker joined the composition class of Johann Nepomuk Fuchs. He graduated on 20 November 1889 and was charged only half the fee for the school year (the fee paid by Ludwig Bösendorfer).
Composer and performer After graduating the University of Vienna with a law degree, Schenker devoted himself entirely to music. His first major opportunity came with Maximilian Harden, editor of Die Zukunft [The Future] who published his earliest writings. Publications in other periodicals followed. Surviving letters in Schenker's archive suggest that during his schooling Schenker had no income and survived purely by gifts from supporters. He continued this practice after graduating. Schenker dedicated his Inventions op. 5 to Irene Graedener (maiden name Mayerhofer). On her death (9 August 1923), he recalled in his diary that it was at her house that he was able to find himself and realize his future calling. At this point in his career, Schenker saw himself primarily as a composer and tried to ingratiate himself as a means of promoting his compositions. Several letters attest to his meetings with Eduard Hanslick.
By 1900, Schenker was actively trying to promote his musical compositions as evidenced by correspondence with Ignaz Brüll, Karl Goldmark, Eugen d'Albert and Ferruccio Busoni. The dedications of his published compositions are another clue to the identities of those who were sympathetic and possibly gave money to enable Schenker's works to be published, although there were probably more compositions than those conserved in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection at the University of California at Riverside. His Op. 1 carries a dedication to Julius Epstein, Op. 2 is dedicated to Ferruccio Busoni, Op. 4 is dedicated to Eugen d'Albert. D'Albert had promised to play some of Schenker's works, and Busoni was particularly enthusiastic about the Fantasy, Op. 2. With letters from d'Albert, Brüll, Busoni, and Detlev von Liliencron, Schenker felt confident in promoting his compositions. Correspondence indicates that Schenker was in contact with Max Kalbeck, as the latter was trying to make introductions for him. Similar patronage is evidenced by the dedication on the Syrian Dances (without opus number), dedicated to Baron Alphonse de Rothschild. At Busoni's insistence, the dances were orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg and played on 5 June 1903, the ensemble led by Busoni.
The publication of Schenker's Vorüber Op. 7, no. 3, in a collection sponsored by the Wiener Singakademie attests to a friendship between composer and the organization's conductor, Carl Lafite.Heinrich Schenker, Vorüber Op. 7, no. 3 in Sammlung von 51 gemischten Chören (a capella), herausgegeben von der Wiener Singakademie, zusammengestellt und zum Teile in Bearbeitung von ihrem artistischen Leiter Carl Lafite (Vienna: Albert Jungmann & C. Lerch, 1903), p. 151–54.