MusB Music

• Find out more from student finance
• Eligible UK students can apply for bursaries and scholarships
• Funding for EU and international students is on our country-specific pages
• Many students work part-time or complete a student internship

This course builds on the theoretical and analytical foundations established in the first year by broadening students’ knowledge of analytical techniques of tonal music. Students will be introduced to representative methods for analysing this repertoire, including Schenkerian Analysis and the innovative techniques of the New Formenlehre (the study of musical form) and will acquire the skills to apply these techniques creatively to music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, thereby unveiling new layers of understanding and appreciation of this rich musical period.

This technical course requires score reading, so a discussion with the Course Unit Director prior to enrolment is advised. 

This unit aims:

• to develop students’ music-analytical skills;
• to serve as an introduction to the analytical theories of Heinrich Schenker, one of the leading twentieth-century figures in the understanding of tonal music;
• to teach students the basic principles of Schenker’s analytical approach and how to read his graphs;
• to give students the tools to undertake their own basic voice-leading analyses;
• to familiarise students with other theories for interpreting form in Western tonal music, with a similar emphasis on theoretical understanding and practical application;
• to evaluate critically the theories introduced on the module; 
• to lay foundations for further analytical and technical work in the third year.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• demonstrate their understanding of various music-analytical methods appropriate for tonal repertoire;
• carry out analyses of a range of Western score-based music using accepted models, and have understood more complex analyses;
• create basic voice-leading analyses of short tonal works, alongside other appropriate analytical approaches to musical form.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• demonstrate their increased knowledge of a range of repertoires in Western music;
• read and understand basic Schenkerian graphs;
• engage critically with the theories of Music covered on the course.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• demonstrate skills in the clear presentation of specialist musical notation;
• apply theory as a tool for interpreting musical form, design and structure;
• show an ability to produce analytical work independently within an increasingly self-directed environment.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• undertake group work in the analysis seminars;
• demonstrate developing team-working and collaboration skills;
• exhibit attention to detail.

• Oral feedback on weekly analytical tasks given in Analysis seminars and lectures
• Written feedback on all formative and summative coursework 
• Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)

Students should make every effort to familiarise themselves with a wide range of music from the period 1700-1830, supplemented by the course unit director's reading suggestions.

• Bent, Ian, Analysis (London, 1987).
• Cadwallader, Allen, and David Gagne, Analysis of Tonal Music: a Schenkerian Approach (3rd ed.Oxford, 2010).
• Caplin, William E., Classical Form: a Theory of Formal Functions for the Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Cook, Nicholas, A Guide to Musical Analysis (Oxford, 1987).
• Forte, Allen, and Steven Gilbert, An Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis (London, 1982).
• Horton, Julian, ‘Criteria for a Theory of Nineteenth-Century Sonata Form, Music Theory and Analysis, 4/ii (2017), 147–91.
• Pankhurst, Tom, SchenkerGUIDE: a Brief Handbook and Website for Schenkerian Analysis (London, 2008).
• Schenker, Heinrich, Five Graphic Analyses (New York, 1932, repr. 1969) with an introduction and glossary by Felix Salzer.
• Wingfield, Paul, ‘Beyond “Norms and Deformations”: Towards a Theory of Sonata Form as Reception History’, Music Analysis, 27/i (2008), 137–77.