Heinrich Schenker as Theorist, Teacher and Correspondent, 1925-1930

Working in Vienna, Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) was the most influential 20th-century theorist and analyst of tonal music. His ideas have had an impact on the teaching of music in almost every major institution of higher education in the United States and Canada, and have significantly influenced that in Britain, mainland Europe, Australasia, and elsewhere. His publications are widely known in German, and have all been translated into English. Schenker was a radical traditionalist: he thought in penetratingly radical ways about the German tradition from Bach to Brahms (although his ideas have since been applied to early music, music since 1900, jazz and ethnic musics).

He kept a detailed diary over 40 years, and maintained a huge correspondence over half a century. Yet few biographical studies of him have been made. We know little about his private life and dealings with others, and consequently we cannot cast much light on his intellectual development, or on the genesis and production of his published works. Never occupying an official position, he taught piano, music theory, editing and performance practice privately throughout his career. Although abundant records exist of his teaching over 20 years, including details of pieces taught and notes on the insights he transmitted to his pupils, they remain neglected and no study has yet been made of his pedagogical work.

Schenker's most influential writings are the series of analytical volumes 'Der Tonwille' (The Will of the Tone, 1921-24) and 'Das Meisterwerk in der Musik' (The Masterwork in Music, 1925-30), 'Fünf Urlinie-Tafeln' (1932), and his theoretical summation 'Der freie Satz' (Free Composition, 1935). Between them, they provide exemplars of his analytical techniques and the most detailed specification of his theoretical ideas about music. Thus, while Schenker was active as a teacher and writer from 1887 until his death, it is the years 1925-30 that saw the emergence of many of his mature ideas and techniques for conveying them. The programme of research applied for seeks to chart that emergence, drawing on the correspondence, diaries and lessonbooks for 1925-30, and other documents datable to that period. To that end, we propose:

1. to edit, translate, interpret, and produce a publicly accessible digital edition of Schenker's diaries, pertinent correspondence, and lessonbooks 1925-30;

2. to use those materials to assess the formulation of his technical and symbolic language for analysing music deployed in 'Das Meisterwerk' and the working out of the theoretical ideas that led to 'Der freie Satz';

3. to understand the impact on Schenker of social, economic and political conditions in inter-war Austria (his diaries are rich in contextual information conveying historical events and the texture of everyday life), and the way in which these affected his thought;

4. to disseminate the results widely through online and paper publication of documents, journal articles, PhD dissertations, conference papers, an encyclopedia, and through networking with other scholars.

This project aims in part to put a 'human face' to Schenker the man. While his theoretical ideas have been well disseminated around the world, very little is known of his private life, the workings of his mind over a fifty-year career, and his relationship to the cultural world of Vienna; virtually nothing is known of his principal livelihood as an independent piano teacher and of his teaching methods.

Sight has been lost, too, of Schenker the Jew in an increasingly repressive society. That he was loyal to Judaism, never converted, yet assimilated into German culture we know; also that most of his pupils and friends were Jewish, that his widow and several pupils perished in the camps while others emigrated. But as to how he privately observed Judaism and how important being a Jew was to him, there is still much to be discovered, and for this his diaries are a rich source of information.

Even Schenker's theories themselves, in dissemination, have become distorted: presented as systematic and rules-based, stripped of their humanistic quality, divorced from their roots in psychological and quasi-biological processes.

The Southampton Project addresses these three areas by editing and translating a large body of correspondence, and a five-year segment (1925-30) of his voluminous diaries and detailed lesson notes.

To manage the impact of these materials to fullest effect outside (as well as inside) academia, it will make them all accessible, with commentary, on the internet in a web environment that maximizes searching and browsing, and will thus open them up to scrutiny by people in all walks of life, by means of the major search engines.

To this, it will add a blog to facilitate inquiries direct to the project team. Although Schenker died in 1935, the project expects interest from those engaged in oral history and life writing about the Holocaust and diaspora, and those reconstructing lives of relatives, organizations and businesses in Austria and eastern Europe between the two wars.

It will publish a 'Document of the month', featuring a newly-released document that illuminates a particular aspect of Schenker's life, his views, his circle of friends, the Viennese musical world, Austrian society, an event in European history, etc., with editorial interpretation.

Further to manage impact, in addition to the paper publications, conference papers and symposium promised in the Case for Support, the project will attempt to place short articles in other journals, such as music education, jazz, and popular music, featuring the fresh light that its discoveries bring to the received image of Schenker's theories. In addition, it will endeavour to persuade the BBC to give it space for two programmes, one on Schenker's Jewishness in an anti-Semitic environment, the other on Schenker's view of music as expounded in his letters and writings.

Schenker is par excellence the 'performer's theorist': himself a performer (pianist, accompanist, conductor), he thought instinctively in terms of performance, and its counterpart, active listening. In its work on Schenker's lesson notes, the project will try also to reach out to the world of the professional performer (bearing in mind that such great artists as Wilhelm Furtwängler and Murray Perahia claimed Schenker as a major influence on their work) and communicate ways in which his theories can be applied to musical interpretation.