Outer-Voice Conflicts: Their Analytical Challenges and Artistic Consequences

Abstract

As anyone familiar with Schenkerian analysis can attest, it is not at all unusual for basic analytical decisions to pose significant challenges. Such fundamental determinations as boundaries for harmonic prolongations, the hierarchical significance of tonicized Stufen, the relative structural status of linear progressions, the identity of the Kopfton, and even analysis of foreground melodic diminution can be the source of considerable struggle. Very often a clear picture of top-voice structure emerges through attention to two factors: the consonant or dissonant status of pitches in relation to the harmony, and stepwise connections within a larger melodic line. It would be misleading, however, to reduce the complexities of topvoice analysis to a matter of consonant/dissonant distinctions coupled with Schenker's concept of melodic fluency. The process of determining a structural soprano involves far more than a mechanistic elimination of non-chord tones followed by a stepwise connect-the-dots game. An example from C. P. E. Bach illustrates this point. Ex. 1 presents the first part of Bach's Sonatine nuove, no. 4. Two interpretations of the melodic diminution in mm. 1-2 appear in ex. 2. In both analyses, Bb functions as the main structural pitch on the second beat of m. 1. The first graph, however, interprets the diminutions around the Bb as an accented passing tone (C) followed by a neighbor configuration; the