The Music of Alexander Scriabin Review Author[s}: Anthony Pople Music Analysis, Vol. 7, No. 2. (Jul., 1988), pp. 215-225. ble URL: bittp://links jstor.org/sici?sici=0262-5245% 28198807%297%3A2%3C215%3ATMOAS%3E2.0,CO%3B2-A, ‘Music Analysis is currently published by Blackwell Publishing, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at butp:/\vww jstor.orglabout/terms.huml. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/wwww jstor-org/journalsblack hum Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, JSTOR isan independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to ereating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals, For more information regarding JSTOR, please contaet support @jstor.org, upulwwwjstor.org/ Wed Nov § 16:11:48 2006REVIEWS James M. Baker: The Music of Alexander Scriabin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). xiv + 289 pp. £37.50 Although two of James M. Baker's previous publications (1980, 1983) have given a fair idea of the nature of his work on Scriabin, the appearance of this book allows his achievement to be assessed in full measure. The 1980 article isin fact now superseded, but all three publications share a common origin in Baker’s Ph.D dissertation (Yale University, 1977) and it is unfortunate that no space has been found in the book for an ‘updated version of the introductory theoretical discussion published in David Beach’s symposium, That article will therefore remain, for the professional reader at least, an essential complement tothe present monograph. In his Preface, Baker explains that the dissertation ‘traced Scriabin’s evolution through thirty-six short works composed from 1903 to 1914”: of these analyses, thirty-five are fully or partly represented in the book and that of “Enigme’, Op. 52, No. 2, may be found in Baker 1983, Some additional work undertaken specifically for the new publication has resulted in two final chapters wherein Baker discusses the Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Piano Sonatas, the Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus, broadening the scope of his enquiry so as to move some way towards the type of writing that might be found in a handbook to the composer's works ~ for example in his consideration of textural aspects of the orchestration in Prometheus (pp.252-8), Perhaps itis in consequence of this that, while the principal orientation of, these chapters remains analytical, they contribute litle to the book in terms of theory or methodology, although they are evidently intended as a major part of it and will indeed be of considerable interest to Scriabinists and other readers. The form of words Baker uses to express his subject ~ ‘Scriabin’s transition to atonality’~ is reminiscent of the title of an article of similar vintage by his teacher Allen Forte (1978), and indeed the approaches of these two studies are essentially the same: their thesis, in essence, is that tonality and atonality are distinct structural attributes of music and that they can best be revealed by Schenkerian and set-complex analysis respectively. The sweep of Baker's book is chronological, which would suggest a concern to historicise theory; and in view of the potential this orientation has for breaking down dogmas, his conception of a methodology for Schenkerian analysis in such a context is worth quoting in extenso Music ANALysts 7:2, 1988 215REVIEWS If one is to discover the extent to which @ structure is determined by tonal procedures, one must begin asa strict constructionist, examining every possibility for interpreting the structure in conventional terms. In the absence of any such possibility, the analyst must nevertheless compare the structure of the problematic Piece to those found in conventional tonality, He may then ascertain whether it isa Gerivation of extension of a normal tonal structure, of whether it projects a conventional structure implicitly. 1 no relation to traditional tonality is discovered, then the composition may not be considered tonal. Because prolongations are effected by operations on functions of varying structural weights, the analyst must also establish the existence of a closed system of such operations and functions in order to posit a multileveled structure. To date, no closed system has been discovered for any corpus of post-tonal musi. (pp.a-xi) ‘This passage is familiar from Baker's 1983 article, where it appears at the end of his survey of related items from the theoretical and analytical literature (: 168); in the Preface of the present book, however, it cannot be said to constitute the conclusion of an argument, as the preceding paragraphs are confined largely to the dismissal of a number of aged texts. Baker's decisions about serious matters of theory and analytical method were evidently taken some time ago, but, as his 1983 discussion shows, his cautious attitude towards the extension of Schenkerian principles was not arrived at without consideration of Robert P. Morgan's article of 1976, which was pethaps the most ‘thoughtful statement of a more liberal view then available — and certainly one in which the author’s commitment to the historicisation of theory was unequivocal. ‘While Baker's ‘strict constructionist’ position might appear to promise a level-headed alternative to Travis’s work (1959, 1966) and other pseudo-Schenkerian analysis carried out ina theoretical vacuum, his statement of intent, though evidently worded with care, is contradictory and ultimately does little more than expose a number of theoretical and methodological problems. The root of this deficiency lies in his suggestion that, if the attempt to interpret the structure in conventional terms is unsuccessful, the ‘structure of the problematic piece’ must nevertheless be compared to those found in conventional, tonality. How is this structure to be found if the ‘strict constructionist” approach has already failed? This, of course, is precisely the issue in question, and while Baker’s proposal ‘to ascertain whether [the structure] is a derivation or extension of a normal structure, or whether it projects a conventional structure implicitly” gives some clues as, to his likely interpretative orientation, itis expressed in a way which still assumes that the ‘structure’ has already been revealed. It would thus appear likely that, when he ‘writes that the ‘strict constructionist’ should examine possibilities ‘for interpreting the structure in conventional terms’, Baker is not acknowledging that the structure is a product of the act of interpretation, but rather suggesting that it is an undeniable attribute of the piece and, as such, can itself be interpreted in different ways. In the context of an attempt to historicise theory such a conception of structure might be thought unhelpful. Baker wisely attempts to broaden his theoretical base with a discussion of prolongation in general terms; but this results in a disappointingly circumspect formulation to the effect that no ‘closed system’ of ‘operations’ and “functions of varying structural weights’ for post-tonal music has yet been found, ‘suggesting perhaps that his conception of tonality (asa closed system?!) is unreasonably dogmatic (and — in its insistence on a functional view - decidedly un-Schenkerian), Certainly itis this part of his argument that places him most at odds with Morgan, who evidently considers tonality a system of changing and changeable conventions, and tries to correlate his historical interpretation of such changes with post-Schenkerian 216 music ANALysts 7:2, 1988theoretical concepts and analytical observations. And while Morgan's view does not run counter tothe principle that, for any one piece, the system of conventions might best be considered fixed, Baker evidently does not use the expression ‘closed system’ in this ‘merely synchronic sense. He would thus appear to compromise the overall historicising intentions of his study. In practice, however, Baker moves quickly away from the idea of a closed system, which is perhaps only to be expected in view of the theoretical and methodological contradictions outlined above. Two additions to his vocabulary of recognisable tonal categories are developed at the outset of the book proper: the first arses from a careful assessment of the tritone bass-motion around the dominant that has long been recognised as a stylistic fingerprint of Seriabin’s middle period, and the second comes from a recognition of whole-tone collections as normative. Baker's discussion of the ‘contexts in which the function b II (or b Il’) may be recognised in Scriabin's music develops an understanding of the b II function from a theoretical foreknowledge which is confined almost exclusively to the ‘varying structural weights’ of dominant and tonic functions. In other words, the argument he pursues has the effect of circumscribing the $I function through an analysis of patterns of usage expanding from a closely restricted functional theory ~ which could indeed be described informally as a closed system. ‘Towards the end of his first chapter, under the heading ‘Harmonic Plans’, Baker takes this expansion further, through similar discussions of a wide range of other harmonic functions, so that the resulting ‘system’ is thoroughly contextualised with respect to his, chosen repertoire. This acknowledgement, in effect, that the concept of harmonic function comes from the generalisation of recognitions of usage within a proposed style corpus, is both refreshing and well-argued, and makes the severe tone of Baker's previously stated intention to establish a ‘closed system’ even more puzzling. ‘As a preamble to a post-Schenkerian discussion of ‘Prolongational Techniques’, however, this section of the book - concentrating on harmonic rather than linear matters = might ‘appear to be problematic, not only because its harmonic conceptions are resolutely functional, but also because it fails to give full consideration to a widening of the range of musical entities of which prolongations may be recognised, in line with attempts by previous writers to extend Schenkerian theory for the analysis of late nineteenth-century music. But Baker's analytical practice again moves beyond his explicit theorising: his discussion of the ‘Poéme fantasque’, Op. 45, No. 2(pp. 10-11), is notable for its extension of the basic harmonic and contrapuntal theory that underpins ‘Schenkerian thought, in that his interpretation of whole-tone sets as normative includes several recognitions’ of ‘foreign’ pitches as passing notes, thus recreating the consonance/dissonance distinction according to membership/non-membership of a pe set, under certain conditions of linear motion. In this analysis the scope of such passages, in which ‘the whole-tone scale is established . . . as a characteristic focal sonority’, is never longer than a few bars; but in his discussion of “Enigme’ (1983: 168- 86) Baker moves still further from a classical Schenkerian position, recognising a prolongation of the pe set [0,2,6,8] in bs 1-22 of the piece. Here, however, he is only ‘occasionally moved to make a distinction between structural and auxiliary pes according to their membership or non-membership ofa ‘prevailing’ whole-tone set (pp. 174,171) = even within the span of the (0,2,6,8] prolongation. His analysis, in the book, of the Feuillet d’Album, Op. 58 (pp.i29-35), is also comparable 10 the ‘Poéme fantasque’ analysis in that it invokes the concepts of auxiliary and passing notes in the context of whole-tone norms: here the analogy with ‘nonharmonic tones in tonality’ is actually made explicit — albeit parenthetically, rather than within the context of a theoretical liscussion (p.132). MUSIC ANALYSIS 7:2, 1988 217By this stage of the book, however, Baker has introduced further theoretical constraints which do not entirely square with his own analyses. He begins promisingly, recognising that the V’+ II’-V’ progression prolongs the dominant while retaining pitches within a whole-tone aggregate: this leads him to write explicitly of whole-tone prolongations’ (pp.32, 41-3) and to give categorised examples that show the circumstances under which he is prepared to read them. He is at pains to stress that he sees such prolongations as subsidiary to the expression of dominant and tonic tonal functions, however, stating with regard to his final example (a passage eight bars in length from the Etude, Op. 49, No. 1) that: ‘The formation of whole-tone aggregates is important in reinforcing the tonal gestures effected by prolongations.... This procedure serves ina sense 10 prolonga ‘whole-tone sonarity, yet it never interferes with the prolongations of tonal elements ‘or progressions, which take precedence as structural determinants, (P.43) But the introduction (Chapter 4) of Forte’s set-lass notation, as a means for describing “Scriabin’s unconventional components’, leads Baker to review set-theoretic concepts such as complementation and invariance, and, as a result, to argue differently about such passages: {It should now be clear thatthe whole-tone prolongations discussed previously may best be analyzed within the framework ofthe theory of pe-set relations. In general, such prolongations involve the retention of elements of a single whole-tone scale (6- 35) throughout a succession of sets. Thus the term whole-ome invariance describes ‘more precisely the retention of pes which form 6-35 or a subset of 635. (p.95) ‘There is clearly an element of theoretical uncertainty here. How, in Baker's view, do the concepts of invariance and prolongation relate to each other in these circumstances? Does he mean to suggest, for example, that the invariance of a substantial part of a normatively-conceived aggregate within a certain span can lead to the recognition of a prolongation of either the aggregate or its invariant subset? In that case, the harmonic perceptual orientation underlying the criteria for segmentation ~ which leads to the identification of chordal sets across whose succession the invariance is found ~should be made explicit, and, moreover, the implications for the voice-leading aspect of such a theory should be sorted out. Or, on the other hand, is Baker's change of heart to be taken at face value, indicating a view that, although ‘prolongation’ and ‘invariance’ are not the same thing, and although the relation between them is unclear, the set-theoretic concept should be used, as it is available, rather than bothering with the precise working-out of an extended post-Schenkerian position? In this case, one would hope that his reasons for deferring to Forte's theory, rather than pursuing his own previous extensions of Schenkerian concepts, have been fully considered. Otherwise, it must seem that his work confirms openly that the tonal/atonal boundary is a theoretical construct, to be crossed at the analyst’s discretion, which would again seem to compromise any careful historicisation of his account of Scriabin’s “transition to tonality’. Baker's concept of ‘implicit tonality’ is familiar from the 1980 article, and represents his most far-reaching extension of Schenkerian theory, procceding from a remarkable relaxation ofthe constraints on linear motion within prolonged harmonies that could be recognised in a classically Schenkerian reading. In discussions of harmonically complex four- and eight-bar phrases from the ‘Feuillet d’Album’, Op. 45, No. 1, the Prelude, 218 MUSIC ANALYSIS 7:2, 1988Op. 56, No. 1, and the Etude, Op. 49, No. 1, he reads a prolongation of a triadic harmony across the entirety of each phrase, such that the prolongation is understood as being controlled by a number of concurrent linear progressions from one consonant pitch to another, despite these progressions frequently being incomplete, or independent of each other, or both (pp.21-8). Such readings evidently constitute Baker’s response ~ having decided not to recognise prolongations of any harmonies other than the most basic tonally functional ones ~ to passages in which such basic harmonies are only rarely to be found at the musical surface. An important component of this response is the parenthetical addition of ‘implied’ harmonies — typically triads — to indicate conceptual points of departure for linear motions constituting readings of triadic prolongations that might otherwise appear suspect, an overtly interpretative procedure which would seem at odds with Baker’s beliefs about the nature of musical structure but is arguably an extension of Schenker’s own practice. More importantly, though, the attempt to read coherence through complex voice-leading in the face of restrictive harmonic preconceptions forces Baker in effect to apply an excessive degree of analytical reduction, leaving the harmonic status of many of the simultaneities in the music unexplored. His closest encounter with the musical surface is thus located at a ‘more remote level than is normal in Schenkerian work. Although the subsequent introduction of sset-class notation allows Baker to classify these uninterpreted simultaneities —and anything else his segmentational priorities dictate ~ its application does not alleviate the disparity between the harmonic and contrapuntal aspects of his extensions of Schenkerian theory. “This tension is most apparent in his third chapter, which is devoted to the discussion of background structures (pp.44-81). Here the addition of an ‘implied’ triad at the beginning of a graph is almost de rigueur and makes a nonsense of his final remarks: [Even the vaguest forms examined in this chapter possess tonal Ursatz structures. In no case has it been necessary to posit unusual background progressions, such as the contextually determined Ursatz structures involving. ‘contrapuntal-structural’ chords found in many of Feliz Salzer’s analyses of twemtieth-century compositions. Scriabin’s transitional music does not represent the categories of ‘extended’ or “hovering” tonality into which so many late- and post-tonal works have been placed, Rather, each work is constructed upon a conventional Ursatz-~a foundation whose strength is not abated even though parts of it may exist only in concept. (p.81) In affirming his unwillingness to extend the harmonic basis of Schenkerian theory, the comparison Baker makes with Salzer's work is rather dated: again his 1983 article provides a better theoretical debate, with its discussion of Morgan’s analysis of Enigme’ (1976: 79-86). Although Baker criticises Morgan heavily for relying on contextual criteria to determine prolonged entities, he crucially misrepresents Morgan’s view when he ascribes the latter's identification of certain pieces — including ‘Enigme’ — as, ‘organised entirely by means of dissonant prolongations’ to the extension of a principle by which ‘duration more in an absolute than a relative sense’ is used as a ‘contextual, criterion for determining the prolongations of dissonant chords within tonal frameworks’ (1983: 159-60; cf. Morgan 1976: 74). The distinction Morgan actually ‘makes is between (triadically tonal) pieces in which “dissonant prolongations’ are found at foreground and/or middleground levels and what might be called ‘non-triadically tonal’ pieces whose background structures are ‘dissonant prolongations’, Summarising, his analyses of works by Schubert, Liszt and Wagner, Morgan writes: Music ANALYSIS 7:2, 1988 219‘These examples should be considered as representative ofa wide range of techniques of dissonant prolongations in nineteenth-century music, extending from non- chordal tones that have simply been rhythmically prolonged to dissonant sonorities providing the tonal basis for entire compositions. Within these limits one can distinguish several intermediate levels: rhythmically extended non-chordal tones supported by their own unstable harmonies, dissonant chords composed out to form extended segments within larger functional progressions, and such composed-out sonorities as the sole structural basis for complete formal units of larger pieces. Accordingly, the question of whether a passage represents a full fledged structural ‘prolongation of a dissonance is often a matter of degree, dependent on the structural level on which the composition is considered. ... Only in the case of complete pieces is the dissonance absolute. Here one can say that the difference in degree ‘becomes one in kind. (pp.73-4) Baker too notes a ‘difference in kind’, restating the Fortean position that tonality and atonality are ‘two fundamentally different types of musical structure’ (1983: 161). But his general methodological decision to leave his closest account of surface configurations to atonal theory, while employing extended tonal theory at the deeper levels of analysis, is remarkably akin to Morgan’s conception of the bottom-up introduction of new conventions. Their analyses of ‘Enigme’, too, are not, in the end, dissimilar: like Baker, “Morgan reads the background as a prolongation of a whole-tone pe set ~ 0,2,6,8,10] in his case —over an Ab bass (1976: 84), For Baker, however, this whole-tone background prolongation is plausible only because of the punning similarity of the [0,2,6,8] sonority toa Vb {chord in Ds major. This actually leads him to suggest that ‘a V-I cadence in D> is implicit’, although ‘{it] must be assumed to take place, if at all, after the piece has ended” (1983: 178). But this assertion of implicit’ triadic tonality, when the tonic triad of Dp is never stated and the prolongations within the piece are controlled by functional ‘whole-tone sets, seems at odds with his summary view that {under} no circumstances does the mere pointing out of tonal-like configurations, gestures, or progressions constitute a valid analysis establishing the tonality of a composition, Rather, in order to demonstrate that such components fulfill tonal functions, ther precise roles within a conventional hierarchical tonal structure must always be specified. If no such explanation is possible, a basis in another type of structure must be sought. (p.186) Evidently, Baker's analysis of ‘Enigme’ does not reveal the piece to be triadically tonal, bbut indeed proposes ‘another type of structure’. ‘The rationale behind Baker's recognition of D> major as an implied context for the structure of ‘Enigme’ is evidently historical: this triadic tonality is the conceptual rather than the structural background in his reading of the work. The same might be said of the B major background in his reading of the Feuillt d’Album, Op. 58. But the historical sweep of his study as a whole is marred by a mismatch between his opening theoretical position and the chronological starting-point of his chosen repertoire, for, although he appears to advocate a broad view in maintaining that itis dangerous to analyse a work ‘without understanding its place in the chronology of the composer's work as a whole’ (1983: 186), he makes it clear in the book’s Preface that he regards Scriabin’s transition” sa phenomenon to which the composer's earliest music bears no direct relation (p. vii). ‘The decision to give detailed consideration only to the later music is of course understandable for reasons of space, but it would have been interesting to see the origins 220 Music ANALYSIS 7:2, 1988of implicit tonality’ in the analysis of earlier music, perhaps notall oft by Scriabin. One is reminded of Mitchell’s analysis of the Tristan Prelude (1967), for example. It might also have been interesting to have had Baker's views on the technical aspects of Schenker’s Chopin analyses, in view of the frequency with which commentators on Seriabin’s early style have maintained his debt to that composer. Other work on mid- and (especially) late nineteenth-century music could also have contributed towards a context for Baker's initial theoretical position, for no post-Schenkerian analysis undertaken in an explicitly historical framework can hope to pick up the threads of tonality in 1903 without giving some account of the conventions it finds in the immediately preceding period. Itis quite extraordinary that Baker waits until the end of the book (p.270) before suggesting that what he terms the ‘operations and functions’ of tonality could have been changed in the music of the 1900s (though, he suggests, by composers other than Scriabin). Although Baker evidently refers here to Scriabin's, contemporaries rather than to his forebears, this historical idea too might well have been floated at the outset and its theoretical consequences carefully examined. Just who Baker takes those contemporaries to be is not clear: perhaps he means Schoenberg ~ having rejected “the categories of “extended” or “hovering” tonality’ for Scriabin's middle-period music (p.81) ~ though the dual dominant functions of the V> J chord, as, discussed in his opening chapter, reveal this chord as a ‘vagrant harmony’ in precisely Schoenberg's terms. Ironically, Baker's crippling circumspection emerges forcefully in a footnote to the preceding paragraph on p.81, in which he suggests that Scriabin’s Feuillet d’Album, Op.58, ‘may be his last verifably tonal work’ (p.279). Ul-defined as the concepts of hovering and extended tonality doubtless are, the idea of ‘verifiable’ tonality seems to me preposterous: the sensitivity with which Baker contextualises identification of harmonic functions is simply not matched by his false rigour in re reading Schenker. “Morgan’s consideration of nineteenth-century music, then, might have formed part of a suitable context for Baker's study, even if it needs a certain amount of theoretical clarification. Indeed, Baker’s discussion of Morgan’s ‘Enigme’ analysis is helpful in pointing out that the iater’s ‘tonic collection’ isin fact an unordered pe set (Baker 1983: 169), suggesting a line of theory that would improve by far on Morgan’s etymologicaliy disastrous concoction of the term ‘non-ordered serialism’ to describe the principles by which, in his reading, the prolongational structure is articulated. A similarly professional commentary on Morgan's other innovations could have been most productive; but, even when discussing whole-tone prolongations, Baker does not acknowledge the principle of the gradual conventionalisation of normative elements, and his excessive caution is evident in his reluctance to allow a normative status to any “other set-classes beyond the whole-tone set and those to which tonally functional chords may be reduced. Even Reise, whose account of the post-Prometheus works is conceived in part asa simple man’s response to those earlier Scriabinists who invoke ‘a plethora of modes’ to describe the technical aspect of the composer’s late style (1983: 223), allows himself ro interpret the music with both the whole-tone and octatonic collections held as normative. The tradition he refers to is that which stems from Sabaneev’s account of Prometheus (1912, reprinted in Kandinsky and Marc 1974: 127-40), in which the collection now known as the ‘mystic chord’ is identified, along with its simultaneous harmonic and melodic normative status in Prometheus and its alleged origin in the harmonic series. Schenker's exposition of the status ofthe triad and the diatonic scale collection in his theory of tonality is of course similar in both these respects. Baker's account of the pre-Prometheus music might have benefited from a consideration of this remarkable convergence of thought between Scriabin's own Music aNaLysts 7:2, 1988 22aspokesman and Schenker himself. In fact, he appears to acknowledge the Sabaneev tradition in a preliminary remark to his chapter on ‘Aspects of Atonality in the ‘Transitional Music” In Scriabin’s late tonal compositions, unity is achieved to a certain extent by the frequent recurrence of a limited number of unusual sonorities peculiar to each ‘composition. The music is permeated by characteristic sonorities which retain their structural identities even in different contexts or configurationsat the surface. (p.83) ‘The application of such principles to the middle-period music could indeed have been of, ‘great interest, in view of the wide acceptance that this account of the composer's final- period technique has gained despite its unclear theoretical grounding. But this isnot the path Baker chooses; nor indeed does he seek to build on Sabaneev's theory ~ most recently and thoroughly redeveloped by Kelkel (1978, Vol. 3)~ when he comes to the analysis of the post-Prometheus music. Thus a self-evident opportunity for clarifying and historicising an existing body of work is spurned. One might in any case have reasonably expected a fuller consideration of such writings; and their re-interpretation by a theorist of Baker’s professional standing, perhaps through set-class theory, would surely have been valuable in itself ‘As noted above, Baker introduces set-class analysis into his study in his fourth chapter, entitled ‘Aspects of Atonality in the Transitional Music’. Flere he makes explicit the role he sees for the analytical detection ~ in the musical surface of works already susceptible toa post-Schenkerian approach — of several pe sets belonging to the same (Fortean) set-clas In these highly experimental works [from Op. 32, No. 2 © Op. $7 (composed 1903. 7)] Scriabin depended on prolongational procedures and especially on the Ursatz formations to unify the unconventional harmonies and progressions atthe surface of his music... This chapter focuses on the nature of Scriabin's innovations, particulary ofthe basic components of harmonic and melodie structure. Traditional classifications are clearly not sufficiently specific for such a study. If considered as pitch-class sets, however, Scriabin’s unconventional components may be precisely analyzed within the framework ofthe set complex, (p.82) These guidelines would appear to suggest that Baker sees set-class analysis as an interpretative activity not merely complementary to post-tonal analysis, but indeed deliberately nor predicated on the recognitions of melodic components and prolonged harmonies made there. He is nevertheless concerned to establish some common ground, with tonal theory: a discussion of several differently-voiced Bb" chords from ‘Fragilité’, Op. 51, No. 1, each of which is reducible to the pe set [0,2,7,8,10], makes it clear that he does not intend that recurrent identical pe sets should be overlooked simply ‘because their identity may also be recognised through tonal theory. But in expanding this position he moves well away from the segmentational priorities associated with a post-Schenkerian perceptual orientation: pe sets belonging to the same equivalence class are frequently reduced from score fragments in which adjacent harmonic events are contatenated, and sometimes taken from linear configurations by exclusion of the harmonic context. The lack of a harmonic-contrapuntal rationale for such segmentations is evidently intentional, and its corollary is Baker's topical organisation of his discussion according both to the transpositional and inversional equivalence- relations that determine Fortean set-classes and to the structural relations between set- 222 music ANALYSIS 7:2, 1988classes that constitute the theory of set-complexes. Thus we are told that ‘Scriabin did not generally exploit the Z-relation before 1910’ (p.88), an observation which is not the nly one in the book that goes well beyond the bounds of convenient and conventional usage in its ascription of analytical observation to compositional intention. Less naive is the sleight of hand that accompanies Baker's application of inversion as an equivalence classification for pc sets: in his discussion of the ‘mystic chord’ (pp.99-103), for example, he equates this familiar concept from the Scriabin literature with the Fortean set-class 6-34, thus allowing himself also to equate the chord with its inverse and so to identify it falsely in a number of instances. tis poor trick to claim on this basis that ‘no ‘one has perceived the extent of its use prior to Op. 60” (p.99), In its approach to segmentation, then, Baker's assertion of atonality in Scriabin’s ‘middle- and late-period musics evidently not governed by a perceptual orientation that ight be shared by post-Schenkerian, post-Sabaneev and post-harmonic-functional ways of hearing this music. But just what his segmentational priorities actualy are is totally unclear, because ~ extraordinarily — the chapters on the late music include not a single music example giving details of how the representatives of certain set-classes have been detected. On the contrary, Baker takes this aspect of his work as read: he merely lists the set-classes, out of context, and embarks upon a statistical analysis of their properties and interrelationships. This leads him to correlate such features as ie maxima and minima within the repertoire of ‘significant’ set-classes with the chronology of composition of the works in which they have been found. This virtually year-by-year attempt at historicisation compares poorly with Kelkel’s work ~ because the musical status of ‘significant’ set-classes is not seriously discussed ~ and makes for a strange comparison with the post-Schenkerian component of Baker's own study, in which a historical dimension is so sadly absent. While the lack of detailed analytical work will probably cause the professional reader to pass over these chapters, some indication of the style of Baker’s segmentation procedures is perhaps to be found earlier in the book, where ~ under the heading ‘On the Border of Atonality’ — he discusses the Feuille Album, Op. 58, and the Prelude, Op. 59, No. 2 (Chapter 6). These analyses are comparable in technique to his analysis of “Enigme’ in that they do not entirely dispense with the harmonic perceptual orientation that leads, elsewhere in Baker's study, to the reading of whole-tone prolongations. But this orientation is largely restricted to the texturally reductive, post-Schenkerian aspect of his analytical discussion: the identification of set-classes in the musical surface depends on other, less well-defined criteria. Some of the configurations Baker identifies are probably conceived as having a ‘motivic significance, but others are simply contiguous segments of music whose pitch aggregates are reduced to Fortean set-classes. It is this disjuncture in the perceptual basis from which the two types of analysis proceed, more than anything else, that is responsible for the overall absence in the book of any real sense of a ‘transition’ across the tonal/atonal divide. Recent work by Forte (1985), while applying set-class theory to the middleground constituents ofa post-Schenkerian reduction, explicitly retains the motivic aspect of set- class recognition, so that the closest parallel to his procedure in normal Schenkerian methodology isthe identification of ‘concealed repetitions’ of motivic configurations at various structural levels, rather than the routine analysis of complete musical textures. Unless and until the various segmentational priorities available to set-class analysis are aligned fully and carefully with the perceptual bases of the motivic, harmonic and contrapuntal recognitions found ordinarily in tonal analysis, there would appear to be little prospect of further methodological advance in the analysis of so-called ‘transitional’ music. Interestingly, the domain in which this alignment has already been, Mustc aNaLysts 7:2, 1988 223made ~ by Baker, and to a greater degree by Forte ~is that of motivic recognitions, which are, with the exception of those foreground and middleground motives that happen to be ‘repetitions’ of Ursats-formulae, contextually defined referents. It is precisely Baker’s unwillingness to accept contextually defined harmonic referents as prolongable chords that both cramps his tonal analyses of Scriabin and marks his most serious point of dispute with Morgan. Baker's contextualisation of a functional harmonic theory is ultimately not an adequate substitute, because functional theory is not, properly speaking, a component of Schenker’s synthesis: to think so is to confuse the Bassbrechung with a I-V-I progression. In view of his informal identification in the Feuille d’Album of auxiliary pitches (which ‘behave like nonharmonic tones’), Baker's "unwillingness to follow his thought through into fully-fledged harmonic-contrapuntal recognitions in the Schenkerian manner is surprising, to say the least. ‘At the outset of this review it was remarked that the historicisation of theory had a notable potential for breaking down dogmas. More fundamentally, it may be observed that such an approach can help to focus two apparently conflicting views of music analysis, for, while the chronological imperative might appear to demand that analysis be considered an explanation of compositional technique, the interpretative, reconstructive basis of historiography itself demands a recognition that analysis flows from the experience of listening. The criticisms levelled here against Baker's work ‘ought pethaps to be placed in this double context. For example, his failure to give adequate consideration to contextually defined harmonic referents undermines the psychological credibility of his analyses, which might have been better served had his re- assessment of Schenkerian and other modes of analysis recognised more fully a general need to clarify the roles of style knowledge and contextual referents in the play of conception and perception that takes place in the listening mind. And while the need for such clarification is perhaps especially apparent to those who, like Baker, seek to apply Schenkerian theory outside the boundaries of the style corpus from which it was designed, it may be that scholars working with this earlier music are better placed to undertake such theoretical refinement. Certainly one cannot condone Baker's failure to respond constructively to the work of those analysts who have attempted to develop a sensitive post-Schenkerian approach to late nineteenth-century music. Baker's dismissal of the Sabaneev tradition, on the other hand, relates to the conception of analysis as being concerned with compositional technique: such work is likely to proceed best from the re-reading of contemporary treatises and other texts which might ‘be held to represent the composer's own theoretical position. While the potential ofthis line of research for the analysis of early music is obvious, it is also feasible for music of ‘more recent times: in the case of Berg, for example, it means re-reading Willi Reich, and for Scriabin there is an analogous case for addressing the Sabaneev tradition, which Baker fails adequately to do. Nevertheless, if a well-founded historical approach to ‘music analysis should in due course be found productive ~ and I believe it may ~ then Baker's work will have played a significant part in the process. Anthony Pople ERENCES Baker, James M., 1980: ‘Scriabin’s Implicit Tonality', Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 2, pp.I-18. — 1983: ichenkerian Analysis and Post-Tonal Music’, in Aspects of Schenkerian 224 Mustc ANALYSIS 7:2, 1988Theory, ed. David Beach (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp.153-86. Forte, Allen, 1978: ‘Schoenberg's Creative Evolution: The Path to Atonality’, The ‘Musical Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2, pp.133-76. —— 1985: ‘Tonality, Symbol, and Structural Levels in Berg’s Wozzeck’, The Musical Quarterly, Vol, 71, No. 4, pp.474-99. Kandinsky, Wassily and Franz Marc, 1974: The Blaue Reiter Almanac [New Documentary Edition by Klaus Lankheit}, trans. H. Falkenstein (London: ‘Thames and Hudson), Kelkel, Manfred, 1978: Alexandre Scriabine: Sa vie, Pésotérisme et le langage musical dans son oewore (Paris: Honoré Champion). Mitchell, William J., 1967: “The Tristan Prelude: Techniquesand Structure’, The Music Forum, Vol. 1, pp. 163-203. Morgan, Robert P., 1976: ‘Dissonant Prolongation: Theoretical and Compositional Precedents’, Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp.49-91. Reise, Jay, 1983: ‘Late Skriabin: Some Principles Behind the Style’, Nineteenth-Century ‘Music, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp.220-31. Travis, Roy, 1959: ‘Towards a New Concept of Tonalit Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.257-84 — 1966: ‘Directed Motion in Schoenberg and Webern’, Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.85-9. 2", Fournal of Music Theory, Heinrich Schenker: 7. S. Back’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue: Critical Edition with Commentary, trans. and ed. Hedi Siegel (New York and London: Longman, 1984). xii + 103[ + 17] pp. £32.00 Although Schenker’s theory of tonal structure remains his most important contribution to the study of music, hs influence on modern editorial and performance practices has also been highly significant. Thanks to translations such as this one by Hedi Siegel, Schenker’s wider influence will now be more generally recognised. While it seems curious that Longman should have given priority to Schenker's critical edition of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and not his more important essays on the late Beethoven sonatas and the Ninth Symphony, Siegel’s translation is nevertheless a logical and welcome successor to her rendering of ‘A Contribution to the Study of Ornamentation’: both reveal the early stages in Schenker’s theoretical development and lay the groundwork for subsequent publication in English of those mature theoretical writings which await translation. Ironically, the main weaknesses of Schenker’s edition stem from the catholic nature of his musical interests and abilities. Although he offers valuable insights on many passages in the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, he fails to go far enough in any one direction to satisfy the disparate demands of readers likely to consult the edition. He leaves unanswered important questions related to the performance of the piece, so that pianists (not harpsichordists, of whom no mention is made) must often draw their own Conclusions from sketchy and at times even ambiguous comments. For instance, of. 10 in the Fantasy he writes: ‘The harmonies change more rapidly ... than in the foregoing bars 7-95 this acceleration must be expressed in performance’ (E: 275 G: 21),* but he neglects to say how. Furthermore, at this early stage Schenker lacks the ‘long-range vision’ that his later analyses demonstrate. His attention is largely focused on isolated 11 = Englah tna Music ANALYSIS 7:2, 1988 225