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Early in his best-known theoretical work, Romantische Har- Heinrich Schenker but also apparent in the works of theorists
monik und ihre Krise in Wagners Tristan, Ernst Kurth writes, such as August Halm and Georg Capellen. 2
"Practical harmony manuals (especially since Hugo Riemann) The present paper is intended neither as a summary of
designate a chord simply as Klang, but a chord is primarily Kurth's theories of nineteenth-century music and its psycholog-
Drang." 1 In this rhyme Kurth encapsulates the central problem ical basis, nor as an exegesis of a particular theoretical issue in
of German music theory at the turn of the twentieth century: his work, nor yet as an evaluation of his historical position rela-
neither the abstract, dualistic systems of the North Germans tive to other theorists of his time. Rather, it is a survey of se-
such as Hauptmann, Oettingen, and Riemann, nor the more lected aspects of Kurth's perceptive but relatively unknown
empirical, yet still vertically-oriented fundamental bass theory contribution to the analysis of chromatic music. My survey as-
of the Viennese Simon Sechter was capable of elucidating the serts no claim to being exhaustive but will simply concentrate
Drang that so characterized much of the music written since upon those analytical principles which have proved most suc-
1850. Kurth considered it his task to bridge the abyss between cessful in my own analysis of Wagner operas, Bruckner and
theory and the music of his time and to seek musical explana- Mahler symphonies, and comparable literature, and which
tion not in absolute, acoustically based systems, but in the em- were also articulated either explicitly or implicitly by Kurth. I
pirical examination of musical compositions and the psycholog- must thus confess at the outset that I approach Kurth's exceed-
ical forces underlying their creation. Kurth thus exemplifies a ingly intricate and original works on nineteenth-century music
trend in early twentieth-century German theory toward a rec- somewhat subjectively, rather as George Santayana once sug-
ognition of the inadequacy of existing theories as explanatory gested that a philosopher should view history: not as a collec-
models, and, more specifically, toward analysis rather than tion of facts, but as a body of phenomena from which he might
compositional pedagogya trend perhaps best exemplified by "abstract . . . whatever [tends] to illustrate his own ideals, as he
'Ernst Kurth, Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners Tristan 2 Noted recently in Robert Wason, "Fundamental Bass Theory in
(Berlin: Hesse, 1919), p. 11. Nineteenth-Century Vienna" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1982), p. 233ff.
Ernst Kurth and Analysis of Chromatic Music 57
standing of individual works of art. There is thus deeply embed- the "Will," although, as Rothfarb has pointed out, he does not
ded in Romantische Harmonik a tension between his rational consider it to be an actual embodiment of the will, as did the
philosophical background and his keen empirical understand- philosopher, but only an external result of the psychic force of
ing of music. The former determines the general tenor and line the will. 8 The most primitive realization of this force in music is
of Harmony: An Annotated Translation with an Introductory Essay" (M.M. in music theory, in "Theory," Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Music, ed.
thesis, Hartt College of Music, University of Hartford, 1979), p.14. John Vinton (New York: Dutton, 1971), p. 754.
7 Romantische Harmonik, p. 2. 11 Romantische Harmonik, p. 1.
Ernst Kurth and Analysis of Chromatic Music 59
mony," he says, "is not the external nature and entire structure of what he calls "tension-processes" (Spannungsvorgange)
of physically manifested basic forms, but the inner, psychic nat- himself but attributes the idea to August Halm's Harmo-
ure, which produces sensual expression of the powerful shaping nielehre of 1900; 14 as Rothfarb has observed, Halm
force of the will in the fantasy of sound." 12 Or, in a statement developedafter a number of hints in nineteenth-century Vi-
sic. We shall then be able to return to Kurth and determine the Second, within a piece keys are not chosen by virtue of their
extent to which he, despite the psychological and metaphorical diatonicor even modally-mixed diatonicrelationship to a
nature of his theories and his terminology, did in fact develop central tonality, as in earlier tonal music. Rather, structural
similar principles and analytic methods. Because I believe that keys are chosen from the available twelve in order to work out a
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ciple is the same: the establishment of structural tonal coher- The third structural use of tonality Bailey calls "direc-
ence by means of cross-reference. tional," for it concerns the familiar late-nineteenth-century
A second means of tonal coherence involves what Bailey phenomenon of using a different tonic at the end of a piece than
calls the "expressive" use of tonality, or progressive shifts of was employed at the beginning. 21 In such works the structural
structural tonalities up or down by half-step or whole-step. 2 To process in question concerns not so much prolongation of a to-
return to our example from GOtterdiimmerung, another reason nality as the gradual turning from one key to another. Gener-
why we are seized with tragic "pity and fear," as Aristotle ally, in such works, the initial and final tonalities are "associa-
would have it, when we hear the first two chords of the opera tive" or "cross-referential" in their own right. Structural depth
(El, minor and 09 major) is that it was precisely the same pro- is achieved by cross-relating these keys at a number of levels
gression, a half-step higher (E minor to C major), that articu- at the level of large sections or scenes, or of subsections, or of
lated the joyous waking of Briinnhilde in the final act of the pre-
ceding opera, Siegfried. 21 Robert Bailey, "From Song to Symphony and Back Again: Form and
Tonal Language in Mahler's Fourth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde,"
"Ibid. Nineteenth-Century Music (forthcoming).
62 Music Theory Spectrum
brief passages, or even individual chords. Thus, to continue gression. It is also at the more "foreground" levels that linear
with our same example, the entire prologue and act 1 of considerations come strikingly to the fore. Linearthat is,
GOtterdiimmerung progresses from El, to B, and this large-scale Schenkeriananalysis of late nineteenth-century music has
progression is reflected in (or foreshadowed by) the first two long been a controversial issue, and the application of
A A B A
Tonality: Eb Eb
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giating up in thirds from the initial Abboth in the symmetri- ered in a single diatonic context. Yet, at the end, in spite of the
cal, chromatic sense and in the asymmetrical, diatonic sense. In prevailing chromaticism of the harmonic progressions, the
addition to functioning as a musical analogue to the central whole motion converges on a structural dominant, with the
spiritual issue of the drama, Parsifal's quest for the Grail, these "obligatory" S 4 3-2 scale-degree descent in the melody
The most interesting aspects of the work with respect to lin- and D of the initial arpeggiation, but also the echoes of D that
ear analysis, however, involve section 4a section which, remain through the first half of m. 97, the brief return to Ab in
while functioning as a return of sorts, is nevertheless the most m. 98, and the reinvocation of C in mm. 99 and 102. Indeed, so
complex of them all. The opening of the section (Example 3) important is the cross-referential function of chords in the pas-
presents a threefold statement of the initial theme of the sage that one could argue that the line is worked out as a way of
preludea statement in Al (at m. 80), then one in 09 (at m.
, smoothly connecting the structurally determined chords,
85), then one in D (at m. 90). Again, these arpeggiations in- rather than that the chords arise to harmonize the structurally
volve both "expressive" and "associative" factors: the expres- determined line. Both the chords and the line are determinant
sive ones should by now be obvious, while the associative ones for the structure of the passage, and to ignore either at the ex-
concern not only the Ab of the Grail, but also the B of pense of the other would do violence to the intent of the music.
Klingsor's magic castle in act 2, and the D of the structural re- With these principles and a sample analysis in mind, we may
frain, "Der reine Tor," in act 1. Despite the chromatic com- now return to Kurth in order to gain a perspective on what he
plexity of the section, a remarkably straightforward scalewise understood about such music and what he did not. Unfortu-
upper line spans across it. The line begins with the Eb of m. 82, nately, we must begin with a negative point. Implicit in our dis-
ascends to the Bil of m. 92, then descends through the remain- cussion of the analysis of late nineteenth-century music was the
der of the prelude. While the primacy of this line can hardly be concept of structural levelsnot Schenker's Schichten, to be
denied as a crucial organizing featureindeed, an immediately sure, but nevertheless some means of uncovering the large-
aurally perceptible onemost of its pitches cannot be consid- scale tonal logic of a composition and of articulating the rela-
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66 Music Theory Spectrum
Example 3 continued
tionship between the broader structure and various levels of de- mirably independenthe proceeds from the detail to the
tail. It is this very concept of levels that is lacking in Kurth. As whole, becoming less and less precise along the way, and never
we shall see, he had a rudimentary grasp of levels with respect realizing, as did Schenker, the clarifying power of using the
to certain limited aspects of late nineteenth-century practice. whole to illuminate the parts. Thus, Romantische Harmonik,
Yet, like the German Formenlehre theoristsof whose ossified which adopts Tristan as the model of his so-called Romantic
conceptions he was, by the way, thoroughly informed but ad- style and which discusses the work in some detail, never man-
Ernst Kurth and Analysis of Chromatic Music 67
Example 3 continued
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ages to articulate certain elementary and indispensable facts tan chord and its functions, through a whole catalog of surface
about that opera: that act 1 progresses from A to C, act 2 from harmonic phenomena that he regards as characteristic of the
Bb to D, and act 3 from F through A6 to B, and that the tonal style, without ever addressing the larger question of what holds
structure of the entire work grows out of these fundamental re- such an immense piece together from a purely musical point of
lationships. Instead, Kurth progresses painstakingly from an view.
exhaustive (and by no means unassailable) analysis of the Tris- Here Kurth must, paradoxically, take second place to Al-
68 Music Theory Spectrum
214___,
I ii vi ii V
fred Lorenz, who published the first volume of his Das Geheim- tive tonality" is evident from a number of passages in both Ro-
nis der Form bei Richard Wagner in 1924, five years after the mantische Harmonik and his later study, Bruckner. 25 Charac-
appearance of Romantische Harmonik. 23 Lorenz's work is teristically, his observation of such relationships is couched in
hardly of the quality of Kurth's; his analyses of Wagner's music harmonic and motivic, rather than tonal or structural, terms.
are habitually wrongegregiously wrong, to the extent that For example, he was one of a number of early twentieth-
they are hardly worthy of serious consideration. 24 Neverthe- century theorists to realize that the Tristan chord is itself moti-
less, he deserves credit for his realization that Wagner's operas vic and cross-referential; and he was the first theorist to discuss
work as whole, coherent structures, both at the large-scale level extensively the dramatic force of the chord's harmonic reinter-
and at the level of individual sections, and that it is tonality that pretation in different tonal contexts throughout the opera. 26
controls the progression of the whole as well as the logic of the Yet the Tristan chord is not tonality-defining; its very use-
detail. Though his analyses usually abandon this tonal principle fulness depends in fact on its adaptability to a wide range of har-
in favor of the most superficial and prescriptive "Leitmotif" monic contexts. Does Kurth recognize the possibility of tonali-
analysis, still this single insight, if it had been combined with ty's becoming motivic and cross-referential? I think that we
Kurth's more formidable musical instincts, could have ad- may respond with a qualified answer in the affirmative
vanced the analysis of Wagner's music fifty years. qualified because of his orientation in both thought and lan-
However, that Kurth did have a clear sense of the impor- guage to harmonic detail, and because he certainly failed to re-
tance of cross-reference in chromatic music, and that he had at alize the broader structural implications of such a discovery. In
least a dim recognition of what has here been called "associa- his discussion of how chords can be motivic, he points to two
telling examples before Tristanthe Samiel chord (the dimin-
23 Alfred Lorenz, Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner, 4 vols.
ished seventh F11 A C El , ) in Weber's Der Freischatz,
(Berlin: Hesse, 1924-33), vol. 1: Der musikalische Aufbau des Biihnenfest-
spieles Der Ring des Nibelungen.
24 See Patrick McCreless, Wagner's Siegfried: Its Drama, History, and Mu- 25 Kurth, Bruckner, 2 vols. (Berlin: Hesse, 1925).
sic (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982), pp. 88, 105-07, 189. 26 See Romantische Harmonik, pp. 46-96.
Ernst Kurth and Analysis of Chromatic Music 69
and Lohengrin's A-major triad in Wagner's opera of the same use of E as the tonality of the third and final movement of the
name. 27 It is, of course, a tribute to Kurth's knowledge of the symphony. 3 He thus reveals not only an understanding of how
literature that he chose probably the two clearest examples of a harmonic detail can be realized in a "background" structure,
the associative use of tonality in the entire first half of the nine- or vice versa, but also a grasp of the idea that many late
that composer's worksand not just of the grammar of chord One of his most suspect notions about nineteenth-century
succession but of the larger tonal dimension as well. 29 He occa- harmony is what he calls the absolute Fortschreitungliterally ,
sionally makes observations that show the use of a triad at one the "absolute succession" which allegedly involves two
time as a harmonic detail and at another as a large-scale tonal- chords that have no traditional diatonic connection, but are, to
ity. In an analytical discussion of a passage near the beginning quote another Viennese theorist of the time, "related only to
of the first movement of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, he one another." 32 Kurth defines the absolute Fortschreitung as an
commentsin a footnote, where his best analytical insights fre- intermediate classification of harmonic syntax between tradi-
quently appearthat the choice of an E-major triad within the tional, tonality-defining, diatonic progression and single chro-
firmly established diatonic context of D minor foreshadows the
matic chords, such as the Tristan chord, which are, for him, re- them in the service of an ill-conceived theory of tonal disinte-
lated only to themselves. 33 Of the three, he considers diatonic gration, whereas they actually comprise a classic example of a
progression to be illustrative of the "constructive" tendency in new kind of tonal integration that developed in the nineteenth
Romantic harmony, the other two of the "destructive" ten- century.
dency, 34 for they both incline toward the loosening of the bonds Of what we have here called "expressive" tonality Kurtn
of tonal harmony. One of his principal examples is the progres- writes in richer detail. This phenomenon he not only
sion that accompanies the words todgeweihtes Haupt in Tristan recognizesin his own terminology, of coursebut he also
(Example 4)particularly the juxtaposition of the triads of Al , traces it historically to the sequence. 36 Kurth considers the se-
major and A major. 35 Kurth is, of course, right in asserting that quence to be an important feature not only of the surface of
the two chords are not diatonically related. Yet he is so intent nineteenth-century works but also of a somewhat deeper level.
upon pointing out the "absolute," nondiatonic character of the He views the sequence as the product of the application of "ki-
progression and describing its coloristic and emotive effect that netic," or melodic, energy to harmonic and tonal relationships.
he ignores its real structural meaning: it compresses into a sin- A harmonic sequence thus evolves from the pressing of me-
gle progression elements of both A and C, the two tonalities of lodic energy upon a harmonic progression or even an entire for-
the complex that forms the tonal polarity of the first act of the mal section. 37 As we saw in the prelude to act 1 of Parsifal, se-
opera. In this sense it is not only charged with dramatic and mu- quential repetition of material in this period often involves
sical meaning, but it also constitutes a referential connection statements at chromatic and symmetrical intervals, rather than
from the level of harmonic detail to that of large-scale tonal diatonic ones. These Kurth dubs iiussertonale Sequenzen, as
structure. Rather than being "absolute" and relating only to opposed to diatonic sequences, and he deems them one of the
one another, the two chords, as well as the progression as a critical forces destructive of tonality. At the same time, how-
whole, refer to the entirety of the first act. Kurth introduces ever, he observes the use of such sequences as a constructive
formal feature, and, predating Bailey's coining of the term "ex-
33 Romantische Harmonik, pp. 262-63.
34 Ibid., p. 263. 36 Ibid, p. 333ff.
35 Ibid., pp. 266-67. 37 Ibid., p. 353ff.
Ernst Kurth and Analysis of Chromatic Music 71
pressive tonality," he notes that wholesale transposition of this to influence other aspects of structure, so that tonal areas as
sort generally serves a "poetic" function, usually that of pro- well as melodies are based on the same interval. 41 Again, de-
gressive intensification. 38 For once, however, he abjures the spite his questionable stylistic explanation of a musical phe-
temptation to use a metaphorical or emotive term to describe a nomenon, it is noteworthy that he reveals an incipient concep-
clude each of the initial three phrases are acoustically dissonant The extent to which this apparent theoretical equivalence of
but contextually consonant. 43 He was one of the first theorists the modes enlightens Kurth's analyses is open to question. Oc-
to emphasize, and certainly the first to illustrate with copious casionally he will note that a shift of mode denotes not a har-
examples, the principle that the assertion of a key by indirect monic modulation but a melodic coloring of a triad. For exam-
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74 Music Theory Spectrum
Example 5 continued
Isolde: wel- ches land?
sages the lines, rather than the chordal organization, assume Ultimately, then, even though Kurth is justly credited with
primary meaning and render the chord-succession itself sec- helping to revive an interest in musical line in early twentieth-
ondary." 49 However, he was utterly unable to conceptualize century theory, there can be little doubt that he understood
such progressions in contrapuntal terms, as Schenker was. harmony better than he understood line. Kurth's concepts of
From the beginning of his career, from Die Voraussetzungen melodic motion, kinetic energy, and leading-tone tension,
through his well-known Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts however central they may be to his psychological and stylistic
of 1917, and Romantische Harmonik and Bruckner, he under-
stood "line" only in its note-to-tone, "kinetic-energy" sense.
He discusses line in terms of psychological abstractions, never Example 6. Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, act 3
concrete voice-leading principles, and he was never able to as-
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whereas he was able, like Schenker, to demonstrate that cer- I
arguments, offer not so much a technical methodology as an el- tem, that they are supported by an unparalleled knowledge of
oquent testimony to the need for their inclusion as factors in late nineteenth-century repertoire, and even the very fact that
late nineteenth-century harmony. And if his dynamic view of they proceed from an unstated assumption that there is musical
the harmony of the perioda view that emphasizes context order and comprehensible structure in this literatureall are a