Directed Motion in Schoenberg and Webern

Abstract

FELIX SAL Z ER 'S Structural Hearing has already provided eloquent evidence that valuable insights into the music of Bart6k, Hindemith, and Stravinsky can be gained by a broader application of the concepts of Heinrich Schenker. But there have been few attempts to explain the music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern in these terms; the music of atonality and serialism does not readily yield to analysis from the standpoint of directed motion. Such an approach implies not only the possibility of recognizing clearly established origins and goals of motion, but the concomitant possibility of understanding the details of such motions as elaborations on various levels (foreground, middleground, or background) of a primordial progression or structure which can be assumed to underlie the entire composition and to unfold through time some sort of tonic sonority, triadic or otherwise.' The difficulty of attacking atonal and serial music with this set of assumptions seems obvious. Nevertheless, in reconsidering two brief piano pieces by Schoenberg and Webern, respectively, I have been tempted to set down in the discussion that follows a number of observations made from this point of view. As it happens, both of the compositions in question have been analyzed from quite different vantage points in separate articles that appeared in the second issue of PERSPECTIVES (Vol. 1, No. 2).2

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