Schenker, Heinrich

Schenker, Heinrich (hīn`rĭkh shĕngk`ər), 1868–1935, Austro-Polish music theorist. Educated at the Vienna Conservatory, he devoted his life to teaching and research. Schenker developed the concept of structural levels and coherence in tonal music. He conceived of all tonal pieces as generated from a basic cell, the triad (major or minor chord). The interest and singularity of a composition were ascribed to the imagination and consistency with which the composer elaborated the triad into a complete piece. Schenker's theories have been successfully applied to nontonal music and influenced 20th-century theoreticians.

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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.