Essays from the Third International Schenker Symposium (review)

Abstract

Essays from the International Symposium. Edited by Allen Cadwallader, assisted by Jan Miyaka. (Studien und Materialien zur Musikwissenschaft, Bd. 42.) Hildesheim: Olms, 2006. [xix, 305 p. ISBN- 10: 3487132001; ISBN-13: 9783487132006. i48.00.] Index. Conferences devoted to a specific analytical system are rare, especially when compared to conferences examining a composer's works or a genre of music. Heinrich Schenker's analytical approaches, however, continue to hold sway over the American music theory community, and are steadily becoming a force to be reckoned with in German-speaking lands as flags continue to be planted on the map in the basement of the Mannes College of Music (see William Rothstein, Americanization of Hein - rich Schenker, In Theory Only 9, no. 1 [Sep - tem ber 1986]: 5-17). Conferences devoted to other methods of analysis, e.g., set theory, transformational voice-leading, or neo- Riemannian theory are not typically given with such regularity, although some do occur. This alone gives powerful testimony to the explanatory power, artistic usefulness, analytical rigor, and sound technique of Schenker's theories and analytical methods. Although the conference on which this book is based was billed as the Third International Sym posium, there have been at least eight symposia devoted specifically to Schenker: four at Mannes (1985, 1992, 1999, and 2002, the last being the Schenker Institute), and one each at Notre Dame (1984), the University of Hartford (1986), Utrecht Uni versity (2001), Vienna (2003), and Berlin, Sauen und Mannheim (2004). In addition, special workshops and courses continue to be offered on a regular basis and the discipline of music theory continues to be renewed, refreshed, and enriched by this ongoing critical engagement with the multi faceted thought of Heinrich Schenker. As the most recent in a series of essay collections devoted specifically to Schenker's theories, Allen Cadwallader's collection will join those of David Beach (Aspects of Schenk - erian Theory [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983]), Maury Yeston (Readings in Analysis and other Approaches [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977]), Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel (Schenker Studies I and II, [Cambridge: Cambridge Univer -sity Press, 1990 and 1999]), Joseph Straus (Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998]), as well as the collection that Cadwallader edited in 1990 (Trends in Schenkerian Research [New York: Schirmer, 1990]), and another co-edited by David Gagne and L. Poundie Burstein (Structure and Meaning in Tonal Music: A Festschrift for Carl Schachter [Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2006]). Of these, the volumes edited by Schachter and Siegel were direct results of the symposia in 1985 and 1992, appearing five and seven years after the conferences respectively. This volume contains revisions of several papers that were presented at the International Symposium held at the Mannes College of Music in March of 1999. Of the thirty-four papers presented over the three days of the symposium, twelve are contained in this volume. Of those twelve, three have been previously published and, of the twenty-two papers not presented in this collection, fifteen have been published elsewhere. Thus twenty-seven of the thirty-four papers from the conference are available in some form. That the papers appeared in print some eight years after the conference is surprising, but does not compromise the timeliness of the volume as the analytical issues discussed in the papers are every bit as relevant now as when they were first presented. The editorial organization of these essays follows precisely the order of their presentation at the symposium. No attempt is made, however, to group them according to their emphasis as was done in the previous volumes. Presumably this grouping is implied by the inclusion of the symposium program, reproduced to orient the reader to the original context of the papers. …