Explorations in Schenkerian Analysis. Ed. by David Beach and Su Yin Mak

Abstract

This volume offers a collection of essays published in memory of Edward Laufer (1938–2014), a devoted musician and Schenkerian analyst. Having studied with Milton Babbitt and Ernst Oster, and having taught at the University of Toronto for thirty years, Laufer played a key role in educating generations of professional analysts and musicians. Not only did he publish significant studies on late Romantic composers such as Sibelius and Bruckner, as well as a widely acclaimed review of Oster’s translation of Free Composition (in Music Theory Spectrum, 3 (1981), 158–84), but he also thought deeply about voice-leading principles in the music of twentieth-century composers. The present volume brings together fifteen former colleagues, students, and friends to offer analytical essays in honour of Laufer. A number of them originated as presentations at the last Schenker symposium, in March 2013. The book is organized by time period, in three parts: (1) Eighteenth Century; (2) Early Nineteenth Century; and (3) Late Nineteenth Century. The book also contains a transcription of an interview with Laufer conducted in 2003 by Stephen Slottow.