Annotation for Schachter, Carl
Rhythm and Linear Analysis: Durational Reduction
Annotation (by Bill Tilghman):
- This is the second of Schachter's three articles in Music
Forum that expand and apply Heinrich Schenker's ideas concerning
rhythm and meter. Here Schachter's objective is to introduce his
durational reduction and to demonstrate the usefulness of the technique
in clarifying certain rhythmic features and their relationship to tonal
structure. After acknowledging previous uses of such reduction,
particularly by Beethoven and Schenker, Schachter moves on to his main
demonstration of the method: analyses of four relatively simple but
complete musical structures. His graph of Chopin's G major Prelude shows
how the piece's asymmetrical surface proportions "grow out of an
underlying symmetry," where the movement's two large phrases are
actually equal in "basic duration." In contrast, the two segments of the
interrupted structure in the trio section of Mozart's "Haffner" Symphony
are truly disproportionate in duration, because of the lengthy
prolongation of scale degree 2 over the dominant in the "B" section.
(This section also includes an example of Schenker's Dehnung,
discussed more fully in the third article of the series, "Aspects of
Meter.") The analysis of the Allegretto of Beethoven's Op. 14, no. 1,
shows the use of syncopation on three different metrical levels, all
marked by Beethoven as sforzandi. Finally, the durational reduction of
Schubert's Valse Sentimentale, Op. 50, no. 13, clarifies a number of
interesting rhythmic features, such as the "downbeat" status of the
II6 chords (and its implications for how the
movement's large-scale tonal motion is read), the unusual weak metric
placement of the 6/4 chords, and the metric reinterpretation of a
melodic motive in the contrasting middle section.
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