Harmonic “Quality” and Set-Class Structure

Abstract

This article focuses on one of the most discussed works in music-theoretical literature concerning tonal versus set-class organization, the second of Arnold Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19. To advance a new understanding of how these two conceptual frameworks can be unified, I propose an intuitive notion of harmonic “Quality” inspired by a portion of Anthony Pople’s unfinished Tonalities project (2004). According to Pople, harmonic Quality derives from two sources: tritone intervals and seventh scale degree status. I argue that Quality can assist us in hearing Schoenberg’s overhaul of non-diatonic collections as articulating quasi-tonal tension-relaxation relationships, all within the context of a broader chromatic language. The analyses that follow suggest that Schoenberg favored a stable status for hexatonicism at the start and end points of op. 19, no. 2, a stability that is tied to its tonic-quality. The article then applies Quality to examine the outlier status of piece no. 6 within op. 19, Schoenberg’s moving tribute to Gustav Mahler written after the first five miniatures were conceived. The goal of this approach is to inject nuance into existing tonal versus set-class debates by thinking of Schoenberg as a composer of op. 19 no. 2 architectonically: as a collectional, set-class composer in terms of raw pitch resources, but also a composer handling such raw resources with a distinctly tonal intuition.