The Webern in Mozart: Systems of Chromatic Harmony and Their Twelve-Tone Content

eytan agmon

Toward the end of his 2012 book, Audacious Euphony, Richard Cohn asks, “how does music that is
heard to be organized by diatonic tonality [as in the age of Mozart] become music that is heard to
be organized in some other way [as in the age of Webern]”? In the present article, a theory different
from Cohn’s is offered as answer. The theory’s three sub-theories, harmonic hierarchy, within-key

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020

chromaticism, and “solar” key distance, lead to a distinction between four types of harmonic sys-
tems: the strictly diatonic, the first- and second-order chromatic, and the restricted twelve-tone sys-
tem. As its name implies, the latter harmonic system allows for twelve-tone levels, though under a
restriction (termed Principle of Diatonic Fusion) that holds “the Webern in Mozart” in check.

Keywords: chromatic harmony, harmonic hierarchy, within-key chromaticism, solar key distance,
Richard Cohn, Schenker, Neo-Riemannian theory.

O
n the afternoon of Wednesday, July 18, 1832,
François-Joseph Fetis delivered the final of a series
of eight public lectures collectively entitled Cours de
Philosophie musicale et d’Histoire de la Musique. “The purpose of
this final lecture was of great importance,” he reports in the
third person the following Saturday in the Revue musicale, “for
the lecturer had to demonstrate the reality of this omnitonique
order of melody and harmony, the existence of which he indi-
cated in the previous lecture.”1 Sure enough, after expanding
upon the first three ordres, the unitonique, transitonique, and
pluritonique, he approached the omnitonique, so he reports, in
the following terms:
The necessary consequence of this faculty of varying the
harmony of the same melody is to multiply the causes of
[musical] sensations; for, by the very fact that each note of a
phrase has several affinities, its resolution is less foreseen,
and the effect of this becomes more acute. . .. By following
this principle to its ultimate limits, one arrives at the state-
ment of this problem: A note being given, to find harmonic
successions such that this note can be resolved in all the keys.
The solution of this problem has the effect of multiplying
indefinitely the relations of sounds to the various keys, and
consequently to extend as much as possible the circle of
sensations of sonic affinities. This solution can be obtained
in various ways, but always according to the same principle,
which consists in weakening, by the multiplicity of tenden-
cies, the feeling of the original tonality, and even completely
annihilating it.2
The article originates in a talk by the same name delivered at Eastman
School of Music and CUNY Graduate Center in October 2017. The au-
thor wishes to thank members of the audience for stimulating questions
and comments. The author also wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers
for insightful comments and suggestions.
1 Fetis (1832, 196). “L’objet de cette dernière leçon etait d’une haute impor-
tance, car le professeur avait a demontrer la realite de cet ordre omnitonique
de melodie et d’harmonie, dont il avait indique l’existence dans la leçon
precedente. . . .”
2 Ibid., 197, emphasis in original. “La consequence necessaire de cette
After specifying three ways, one more advanced than the
other, by which one may solve the problem formulated above,
Fetis reports in the historical present of having made the fol-
lowing startling, indeed, astounding prophesy:
M. Fetis foresees the time when the ear has become so accus-
tomed to the multiplicity of these resolutions of a note, that
the result of this ordre omnitonique will be the total annihila-
tion of the scale (gamme) in certain cases, and the origin of an
acoustical division of the musical scale (echelle musicale) into
twelve equal semitones, due to the equality of tendencies.3
As Thomas Christensen notes, Fetis’s teleological vision of
tonality, seen to have “reached its culmination and maturity in
the transitonique and pluritonique art works” of the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, may seem today “far-fetched
and arrogantly Whiggish.”4 Yet the connection that he posited
faculte de varier l’harmonie d’une m^eme melodie est de multiplier les
causes de sensations; car, par cela m^eme que chaque note d’une phrase a
plusieurs affinites, sa resolution est moins prevue, et l’effet de celle-ci
devient plus vif. . . . En suivant le m^eme principe jusqu’a ses dernières lim-
ites, on arrive a l’enonce de ce problème: Une note etant donnee, trouver des
successions harmoniques telles que cette note puisse se resoudre dans tous les
tons. La solution de ce problème a pour effet de multiplier a l’infini les rap-
ports des sons aux diverses tonalites, et consequemment d’etendre autant
que possible le cercle des sensations d’affinites sonores. Cette solution
peut s’obtenir de diverses manières, mais toujours d’après le m^eme prin-
cipe qui consiste a affaiblir par la multiplicite des tendances le sentiment
de la tonalite primitive, et m^eme a l’aneantir complètement.”
3 Ibid., 198, emphasis added. “M. Fetis prevoit le moment ou l’oreille aura
acquis une telle habitude de la multiplicite de ces resolutions d’une note,
que le resultat de cet ordre omnitonique sera l’aneantissement total de la
gamme dans certains cas, et l’origine d’une division acoustique de l’echelle
musicale en douze demi-tons egaux, a cause de l’egalite des tendances.”
4 Christensen (1996, 53). Christensen notes nonetheless that Fetis’s
“conviction that music history could be plotted out as a teleological evolu-
tion of scale systems culminating in the seven-note major/minor tonal sys-
tem of the West has received surprising confirmation in our own day,”
citing such theorists as Richmond Browne and Robert Gauldin.

173
 174 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
between the advanced types of chromaticism characteristic of
nineteenth-century art-music, and the “annihilation” of the
diatonic frame of reference in favor of a twelve-tone one—a
prediction realized early in the twentieth—seems to have with-
stood the test of time. Brian Hyer, for example, while warning,
from the historiographical point of view, “decisions about what
constitute historical continuities or discontinuities are never
empirical,”5 when speaking from the practical point of view
endorses the accepted wisdom that acknowledges a connection
between late Romantic chromaticism and the advent of
atonality:
In extreme cases, the motivic chromaticism of late
Romantic music negates all reference to the tonic and veers
over the precipice into atonality. In. . . the climactic bars
[994–1002] in Act 2 of Parsifal (1881), Wagner loads har-
monies with dissonances that render them ambiguous and
referentially inoperative: while the music is littered with
tonal debris—seventh and ninth chords familiar from more
conventional tonal contexts—those harmonies fail to coa-
lesce around a tonic. Sustained bass notes immobilize the
harmonies above them and arrest forward momentum: the
music wanders between functionless harmonies that neu-
tralize rather than progress to one another, sonorities that
seem to float in the music, without a goal, without direc-
tion. Dissonant harmonies are either severed from their res-
olutions or resolve back into themselves: with his agonized
“Amfortas!,” Parsifal resolves the minor ninth F in m. 994
to a no less dissonant, no less wrenching E in m. 996. As
Adorno noted in his discussion of these measures in the
Versuch über Wagner (1938), dissonances in Romantic music
“stand for negation and suffering.” Amfortas’s open wound
thus becomes symbolic of what some listeners (Adorno
among them) have heard as the death throes of tonality.6
James Bungert offers a straightforward account of the histori-
cal process:
5 Hyer (2002, 749) continues: “Conservative ideologies, drawn to the hier-
archical organization of harmonies in tonal music, have often advanced
the concept of tonality (as Fetis did) as a means of regulating composi-
tional practice or to naturalize Western music as a form of cultural expres-
sion. Some writers have also used the notion of its demise to warn of a
cultural decline, or to argue for a return to traditional musical values. An
almost random selection of more or less recent books on twentieth-
century music, for instance, yields chapters entitled ‘Tonality as Order’
and ‘The Twilight of Tonality.’ Use of the term in accounts of modern
music often expresses a sense of profound loss and infinite nostalgia, even
among proponents of the new. Within this discursive tradition, the onset
of atonal music in the avant garde around 1910 constitutes a decisive (and
for some listeners irreparable) rupture in the history of Western music.”
6 Ibid., 744. See also Kramer (1981, 191), who questions “the point of view
that Schoenberg developed to establish the historical inevitability of his
own music,” namely, that “the force of harmonic change in the nineteenth
century was a gradual heightening of chromaticism that eventually ob-
scured tonal functions so much that tonality ‘broke down’.” However, al-
though Kramer prefers to describe the “transitional” features of
nineteenth-century harmony in terms of “horizon” versus “presentation,”
this terminology seems to refer to an interplay between an underlying
sense of key and compositional features of various types that (may) work
against it, chromaticism holding a prominent position among them.
When we think of the development of harmonic syntax
throughout the nineteenth century, some version of a typi-
cal emplotment may come to mind—a story told to us
many times, one we have probably even told in our own
teaching. The story is usually cast in terms of a single orga-
nizing force: traditional tonal harmony, the heyday of which
was back in the mid- to late eighteenth century, of course,
in the music of Haydn and Mozart. This music is princi-
pally diatonic, harmonic roots usually progress by perfect
fifth, and modulation requires careful addition (or subtrac-
tion) of sharps and flats. As the music of Beethoven guides
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
us into the nineteenth century, however, tonal harmony
begins to be strained. By and by, the works of Schubert,
Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms stretch the seams of tonal
harmony further as relationships between harmonic funda-
mentals (and their attendant diatonic collections) grow ever
more complex. . . . With Wagner, tonal harmony becomes
dangerously distended, and with Schoenberg (about 150
years after the story began), our beloved tonal system finally
gives out, shattering into a million schizophrenic pieces.
This narrative of eighteenth-century harmony is oversimpli-
fied, no doubt, but the extent to which it makes intuitive
sense illustrates the extent to which such complex phenom-
ena are conceived in terms of a single guiding principle,
even when that principle (and the story itself) strains to ac-
commodate less-convenient phenomena.7
It is no accident that Bungert’s simplified yet eminently in-
tuitive narrative opens a review of Richard Cohn’s influential
2012 study of nineteenth-century chromatic harmony,
Audacious Euphony: Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature
(henceforth, AE). As Klumpenhouwer notes, “Cohn’s book
has both a technological and historical orientation and makes
claims in which technology and history are deeply entangled.”8
Indeed, for Cohn, who quotes Fetis’s prophesy early on, there
is no “if,” concerning the existence of a process from
nineteenth-century chromaticism to twelve-tone music. The
only question is how. “In the age of Mozart” he writes,
musical pitches are primarily organized by diatonic tonality.
In the age of Webern, there exists some species of music
whose tones are organized in some other way. How does
music that is heard to be organized by diatonic tonality be-
come music that is heard to be organized in some other
way?9
For Cohn, moreover, the ability to provide a convincing an-
swer to this question is an important measure of the adequacy
of a theory of chromatic harmony. His own theory, he claims,
is not only “analytically productive, in the sense that it leads to
new ways of hearing, conceiving, and representing music com-
posed by a broad cross section of nineteenth-century
composers”; it is also “historically productive, affording a new
way to address the transformation of musical style across the
long nineteenth century.”10
7 Bungert (2012, 326).
8 Klumpenhouwer (2011, 160).
9 Cohn (2012, 205). Fetis’s prophesy is quoted on p. 9.
10 Cohn (2012, xi).
 the webern in mozart
Cohn is of course not the first modern-era theorist to ad-
dress such diachronic concerns in connection with harmonic
theory, particularly the transition from nineteenth-century
chromaticism to twelve-tone music. Forte aims to “produce a
deeper and more comprehensive view [relative to earlier writ-
ings] of the music of Liszt that is most closely related to that
of the early twentieth century.”11 McCreless studies “semitone
relationships outside the diatonic system of closely related
keys” as “a window through which we can view the evolution
of tonal practice through the nineteenth century and into the
twentieth.”12 Nonetheless, AE is without doubt the most am-
bitious historical–technological study of nineteenth-century
chromaticism to date.13
11 Forte (1987, 210).
12 McCreless (1996, 87). Proctor’s (1978) pioneering study offers a quasi-
historical distinction between “Classical Diatonic Tonality” and
“Nineteenth-Century Chromatic Tonality.” “The critical distinction be-
tween the two styles lies in the transformation of the diatonic scalar mate-
rial of the classical tonal system into the equally-tempered twelve note
chromatic complex of the chromatic tonal system. This produces new
techniques of chromaticism which eventually cloud diatonic relationships
and ultimately lead to the large-scale abandonment of the diatonic rela-
tionships in the 20th century” (131). Baker (1986) studies the music of
Scriabin, “one of the few composers to bridge the gap between conven-
tional tonality and genuine atonality” (viii).
13 Other recent studies of Western harmony that devote comparable atten-
tion to nineteenth-century chromaticism, do not necessarily share Cohn’s
historical premises. Harrison (1994) notes in the preface that “unlike most
treatments of late nineteenth-century music, this book does not concern
itself with the supposed ‘transitional’ nature of its musical language, mix-
ing and matching various tonal and atonal analytic techniques to show
how volatile a compound chromatic music is. Its purpose is rather to illu-
minate the particular structure and idioms of that language and to do so
from a standpoint that sees in its innovations no ‘threat to tonality,’ no
fifth-columnism, no dangerous distention of tonal principles” (x, emphasis
in original).
Burnett and Nitzberg’s (2007) idiosyncratic theory of “eleven-pitch-
class tonality” would seem to preclude, a priori, a possible connection be-
tween tonal or modal chromaticism and twelve-tone music. Nonetheless,
they wonder “. . . whether eleven-pitch-class systems, missing pitches, and
chromatic arrays remain in the ‘free atonal’ music of Schoenberg as the
bases for compositional development” (382). Somewhat unsurprisingly,
their answer is a qualified “yes.” “. . . If we examine the first period of
Schoenberg’s op. 11 no. 1 (mm. 1–11), we find that all notes of the chro-
matic except for E[/D] are present, indicating that Schoenberg may have
considered, consciously or otherwise, that E[ and/or D] was the missing
pitch of a prevailing ‘0’ system” (384, emphasis in original).
Finally, as its subtitle suggests, Tymoczko’s (2011) historical premise is
that “Western tonal music constitutes an extended common practice stretch-
ing from the eleventh century to the present day” (195, emphasis in origi-
nal). A notable fallout from this premise is the exclusion of so-called
“atonal” music. See Tymoczko’s comments on pp. 25–26 on the music of
Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Varèse, Babbitt, Boulez, Cage, Xenakis, and
Stockhausen.
AE is in part a response to critiques of Cohn’s earlier, “Neo-
Riemannian” work (though in AE he is careful to avoid the term, as
explained on p. xiii). In particular, by working out “a model of the rela-
tionship between classical and romantic harmony” and pursuing “its his-
torical implications,” Cohn (AE, xiii) believes to have “put . . . to rest” the
175
In this article, I shall propose a theory of chromatic harmony
that, I believe, is at least as productive historically and analyti-
cally as Cohn’s. My approach will be a practical one. I shall pre-
sent my theory, and shall immediately apply it to some of the
same passages analyzed in AE, demonstrating that a viable alter-
native, theoretically, historically, and analytically, exists.
The plan of this article, therefore, is as follows. I begin by
addressing two areas that AE leaves, at best, underexplored,
namely hierarchy and “within-key chromaticism,” that is, chro-
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
maticism in the sense of altered degrees of a major or minor
key. In particular, I address harmonic hierarchy based on my
article, “Structural Levels and Harmonic Theory,” and chro-
maticism based on my book, The Languages of Western
Tonality.14 In the latter (henceforth, LWT), I distinguish be-
tween two types of chromatic degrees relative to a given key,
“1st-order” and “2nd-order.” I then briefly review the theory of
key distance proposed in LWT, a theory that uses the twofold
partitioning of chromatic degrees just noted to extend Riepel’s
“solar” arrangement of keys.15
This leads to the core of the article. Combining the theories
of harmonic hierarchy, chromaticism, and “solar” key distance,
I first introduce what I term “first-order chromatic systems”—
harmonic hierarchies with self-imposed restrictions on modu-
lation and chromaticism that yield some valuable systemic
advantages. Lifting these restrictions results in “second-order
chromatic systems” that lose the advantages of first-order sys-
tems, yet gain in terms of opening wide the field of modula-
tory and chromatic possibilities. I illustrate second-order
systems by analyzing a passage from Schubert’s B[ major
Piano Sonata, the very same passage analyzed in AE as the
opening example. Though second-order chromatic systems,
like first-order systems, are “diatonic” in the sense that every
level of the hierarchy is referable to a key, unlike first-order
systems their “surface string”—the chord-to-chord progression
abstracted from the actual score—is set in twelve-tone space.
Finally, I introduce “restricted twelve-tone systems,” where
not only the hierarchy’s surface string is twelve-tonal, but also
some of its levels. The twelve-tone levels in such chromatic
systems, however, are subject to diatonic constraints and
hence, the “restricted” sense in which these systems are twelve-
tonal. I close the article with my own analyses of two Schubert
critiques of Fisk (2000), Lerdahl (2001), Kopp (2002), Horton (2004),
and Damschroder (2010). Cohn also believes that while his “earlier publi-
cations have offered a kaleidoscope of concepts and analytical perspectives”
(xii), AE shows “that these perspectives constitute paths through a unified
field, reflecting an integrated vision” (xiii). Penetrating reviews of AE in-
clude Klumpenhouwer (2011), Murphy (2014), and Horton (2016).
Extensions and modifications thereof include Tymoczko (2012) and Yust
(2015). Volume 2 (2007) of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies is also rele-
vant; see note 23.
14 Agmon (2006, 2013).
15 Agmon (2013, 169–70, 184–87, and 230–34). Note that I write “1st-
order” and “2nd-order” in reference to chromatic degrees; in reference to
chromatic systems, as in the next paragraph, I write “first-order” and
“second-order.”
 176 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
excerpts analyzed in AE, one near the book’s center and the
other at its very end, illustrating restricted twelve-tone chro-
matic systems.
As should be already apparent, my theory concedes to the
conclusion presented early on in AE, that twelve-tone struc-
tures play an essential role in some nineteenth-century chro-
matic music.16 This concession, however, is not absolute. As
already noted, I propose that nineteenth-century twelve-tone
structures are by no means free from diatonic constraints. I
shall express these constraints as a principle termed “diatonic
fusion.” Since hierarchy is an important component of this
principle, my next topic follows naturally.
harmonic hierarchy
The most explicit reference in AE to the idea of harmonic hier-
archy occurs in the context of dissonant sonorities. In connec-
tion with a historical approach to dissonance termed deletion,
“which interprets one level of a composition’s structure in terms
of a succession of keys that stand in one-to-one relationship
with the eponymous consonant triads,” Cohn writes:
Unlike Rameau or Riemann, it was immaterial to Schenker
whether a consonant triad carried a local status of tonic, as he
rejected the notion of local tonics altogether (Schachter
1987). What is significant is Schenker’s treatment of nonad-
jacent consonant triads as if directly adjacent, by suppressing
the dissonant harmonies between them. More significant yet
is Schenker’s translation of this strategy into a mode of repre-
sentation that resembled a musical score: his graphs represent
nonadjacent consonant triads as register-specific pitches that
participate in linear strands, or voices, whose coordinated be-
havior is available for study by analogy with the behavior of
voices in a direct succession of consonances such as one
might find in a part-song or chorale.17
“I shall say little about deletion,” Cohn adds immediately after-
ward, “which tacitly underlies many analyses already presented
16 The first section of the first chapter of AE, “Three Way to Calculate
Triadic Distance,” concludes with the statement that “in the voice-leading
metric, which most successfully captures the intuition that the triads in
Schubert’s progression inhabit a similar neighborhood, it is the chromatic
collection that explicitly comes forward as the template against which dis-
tance is assessed” (8). In this respect AE and similarly the present article,
are part of a well-established theoretical tradition. In addition to the theo-
rists already cited, notably Fetis and Gregory Proctor (see note 12),
Aldwell and Schachter’s (1989, 542–51) discussion of “equal subdivisions
of the octave” is an important contribution to this tradition.
In studying tensions between the tonal and twelve-tonal implications of
certain nineteenth-century chromatic progressions (particularly those in-
volving symmetrical divisions of the octave), Harrison (2002, 125) sug-
gests the existence of “. . . a transition zone between them—as yet
unsurveyed.” In this zone, he continues, “. . . the two approaches are rec-
onciled by acknowledgement that equal octave-divisions suggest a spatial
structure similar to that containing twelve equally tempered pitch-classes,
but one that also retains meaningful tonal distinctions among enharmoni-
cally related pitch-classes, suggesting an additional space, or second-order
space, or at least some kind of different space.”
17 Cohn (2012, 140–41).
and to which Anglophone readers are habituated by
Schenkerian practice.”
An explicit appeal to the idea of deletion, however, could
have served Cohn well in sorting out the dilemma that lies at
the center of his analysis of mm. 217–56 of the first movement
of Schubert’s Piano Sonata, D. 960.18 In following Schubert’s
“middleground” chord-to-chord harmonic logic, Cohn arrives
at the conclusion that the “B[ major” with which the passage
ends “is a surrogate for C[[ major, rooted on the doubly flatted
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
2nd degree.” This he finds impossible to accept. “No amount
of logical sophistry can dislodge us from the conviction that
the final chord of the progression represents the tonic degree,
not the doubly flatted second.”19
Let me suggest that the unshakable “conviction” to which
Cohn refers stems from a strong sense of harmonic hierarchy.
We hear, in other words, as Klumpenhouwer puts it,20 “an
identity between the first and last events in the sequence” pre-
cisely because we are somehow able, at some “level” of our per-
ception/conception of the passage, to bracket-out—to “delete,”
if you will—events in between. It is therefore not surprising
that Klumpenhouwer, in discussing Cohn’s dilemma, whether
consciously or subconsciously evokes a threefold distinction of
decidedly Schenkerian flavor:
If we are stuck with that style of analysis [i.e., conventional
Roman-numeral analysis], we are compelled either to aban-
don what we might call the principle of Big Diatony, the
principle that a grand global key governs an entire piece; or
to abandon what we might call the principle of Small
Diatony, the idea that conventional diatonic logic governs
the relationships from one harmonic state to the next. (We
might be a bit more precise in our scaling of Diatony, reserv-
ing “small” for conventional chord-to-chord relations, and
introduce the term Midsize Diatony for the principle that
governs the relationship from one key area to the next).21
As we shall see, a theory of harmonic hierarchy of certain
sophistication does not force one to choose between “Big
Diatony” and “Small Diatony” (though one might do so in a
given case). Nor does it force one to adopt the solution offered
in AE, which is “to replace laws of tonal chord progression . . .
with the laws of close-relation determined by certain voice-
leading profiles between triads” expressed in twelve-tone
terms,22 though again, the theory does not prevent one from
doing so, in a given situation. I shall now outline a theory of
harmonic hierarchy by way of an analytical example (Ex. 1).23
18 Ibid., 2–8.
19 Ibid., 3. Carl Weitzmann, Arthur von Oettingen, and the young Hugo
Riemann, noted and discussed a similar enharmonic conundrum in the fu-
neral march of Beethoven’s Op. 26. See Rehding (2011, 116–17).
20 Klumpenhouwer (2011, 163).
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., 165.
23 See Agmon (2006, 222), Ex. 2 and its discussion. The present discussion
differs from that one in several nontrivial respects, for example, the man-
ner in which one computes the “surface string” (termed “yield” in the arti-
cle), as discussed presently.
 the webern in mozart
example 1(a). Hierarchical harmonic analysis of Brahms, Rhapsody, Op. 119 no. 4, mm. 1–6
Example 1(a) is a hierarchical harmonic analysis of
Example 1(c), the opening five-and-a-half measures of
Brahms’s Rhapsody, Op. 119, No. 4. Like hierarchies in gen-
eral, a harmonic hierarchy is a tree structure, which, in the pre-
sent case, is the specific tree of Example 1(b). The tree “grows
downwards” from the node labeled “1”; this “root” or
“background” node has three “branches” or “children,” labeled
from left to right “1.1,” “1.2,” and “1.3.” Similarly, the two
children of node 1.2 are labeled “1.2.1” and “1.2.2,” and so
The Journal of Schenkerian Studies devotes its Volume 2 (2007) to “the
intersection between two analytical methodologies, Schenkerian analysis
and Neo-Riemannian analysis” (i). The contributions to this volume, es-
pecially those of Hunt (2007), Rings (2007), and Goldenberg (2007), are
broadly relevant to the present article, to the extent that broadly speaking
it is both “Schenkerian” and “Neo-Riemannian.”
177
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
forth. In looking for the corresponding nodes in Example 1(a),
note that their layout on the page is slightly different.
A harmonic hierarchy is of course more than just a tree
structure. In particular, every node—or “level”—is a string of
one or more chords, occasionally punctuated by the symbol
consisting of two vertical strokes indebted to Schenker’s
“interruption.” Moreover, every parent–child pair of levels sat-
isfy a constraint that I shall explain next.
Consider the “background” level 1. This level is a string of
four chords, punctuated by an interruption between the last
two; the representation of the first chord as a tied pair is for vi-
sual clarity only (the chord is “prolonged” at a lower level).
Note the three horizontal brackets underneath level 1. The
brackets select substrings that consist of either one chord, two
adjacent chords, or a chord and an adjacent interruption. A
“boundary-preserving” rule states that for every such selected
 178 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
example 1(b). The tree structure of Ex. 1(a)
example 1(c). Brahms, Rhapsody, Op. 119 no. 4, mm. 1–6
substring there exists a child level, the first and last events of
which are respectively identical to those of the selected sub-
string.24 Thus, the first and last events of the first, single-
element substring selected at level 1 recur as first and last at
level 1.1, which consists of three chords.25 A similar relation-
ship obtains between the second selected substring and level
1.2, and the third selected substring and level 1.3. In the latter
case, the first event of the substring is an interruption. The
boundary-preserving rule holds in this case too; however, for
reasons that shall become clear shortly, the interruption sign
assumes at the lower level the form of a right-pointing arrow,
placed to the left of the level as a whole.26
24 More accurately, the first and last events are equivalent to those of the se-
lected substring. Two chords are equivalent if they are reducible to the
same set of note classes. For example, the two chords asterisked in Ex.
1(a) are members of the equivalence class fE[, G, B[g. Since “chord class-
es” of this sort are the proper objects on which the boundary-preserving
rules operate, from the strictly hierarchical point of view—the “format” of
the harmonic hierarchy, in the terminology of Agmon (2006, 226)—the
distribution of notes in specific registers is a superfluous and, indeed, arbi-
trary aspect of the analysis. Nonetheless, as I shall shortly discuss, ques-
tions regarding the “rationale” of a given level support the more practical
approach of making such information available to the viewer via tradi-
tional staff notation. See note 30.
25 “First” and “last” in the case of a single-element string refer to the same el-
ement. Recall that the representation of the first element of level 1 as two
tied chords is for visual purposes only. Even though an interruption is not
a harmonic event in the same sense that a chord is, temporarily I shall use
the term “event” to refer to it as well.
26 In the terminology of Agmon (2006, 229), level 1.3 is a “semi-inter-
polation.” As I note (ibid.), “Schenker’s familiar ‘interruption’ scheme may
Chords interpolated between the first and last events of a se-
lected substring (of some parent level) are analogous to interme-
diate stops along a journey from A to B. Generalizing traditional
usage I shall apply the term “passing” to such chords. Thus, the
second chord at level 1.1 “passes between” the level’s first and
third chords, and similarly at level 1.2. At level 1.3 (and simi-
larly, 1.2.1) the journey begins with an interruption (represented
as an arrow). As a result, the string as a whole acquires the sense
of being “forward-relating” or “end-anchored,” a sense expressed
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
visually by the transformation of the interruption sign into a
right-pointing arrow, as already noted.27
The decision to portray a chord at some level as passing is of
course not arbitrary. Any number of considerations that are exter-
nal to the hierarchy as such may be involved. For example, levels
1.1 and 1.2.2 are functional progressions T–D–T such that the
“passing” status of the second chord is appropriately coordinated
with its dominant function. The forward-relating levels 1.3 and
1.2.1 are plagal progression S–T or S–S–T. Since the subdomi-
nant chords are secondary to the overall journey toward the tonic
goal, here too, function and hierarchy are well coordinated.28
Functionality is not the only consideration—or
“rationale”—by which the analyst’s decision, to portray a chord
at some level as passing, may be justified. Level 1.2, for exam-
ple, and similarly level 1.2.1.1, are supported by a “contextual”
rationale, namely voice leading (VL) (Schenker would have
probably described the G in the top voice of both levels as a
“consonant passing tone”).29 Functional and voice-leading
rationales are often mutually supportive. In level 1.1, for exam-
ple, the second chord’s “passing” status receives both functional
and voice-leading support, the latter in the form of neighbor-
ing motions (thus, the “passing” status of a chord need not en-
tail literal passing motion). The set of possible contextual
rationales (and their combinations) is as open-ended as is the
composer’s creative imagination. In addition to VL, they may
involve rhythm, texture, dynamics, timbre, and so forth. In
Example 1(a) and subsequent harmonic hierarchies, I display
the strongest rationales supporting a given level next to its nu-
merical label, following the letter representation of the level’s
key. For example, the rationale of level 1.2.1.1 is contextual,
be seen as a special type of semi-interpolation.” I retain this appropriation
of Schenker’s symbol and terminology despite the partial overlap between
the historical “interruption” and semi-interpolation.
27 If an interruption is selected together with a preceding chord, a “backward-
relating” child-level results. See Ex. 5 ahead, level 1.1.
28 The background level 1 is a functional progression T–S–D–T in E[ ma-
jor. One could have derived this level from a prior level consisting of a
prolonged E[-major triad; in that case, the S and D events would have ac-
quired passing status.
29 Interpreting the prolonged tonic of m. 3 as passing allows for the T–S–
D–T background. Note also the parallelism between levels 1.2 and
1.2.1.1, in which the recurrent A[–G–F topline succession imprints the
subordinate status of the passing tonic triad of m. 2 to the prolonged tonic
triad of m. 3. For a different interpretation, in which m. 2 is part of a pla-
gal tonic prolongation spanning mm. 1–3, see Samarotto (2007, 86 [Ex.
9]).
 the webern in mozart
namely VL. In general, I consider functional rationales stron-
ger than contextual ones; hence, if only a contextual rationale is
displayed (e.g., VL), this usually means that a functional one is
nonexistent or at least questionable.30
The layout of Example 1(a) on the page, and particularly
the vertical alignment of identical (more accurately, equivalent)
events duplicated from level to level by boundary preservation,
render clear the relationship between the hierarchy and the
surface succession of events it analyzes. An explicit discussion
of this relationship should nonetheless be useful.31
Consider the three staves placed underneath the hierarchy,
labeled A, B, and C. Given the well-known equivalence be-
tween “balanced parentheses” and “rooted trees,” it is not diffi-
cult to see that the “bracketed string” A and the hierarchy
displayed above it are formally equivalent.32 The “preliminary
surface string” B derives easily from the bracketed string A by
deleting all (vertical) brackets and fusing together all immedi-
ate repetitions. These repetitions, marked with horizontal
brackets in A, are all events duplicated from level to level by
boundary preservation. Therefore, henceforth I shall use the
term “duplication-reversal” to refer to fusion of this type.
We now turn to the derivation of the “surface string” C
from its preliminary counterpart B. Here it is important to
qualify the sense in which interruptions are “events” on equal
par with chords. On the one hand, interruptions indeed re-
semble chords formally in terms of obeying the same
boundary-preserving rules.33 Moreover, on occasion, a correla-
tion between an interruption and a quasi-event in the score
such as a rest or a caesura may exist. Yet in general, interrup-
tions do not represent actual musical events. Their purpose is
different; namely, to generate in an orderly manner forward-
as well as backward-relating levels. From this perspective, their
30 A good reason for displaying the contents of levels in terms of chords
rather than “chord classes” (despite the caveat of note 24 above, concern-
ing the non-relevance of register to the boundary-preserving rules), is to
render their voice-leading rationales readily apparent to the viewer. The
so-called “inversion” of chords—another register-dependent attribute of
harmonic content—is often, similarly, a cue to their hierarchical status.
See Agmon (2006, 230–32) for discussion. See also level 13.2 of Ex. 5 be-
low, interpreting a second-inversion tonic triad (a “cadential six-four
chord”) as “passing” toward the dominant goal.
31 In the discussion that follows, I focus on the derivation of the “surface
string” from the hierarchy on the assumption that the former’s derivation
from the actual score is rather straightforward, corresponding roughly to a
harmonic reduction. The two derivations (the “bottom-up” score-driven
derivation and the “top-down” hierarchy-driven one) must yield, of
course, the same string. The hierarchy itself, as a rooted tree, is a top-
down structure. This finding does not necessarily reflect the analytical
process, for example, the manner in which I (presumably) arrived at Ex.
1(a) as a plausible harmonic analysis of the Brahms excerpt. For further
discussion, see Agmon (1990, 293 ff.).
32 Cf. Kozen (1997, 135): “A string of parentheses is balanced if each left pa-
renthesis has a matching right parenthesis and the matched pairs are well
nested.” A rooted tree is a graph like Ex. 1(b).
33 Unlike a chord, however, one cannot select for elaboration an interruption
all by itself; one can only select a pair consisting of an interruption and an
adjacent chord.
179
role is purely interpretative. Like scaffoldings, which are indis-
pensable in erecting a structure yet are of no use once they
have done their job, we shall delete interruptions from the sur-
face string.
This deletion, however, has an important consequence.
Consider the “chord-interruption-chord” sequence marked on
staff B with a horizontal bracket and an exclamation point, a
sequence that has its origin in the relationship between levels
1.2 and 1.2.1. Since the two chords in the sequence are identi-
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
cal, once one deletes the interruption between them, since they
become directly adjacent, they fuse into a single event on the
surface string C.
I admit that this “interruption-deletion” type of fusion is ir-
regular relative to the duplication-reversal type, which, as its
name implies, simply reverses an earlier process. Interruption-
deletion fusions, however, enrich the descriptive power of
harmonic hierarchies, for they make it possible for a chord to
resurface as passing at a level lower than where it made its first
appearance. In the present case, the A[ chord of m. 2, intro-
duced at level 1 (and reintroduced as a boundary event at level
1.2), resurfaces as a non-boundary, passing event at level
1.2.1.34
The diagonal dotted line in Example 1(a) between levels
1.2 and 1.2.1 indicates that the two connected chords fuse by
interruption-deletion. As we shall see in subsequent examples,
unlike fusions by duplication-reversal that invariably involve
two levels in a parent–child relationship, fusions by
interruption-deletion may involve levels that are any number
of “generations” apart.
The Brahms analysis is an example of a strictly diatonic
harmonic hierarchy. Not only is every level of the hierarchy, as
well as the surface string, in the same key of E[ major, but all
chords are strictly diatonic relative to this key. Before turning
to harmonic hierarchies that allow for a calculated measure of
modulation and chromaticism to enter into play, it is necessary
to address another underexplored area in AE, namely chromat-
icism in the sense of altered degrees of a major or minor key.
within-key chromaticism and its implications
for key distance
A non-twelve-tone sense of chromaticism, other than one that
involves a change of key, is all but absent in AE. Notably
absent is the sense in which chromatic notes are altered
degrees of a given major or minor key—what one might term
34 Letting the A[ chord (IV) be passing, though it allows level 1.2.1 to be ra-
tionalized more readily as functional (since S and D naturally assume a
“passing” role relative to T), is as much a matter of demonstrating the
interruption-deletion type of fusion as it is an analytic necessity in this
case. Compare with Ex. 2 from Agmon (2006, 222). In subsequent exam-
ples, I shall revisit the idea of interruption-deletion fusion to greater ana-
lytical effect.
 180 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
example 2(a). Diatonic and chromatic notes relative to C major
“within-key chromaticism”—a sense that, arguably, is concep-
tually prior to chromaticism that results from modulation.35
According to LWT, the set of all notes that are associated
with a given key—a set consisting of exactly seventeen ele-
ments termed “cluster”—forms three orbits around the tonic
triad or “nucleus.” Example 2 depicts this “solar” arrangement
of notes for C major and C minor.36 The orbit closest to the
35 The absence is plainly evident in Cohn’s discussion (2012, 180–82) of the
opening measures of Liszt’s Consolation No. 3. Cohn finds it difficult to
relate the G\ (]^4) of m. 4 to the D[-major Tonnetz. His solution, he
admits—placing the G within a star and connecting it by a dotted line to
the triad that it supplements—“is an ad hoc solution that functions well
here but will create clutter in many other cases.” See Cohn (2012, 180 and
Fig. 8.7[b] on p. 181). A few pages later, under “Vertical Extensions”
(184), Cohn refers to Schenker’s idea of modal mixture as a “lovely alle-
gory of civic reciprocity in the late-Platonic republic,” but dismisses it as
“presumptuous, logically unparsimonious, and ahistorical.” Instead, he
finds Marchettus’s idea that “a semitone may substitute for a whole tone”
more appealing (185). Nonetheless, in an attempt to account for ]^7 in mi-
nor (185–86), modal mixture surreptitiously creeps in. “The G] []^7 in A
minor] enters into a howlingly dissonant relation with all of the natural-
scale tones with which it is not directly connected on the Tonnetz. It is in
the rectification of this anomaly that acoustic factors once again assert
their powers. C and F are replaced by C] and F], directly above them on
the Tonnetz. These substitutions raise the acoustic value of the G]’s
neighborhood through westward extension of a line of fifths and create
the conditions for their own encapsulation in an A major region” (emphasis
added).
36 Cf. Agmon (2013, Fig. 12.1). In Ex. 2 and similarly Ex. 3 that I shall pre-
sent shortly, the arrangement of objects (respectively, notes and keys)
within a given orbit is, formally speaking, arbitrary. I have tried, of course,
to apply some diatonic and/or chromatic logic to this arrangement (e.g.,
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
nucleus contains the remaining four elements of the “core,”
that is, the remaining diatonic notes. Chromatic notes form
two orbits around the core, a closer orbit consisting of “1st-
order” chromatic notes and one farther away consisting of
“2nd-order” chromatic notes. The distinction between the two
types of chromatic notes seems to be an innovation of LWT. 37
Nonetheless, as William Rothstein notes, at one point in one
of his early publications Schenker conceives of “mixture” in a
way that generates exactly the set of 1st-order chromatic notes:
Schenker hypothetically includes all the modes on a single
tonic under the rubric of mixture, so that F] (from C
Lydian) is included within the direct orbit of a C tonic [in
chromatic logic in the case of the ten keys occupying the second orbit of
Ex. 3[a]). However, any pattern that may result from such efforts (e.g.,
the apparent radial alignment of F, f, and f] in Ex. 3[a]), is meaningless,
and should be ignored.
37 The set of chromatic notes (whether 1st- or 2nd-order) relative to a given
core (the set of seven diatonic notes) is the set of all non-core elements for
which there exists a core-element (a diatonic note) such that the interval
from the core- to the non-core element is “primary.” (The set of primary
intervals is the set of all “perfect,” “major,” and “minor” intervals. It con-
sists of exactly eleven elements P1, m2, M2, . . ., P4, P5, m6, . . ., M7.)
The 1st-order chromatic notes are the subset of the 10 chromatic notes
that satisfies the above “primary-interval” property in relation to the root
and fifth of the tonic triad (the “nucleus”). For further details, see Agmon
(2013, especially Chapters 5, 9–12). I emphasize that the cluster (the set
of all notes that are associated with a given key) consists of a finite number
of elements, namely seventeen (seven diatonic and ten chromatic). In par-
ticular, the cluster does not contain notes that are enharmonically equiva-
lent to elements of the diatonic core (e.g., F[ in C major).
 the webern in mozart
example 2(b). Diatonic and chromatic notes relative to C minor
addition to B[, E[, A[, and D[, assuming a major tonic].
He quickly banishes the church modes, however, retaining
only the “Phrygian” second degree.38
Note that the set of all diatonic and first-order chromatic notes
is the same twelve-element set, regardless of mode. In C ma-
jor/minor, for example, the set is C, D[, D, E[, E, F, F], G,
A[, A, B[, and B.39
Somewhat similarly, again according to LWT,40 all the keys
related to a given home key (i.e., all the keys the tonic triad of
which is a subset of the home key’s cluster)—a set of exactly
twenty-six elements—form three orbits around the home key,
as depicted in Example 3.41 The solar arrangement of keys
obeys a logic similar to that of notes. The first orbit around
the home key consists of all the keys other than the home key
itself, the tonic triad of which is diatonic relative to the home
38 Rothstein (2003, 221n3). The reference is to Schenker (1906, Sections
39–40). Apparently unaware of early Schenker’s brief flirtation with the
idea that ]^4 represents Lydian mixture, Cohn (2012, 195–96n1) writes as
follows: “Here we encounter a peculiarity in the theory of modal mixture.
Phrygian occupies the extreme end of modal space, involving four flatwise
substitutions on major. The other extreme, lydian, requires four sharpwise
substitutions on minor. The current textbook sanctioning of phrygian but
not lydian mixture rests on Schenker’s whims and tastes a century ago
rather than that of systematic consistency and completeness.” Note that
so-called “Locrian,” lacking a consonant tonic chord, is not, strictly speak-
ing, a “mode.”
39 The major and minor sets differ, of course, in terms of their partitioning
into diatonic and chromatic elements.
40 Chapter 13, “A Neo-Riepelian Key-Distance Theory,” especially
Section 3.
41 Agmon (2013, Fig. 13.8).
181
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
key. The two outer orbits consist of keys the tonic triad of
which contains chromatic elements relative to the home key.
Depending on whether, among these elements, 2nd-order
ones are present or absent (as in, e.g., the triads F] minor ver-
sus D[ major, both relative to C major as the home key), the
key’s orbit lies farther away from the center or closer to it, re-
spectively.42 Finally, two keys (e.g., C major and D[ minor)
are mutually unrelated if the tonic triad of one key is not a sub-
set of the other key’s cluster.43
As noted in LWT, the theory just outlined does not consti-
tute a metric on the (indefinitely large) set of all keys.44 In
fact, a distance ranging from 0 to 3 exists only from the home
key to another key related to it (in the sense just discussed),
depending on the latter’s orbit (the distance from the home
key to itself is zero). The distance is one-directional because
42 A situation similar to what we saw with the set of diatonic and 1st-order
chromatic notes, namely, that it consists of the same twelve elements re-
gardless of mode, exists with the set of all diatonic and 1st-order chro-
matic keys (i.e., a home key together with the first two orbits of keys
around it). The latter set consists of the same sixteen elements, regardless
of mode. In C major/minor, for example, the sixteen keys are C, c, D[, D,
d, E[, e, F, f, G, g, A[, a, B[, b[, and b. See Ex. 3.
43 Key-relatedness and non-relatedness are symmetric relations. If k and k’
are two keys such that k is (un)related to k’, then k’ is (un)related to k. A
key k is (un)related to another key k’ if the tonic triad of k is (not) a subset
of the cluster of k’.
44 A set S together with a function d (“distance”) from S  S into the non-
negative real numbers is a metric space if d satisfies the following

three con-
ditions A, B, and C,
for every x, y, and z in S. A. d x; y ¼ 0 if,
and only
if, x ¼ y; B. d x; y ¼ dðy; xÞ (symmetry); C. dðx; zÞ  d x; y þ dðy; zÞ
(triangle inequality).
182 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
example 3(a). “ Solar” arrangement of keys relative to C major
example 3(b). “ Solar” arrangement of keys relative to C minor
symmetry is not generally satisfied. For example, from C major
to D[ major the distance is 2, because the notes D[ and A[ are
both 1st-order chromatic relative to C major. However, be-
cause E\ is second-order chromatic in D[ major, the distance in
the opposite direction is 3.45 I shall refer henceforth to the dis-
tance just described from a home key to a key related to it, as
solar.
As we shall see next, the theories of chromaticism and key
distance just reviewed, in conjunction with harmonic hierar-
chy, yield a result that is interesting from both systemic and
historical points of view.
first-order chromatic systems
Suppose that, without venturing too far afield, one seeks to ex-
plore keys as well as notes relative to these keys, in the first
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
case in addition to the home key, and in the second—to the
diatonic core. That is, suppose that one restricts modulation to
the five keys most closely related to the home key, that is, to
the five keys of solar distance 1 from the home key; simulta-
neously, one restricts chromaticism, within any of the six keys
(the home key included), to the 1st-order variety. In the fol-
lowing definition, harmonic hierarchies that obey these two
constraints are termed “first-order chromatic systems.”
Definition 1. Let k be a home key and let K be the set of
exactly six keys, the solar distance of which from k is no
larger than 1. Let Hk be a harmonic hierarchy. We shall re-
fer to Hk as a First-Order Chromatic System (relative to k) if
the following two conditions A and B are satisfied.
A. The key k’ of every level in the hierarchy Hk is a mem-
ber of K.
B. At every level l of Hk, every non-diatonic note is 1st-or-
der chromatic relative to the key kl of l.
First-order chromatic systems have two interesting properties.
First, together with the solar distance (review Ex. 3 and its dis-
cussion), every set of six keys consisting of a home key and its
five diatonic associates forms a metric space, as may be seen in
Example 4.46 In particular, the distance between every two keys k
and k’ is the same regardless of direction. For example, if C major
is the home key (as in Ex. 4), then from F major (for example) to
either C major, D minor, or A minor, the distance is 1, since C
major, D minor, and A minor are all diatonic degrees in F major.
Using the same criterion, the distance in the opposite direction is
also 1 (F major is a diatonic degree in C major, D minor, and A
minor). On the other hand, from F major to either G major or E
minor the distance is 2, because B\ is 1st-order chromatic in F
major; since F\ is 1st-order chromatic in both G major and E
minor, the distance in the opposite direction is also 2. The exis-
tence of a metric on every set of six keys consisting of a home key
and its five diatonic associates means that our usual intuitions
concerning distance will apply to every possible journey among
the six keys.
Another interesting property of first-order chromatic sys-
tems is that the set of twelve diatonic and 1st-order chromatic
notes relative to each of the five keys diatonically associated
45 In Ex. 3, keys that do not satisfy the symmetry condition in relation to the
home key (e.g., D[ major in relation to C major), are set in bold type.
46 Cf. Agmon (2013, Fig. 13.10). See note 44 for the algebraic definition of
a metric space.
 the webern in mozart
example 4. The metric space of C major and its five diatonic associates
with a home key is a subset of the set of seventeen notes, dia-
tonic and chromatic of either order, relative to the home key it-
self. For example, if C major is the home key, a diatonic or
1st-order chromatic note in D, E, or A minor, F or G major
(and of course, C major), is a member of the set of seventeen
notes depicted in Example 2(a). Harmonically stated, first-
order chromatic systems have the property that a chord, dia-
tonic or 1st-order chromatic in every key diatonically associ-
ated with a home key, is a chord, though possibly 2nd-order
chromatic, in the home key. (If C major is the home key, then
a triad in a diatonically associated key is one of the twenty-six
triads of Ex. 3(a).)
The following theorem states that, for every given home
key, that key together with its five diatonic associates consti-
tute the strictly largest set of keys such that the two properties
just noted are both satisfied. The theorem thus offers an im-
portant, positive alternative to the idea of “not venturing too
far afield” by which first-order chromatic systems were intro-
duced at the outset of this section.
Theorem 1. Let k be a home key, and let K be a set of
keys related to k, k is a member of K. If K is the union of
k with the set of five keys of solar distance 1 from k, then
K is the strictly largest set of keys satisfying the following
two conditions A and B.
A. Together with the solar distance, K is a metric space.
B. Relative to every key k’ in K, the set of twelve diatonic
and 1st-order chromatic notes is a subset of the set of
seventeen notes, diatonic and chromatic of either order,
relative to k.47
47 Take C major as the home key, and represent all of its notes (whether dia-
tonic or chromatic of either order) as the connected segment of the “line
of fifths” from 6 fifths (G[) to 10 fifths (A]), a set of exactly seventeen
elements. I will show first that the set of twelve diatonic and 1st-order
chromatic notes relative to each of the five keys most closely related to C
major, namely F and G major, D, E and A minor, is a subset of the set
G[, D[, . . ., A], noted above. The diatonic and 1st-order chromatic notes
are the same for parallel major and minor keys. Relative to the tonic these
notes run from 5 fifths (D[ in C major or minor) to 6 fifths (F]). Since
we can arrange the tonic notes of all six keys (C major included) as the
183
At least as far as complete movements are concerned (as
opposed to sections thereof), first-order chromatic systems
seem to model most typically music of the Baroque period.
The exquisite A-minor Adagio from Bach’s Organ Toccata in
C major, BWV 564, provides an example (Ex. 5).48
Overall, the analysis is self-explanatory, and therefore in the
comments that follow I concentrate on its status as a first-
order chromatic system, as distinct from a strictly diatonic one
(cf. Ex. 1(a)).49 Let me start, nonetheless, by noting a number
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
of notational conventions. First, unless modified by an acci-
dental, all notes in a given level of the hierarchy are diatonic
relative to the level’s key signature; in other words, a note is
chromatic if, and only if, an accidental immediately precedes it
on the staff.50 Second, a shorthand, “exponential” notation is
occasionally used in labeling levels, for example, 12¼1.1,
13¼1.1.1, etc.51 Finally, broken diagonal lines indicate “fusion
by interruption-deletion.” For example, the tonic of the A-mi-
nor level 1.1 fuses by interruption-deletion with the subdomi-
nant of the E-minor level 15.52
connected segment of the line of fifths from 1 fifth (F) to 4 fifths (E),
we arrive easily at the desired conclusion. Moreover, it is easy to see that a
key other than the six closely related keys—excluding their respective par-
allel keys—will contain a diatonic or 1st-order chromatic note that falls
outside the line-of-fifths segment G[, D[, . . ., A]. Thus, C, F and G ma-
jor, D, E and A minor, are the strictly largest set of keys that satisfy condi-
tion B of the theorem, barring the possibility of adding parallel keys to the set
or exchanging a key with its parallel, for example, adding D major or ex-
changing D minor and F major with D major and F minor, respectively.
However, condition A of the theorem precludes a parallel-key addition or
exchange, since any such manipulation results in a violation of the symme-
try condition of a metric space. For example, D major and F major are not
symmetrically related (cf. C major and A major), and similarly, F minor
on the one hand, and D, A, or E minor, on the other. This constitutes an
informal proof of the theorem.
48 The Adagio constitutes mm. 1–22 of the second movement of the
Toccata (the remainder of the movement is an improvisatory transition to
the fugal finale). Measures 20–21 of the Adagio repeat mm. 18–19, and
are not addressed in the analysis.
49 The analysis obviously contains a great deal of information that is not di-
rectly relevant to its present, limited role as a representative of first-order
chromatic systems. Even if some aspects of the analysis may seem open to
debate (e.g., the choice of “background,” level 1), it should hopefully be
apparent that the analytical system it represents is not only capable of ac-
commodating alternative readings, but also promotes an informed discus-
sion of their relative merits or shortcomings. See also note 29.
50 Nonetheless, on occasion I provide a cautionary accidental in parentheses,
as in level 1.2.12 of Ex. 5.
51 Since level 1 of Ex. 5 has four children, the second, third, and fourth of
which are 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4, respectively, for the sake of consistency I use
the label 1.1, rather than the equivalent 12, for the first. See also the two
children of level 13, and the four children of level 1.2.12.
52 Level 15 is part of a “forward-relating cascade” consisting of levels 13,
13.1, and 15. A forward-relating cascade is a connected series of forward-
relating levels that share the same interruption—introduced in this case at
level 1.1 and transformed at lower levels into right-pointing arrows—as
their left boundary. Scanning the levels from low to high (here, starting
with level 15), captures the real-time sense in which one progression “leads
into” its successor. The cascade’s final goal is the backward-relating
184 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
example 5. Hierarchical harmonic analysis of Bach, Adagio from Toccata in C major for organ, BWV 564
The analysis exemplifies a first-order chromatic system be-
cause every level is in the home key of A minor or else in a dia-
tonically related key, specifically E minor (level 13 and all of its
descendants), D minor (level 1.2 and its descendants, exclud-
ing the first three children of 1.2.12), F major (level 1.2.12.3),
and C major (1.2.12.1 and 1.3.12). Moreover, chromaticism at
every level is restricted to the 1st-order variety (relative to the
level’s key). For example, the E-minor level 13 contains the
1st-order chromatic degrees [^2, ]^7, and ]^3.
Exemplifying property B of Theorem 1, the surface string
consists of triads and seventh chords all referable to the chro-
matically extended home key A minor. Unlike the partially ex-
tended keys of the hierarchy’s levels (e.g., the E minor of level
13), the key of the surface string is fully extended in the sense
that it contains, in addition to 1st-order chromatic degrees
(e.g., [^
2, m. 12), 2nd-order ones (e.g., ]^1, m. 8), as well. Here
and elsewhere, I use black noteheads to distinguish 2nd- from
1st-order chromatic notes.
Two aspects of this finding are noteworthy. First, in a first-
order chromatic system, both the “background” progression
(level 1 of Ex. 5) and the “surface,” chord-to-chord progression
(the surface string), are “in” the home key (i.e., every chord of
the surface string is a subset of the home key’s cluster). This
dominant of level 1.1. There are five additional forward-relating cascades
in the analysis, starting at levels 13.2.1, 1.2.12, 1.2.14, 1.3.12, and 1.4.1.
All five cascades involve fusion by interruption-deletion, indicated by bro-
ken diagonal lines.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
background as well as extreme foreground sense, in which a
first-order chromatic piece is referable to the home key, may
partially account for Schenker’s “illusory keys of the fore-
ground” (Scheintonarten des Vordergrundes), a stock phrase he
uses in place of “modulation” even though it seems to refer to
essentially the same phenomenon.53
A more technical point concerns the formal integrity of the
boundary-preserving rule that constrains the relation between
a parent level and its children. For here is the catch. An
E-major triad (say) in A minor is not, strictly speaking, the
same object as an E-major triad in E minor. How, then, is it
possible to say, for example, that the E-major triad asterisked
at level 1.1 of Example 5, is “preserved” as the right boundary
of level 13? The answer is that one evaluates the identity (or
rather, equivalence) of two chords in the hierarchy in terms of
their images on the surface string. Thus, in our example, al-
though the two E-major triads are in different keys (A minor
and E minor), their surface image is an E-major triad in the
home key, namely A minor (chromatically extended). The idea,
that the surface string “evens-out” differences in terms of key
among chords at different levels of the hierarchy, will have
dramatic consequences as we progress to our next type of
chromatic system.
53 See Schachter (1987, esp. 305–308). For the term “illusory keys of the
foreground” (Scheintonarten des Vordergrundes), see Schenker (1979,
passim).
 the webern in mozart
example 6. The strictly diatonic, first- and second-order chromatic systems
second-order chromatic systems
We begin right away with a definition.
Definition 2. Second-Order Chromatic Systems are harmonic
hierarchies where the keys of any two parent–child levels
are related. That is, the tonic chord of one key is a subset
of the other key’s cluster.
Unlike first-order chromatic systems, in second-order sys-
tems modulation is not restricted to a home key and its five dia-
tonic associates; nor is chromaticism, at any given level,
restricted to the 1st-order variety. Second-order systems rather
satisfy a minimal modulatory constraint of key-relatedness, and
even this constraint applies only to pairs of parent–child levels.
According to this constraint, given two levels in a parent–child
relationship, the tonic of one level consists of notes, whether
diatonic or chromatic of either order, that are members of the
other level’s cluster (cf. Ex. 3). Otherwise, a relationship be-
tween the keys of two levels in the hierarchy need not exist.
Example 6 summarizes the three hierarchical harmonic sys-
tems discussed thus far, the strictly diatonic, the first-order
chromatic, and the second-order chromatic system. As may be
seen, one is included within the other: a strictly diatonic sys-
tem is a first-order chromatic system, and a first-order chro-
matic system is a second-order system.
The thicker boundary between the first- and second-order
chromatic systems, however, signifies that there exists a substan-
tial difference between them, more so than between the strictly
diatonic system and the first-order chromatic. Here is why.
Although different levels of a first-order system may be in
different keys, every member of its surface string, we have seen,
“belongs” to the home key in the sense of being a subset of its
cluster—the maximal set of seventeen diatonic and chromatic
185
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
notes associated with the key (Ex. 2). With second-order chro-
matic systems, this condition no longer holds. For example, a
second-order C-major hierarchy may include a triad such as D[
minor that, since F[ is not a member of the C-major cluster, is
external to the key. This finding has far-reaching implications.
In the absence of an all-encompassing referential key, what al-
ternative exists for conceptualizing the surface string as an en-
tity? It seems that the only reasonable answer, if only from the
purely acoustical point of view, is the twelve-tone one foreseen
by Fetis in connection with the “omnitonic annihilation” of the
diatonic scale. The surface strings of second-order chromatic
systems, in other words, are strings of “pitch-class” sets in
twelve-tone space, the twelve-tone images of the chords (or
rather, chord classes) at each diatonic level.54
Example 7, a hierarchical harmonic analysis of mm. 216–55
from the recapitulation of the first movement of Schubert’s B[
major Sonata, D. 960, illustrates a second-order chromatic sys-
tem. The reader may wish to compare Example 7 with the
analysis of the same Schubert passage in AE.55
Since the music modulates outside the “safety zone” of the
home key and its five diatonic associates, not all chords that
appear in the hierarchy are referable to B[ major. In particular,
because the note A] is not a member of the B[-major cluster,
the F]-major triad of level 12.2.1.1 is such a chord. As a result,
54 The acoustical substrate of tonal music is twelve-tone categorical equal
temperament, that is, approximate equal temperament in the sense that
notes and intervals map onto pitches and pitch-intervals, respectively,
which latter do not deviate significantly from exact equal temperament in
either direction, and certainly not by 50 cents or more. See Agmon (2013,
79–81). This finding may suggest, even strongly so, the twelve-tone con-
cept. Yet it falls short, as far as I can see, from implying the concept in
any strictly logical sense.
55 Cohn (2012, 2–8).
 186 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
example 7. Hierarchical harmonic analysis of Schubert, Piano Sonata in B[ major, D. 960, first movement, mm. 216–55
one cannot conceive the surface string as a sequence of chords,
possibly chromatic, all referable to the (chromatically ex-
tended) home key. This leads to a conclusion similar to that
which Cohn draws from the Schubert example, namely, that
“in Schubert’s progression. . ., it is the chromatic collection
that explicitly comes forward as the template against which
distance is assessed.”56 However, unlike Cohn, the similar
conclusion that I draw applies only to the surface string of the
Schubert passage. Conveniently but inappropriately, traditional
staff notation is used to represent the surface string.57 Black
noteheads with a mandatory accidental, flat, sharp, or natural,
serve as a graphic reminder that the diatonic implications of
staff notation do not apply.
Scanning the rationales of the hierarchy’s levels starting
with level 12, one sees that only one level, namely the D-major
level 12.2, constitutes an authentic functional progression. All
other levels, if functional, are plagal. In particular, the I–[VI–I
progression of level 12 is functionally a T–S–T progression;
56 Ibid., 8.
57 The use of staff notation for the surface string (as opposed, say, to integer
notation) certainly makes it easier to assess its veracity, vis-a-vis the score.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
alternatively, the level contextually reflects the movement’s
motivic upper-neighbor figure F–G[–F.58
The three levels 12.2, 12.2.1, and 12.2.1.1, form a “forward-
relating cascade.”59 The D-major level 12.2 forward-relates to
a deceptive flat submediant, a chord that duplicates the tonic
of level 12 (the global tonic B[).60 The A-major level 12.2.1, in
turn, forward-relates to a tonic chord that duplicates the domi-
nant of level 12.2. Finally, the F]-minor level 12.2.1.1 forward-
relates to a tonic that duplicates the submediant of level 12.2.1.
The F]-minor level is possibly the most debatable in the hier-
archy, for the chord that “resolves” to the F]-minor tonic is F]
major.61
58 Interestingly, a prominent I–VI–I progression, in D minor, appears near
the end of the development. See mm. 185–99.
59 See note 52.
60 More precisely, the surface image of the flat submediant of level 12.2 (as a
pitch-class set) “duplicates” that of the tonic of level 12. Recall the
“technical point” discussed in the previous section in connection with the
surface string.
61 Nonetheless, level 12.2.1.1 captures the real-time sense in which F] minor
usurps the role of F] major (¼G[ major, see level 12.1), as tonic.
 the webern in mozart
example 8. Hierarchical harmonic analysis of Parsifal, “ Shining Grail” (Act 3, mm. 1098–1100)
Note that level 12.2.1.1 is superfluous as far as the surface
string is concerned, since it fails to generate a pitch-class set
not already generated at other levels. Nonetheless, it alone
expresses the intuition rightfully stressed by Cohn, that the G[
major of mm. 235–38 and the F] minor that immediately fol-
lows are the major/minor variants of the same triad. As
Example 7 shows, the F]-major chord of level 12.2.1.1 fuses at
the surface by interruption-deletion with the G[-major chord
of level 12.
restricted twelve-tone systems
Definition 3. Restricted Twelve-Tone Chromatic Systems are
harmonic hierarchies some levels of which, in addition to
the surface string, are twelve-tonal. Such systems are subject
to the following two constraints. (1) The keys of every two
parent–child tonal levels are related. (2) Principle of Diatonic
Fusion: For every set in a twelve-tone level, there exists a
chord in a tonal level, reasonably perceived as such, such
that the chord and the set fuse at the surface, whether by
duplication-reversal or interruption-deletion.
The Principle of Diatonic Fusion guarantees that the pitch-
class sets that make up a twelve-tone level are not arbitrary, but
correspond in terms of their twelve-tone intervallic structure to
triads and seventh chords in some key, possibly chromatically
altered. As shall become clear shortly, the qualification
“reasonably perceived as such” in reference to tonal levels in-
volved in diatonic fusion with twelve-tone ones, prevents sets
from straying too far away from the standard twelve-tone for-
mations associated with triads and seventh chords.
187
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
Example 8, a hierarchical harmonic analysis of the “Shining
Grail” music from Parsifal, compactly illustrates a restricted
twelve-tone chromatic system.62 Level 13 of the hierarchy is
twelve-tonal. Its first and last pitch-class sets satisfy the
Principle of Diatonic Fusion via the D[-major level 12. Its sec-
ond and third sets satisfy the principle by means of two tonal
levels, 13.1 and 13.2, that are posited specifically for this
purpose.
As we shall see in subsequent examples, the positing of
such chordal singletons for the sake of satisfying the principle
of diatonic fusion, though fully compatible with the boundary-
preserving rules, is by no means typical. (The rules prohibit
neither the selection of a single chord, as occurs twice at level
13, nor its elaboration as a single chord again, as in levels 13.1
and 13.2.)
However, here precisely the question arises, what consti-
tutes a tonal level “reasonably perceived as such” (review
Definition 3). Clearly, not every stand-alone chord is a reason-
able tonal level (in some key), especially if the chord is chro-
matic. For example, fC], E[, G[g is not a reasonable level
(say, in C major), thus ruling out the possibility of having a
twelve-tone level that contains a set such as f1, 3, 6g. By con-
trast, fC, E, Gg is eminently reasonable, since, all things being
equal one tends to hear a major or minor triad, in isolation, as
tonic.63 Hence, it is reasonable in the Parsifal analysis to posit
62 The Parsifal passage received much attention in the “Neo-Riemannian”
literature. See e.g. Lewin (1984, 345–47), Cohn (1996, 23), Clampitt
(1998), and Rings (2011, 83–88).
63 Harrison (2002, 144) uses the term “chord key” to refer to a major or mi-
nor triad that, under certain conditions, can represent a key all on its own.
“A well-known passage in the first movement of the ‘Eroica’ Symphony”
 188 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
example 9. Hierarchical harmonic analysis of Schubert, Overture to Zauberharfe (Rosamunde), mm. 1–48
the second and third sets of level 13 as tonic-singletons in the
corresponding child-levels 13.1 and 13.2.64
Note that given a twelve-tone level, the key of any of its
non-twelve-tone children is enharmonically indeterminate (as
in, e.g., B minor versus C[ minor).65 In Example 8 and hence-
forth, an asterisk preceding the key-indicating letter in the la-
bel of a relevant level (13.1 and 13.2 in the present case) serves
as a reminder of this indeterminacy.
he clarifies in a footnote on p. 159 “illustrates both chord key and asserted
key. At the start of the coda, bar 557, a D[ major chord suddenly intrudes
on an established E[ key, asserting itself as a new tonic. Yet an equally
sudden C major chord denies this establishment and asserts itself as a new
tonic, turning D[ into a chord key.”
64 Note in Ex. 8 that level 1 is also a chordal singleton—a “chord key,” if you
will, using Harrison’s (2002) terminology (see note 63). Indeed, one may
often construe the “ultimate background” of a tonal piece as a chord key,
namely, the tonic of the home key.
65 This holds, in principle, for the very first level of every harmonic hierar-
chy, assuming it is not twelve-tonal. Thus, in Ex. 8, one could have no-
tated level 1 in C] major, or any enharmonically equivalent key. Although
a choice among enharmonically equivalent keys may be arbitrary at some
parent level, once made it constrains the key of a (tonal) child-level, since
a relation between the two keys must exist (Definition 3).
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
restricted twelve-tone systems: two schubert
examples
Example 9 analyzes the slow introduction of the Overture to
Schubert’s Die Zauberharfe of 1821, later used as the overture
to Rosamunde.66
The passage’s most notable feature is of course the large-
scale sequence in rising minor thirds. Unlike Cohn, who reads
a complete cycle of minor thirds starting in C minor and end-
ing in C major, in Example 9, the cycle as such falls short of
spanning the entire octave. Thus, in the twelve-tone level 16,
only three pitch-class sets, notated as the triads E[ major, G[
major, and A major, form an ic3 cycle. The opening C minor
and closing C-major chords are rather part of the C minor
background-level 1, which shows a I–III–V–I progression
ending with a Picardy third. Interestingly, the bass of mm. 8–
9, I–I6–V7–I, prefigures that of the large-scale progression.
Below level 16 one sees two forward-relating cascades lead-
ing one to the G[ major of mm. 19–27 and the other to the A
major of m. 30; as expected, they are exact transpositions one
of the other. The forward-relating cascade below level 1 starts
66 Compare to Cohn (2012, 85–89).
 the webern in mozart
example 10. Hierarchical harmonic analysis of Schubert, Symphony No. 9 in C major (“ Great”), Scherzo, mm. 1–158
as another such transposition. However, unlike levels 16.1 and
16.2 that end in their tonics G[ and A, respectively, the corre-
sponding level 13 ends deceptively on a [VI/augmented-sixth
chord (m. 33).67 The augmented-sixth chord, which resolves
to the structural dominant at level 12, is in fact the climax of
the excerpt, and thus is most deserving of its high position in
the hierarchy. Interestingly, the chord not only returns, climac-
tically, in a similar deceptive setting, in the movement’s coda
(m. 490), but is also anticipated enharmonically as V7/[II in
m. 3 of the Andante. Indeed, there is a sense in which the
note F] of m. 33 “corrects” the G[ of m. 3.
Finally, Example 10 analyzes the Scherzo of Schubert’s
“Great” C-major Symphony, up to m. 158 (the first actual
tonic of the reprise). The analysis thus provides some addi-
tional context for the passage, mm. 97–154, analyzed in AE.68
67 Since the flat-submediant is a subset of the augmented-sixth chord, I take
the liberty of allowing the former to substitute for the latter at level 13. In
m. 30 Schubert gives for the first time the throbbing chordal accompani-
ment in eighth-note triplets to the winds, thus preparing the listener for
the possibility that the third leg of the sequence will develop differently
than the first two.
68 Cohn (2012, 195–99). In his Fig. 9.1 and its accompanying discussion,
Cohn erroneously refers to mm. 89–146 as 93–150. Cohn also seems to
read the harmony of m. 154 as I, where in fact it is VI.
189
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
The C-major level 1 is the background of the excerpt, a
functional progression T–S–D–T. It consists of the opening
tonic (m. 2), the flat submediant that opens the second part
(m. 57), the structural dominant (m. 145), and the tonic near
the beginning of the reprise (m. 158). This level has two chil-
dren. Level 1.1, placed further down on the page, is a
backward-relating progression I–V containing the main events
of the first part (mm. 1–56). Level 1.2 is part of a shallow
forward-relating cascade that “starts” at level 1.2.1.69 The latter
level is twelve-tonal, and consists of four pitch-class sets that
form a forward-relating progression the logic of which is root-
progression by ic1.70 Schubert highlights these pitch-class sets
as privileged members of the surface string. The “B-major” set
represents a strategic point in the second part (m. 89), where
the primary, eighth-note motive of the scherzo is suddenly
abandoned, and a change of texture, dynamics, and mood
introduces a new melody in C[ major (though the C[ tonic
69 I say that the forward-relating cascade “starts” at level 1.2.1 because the
latter contains events that appear earlier in the surface string.
Hierarchically speaking, the cascade starts at level 1.2.
70 The “root” of the twelve-tone image of a triad is its first element when
written in “normal form.” See also Ex. 8, level 13.
 190 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
itself appears only in second inversion).71 The “C-major” set
appears first as a transposition of the C[-major melody (mm.
97–104); when the fortissimo of mm. 105 interrupts this brief
lyrical interlude and the eighth-note motive returns with
renewed force, C major becomes the dominant of F minor
(level 1.2.13). A striking subito piano in m. 113 then highlights
“D[ major” as another important point of arrival. Finally, the
“D-minor” set, the only 037-type set in the twelve-tone pro-
gression, is also its goal. At level 1.2, the set becomes the su-
pertonic of C major, part of a forward-relating progression
that leads to the structural dominant. (The dominant-seventh
of mm. 137–40—not shown in the analysis—is passing be-
tween two subdominant chords, II and VII䊊7/V.) The
remaining levels of the hierarchy form two forward-relating
cascades that lead one to the “D[-major” set of mm. 113–18,
and the other to the “D minor” of m. 131–36. In the first cas-
cade we have a V–I progression in F minor followed by a III–I
progression in D[ major. The second cascade uses similar pro-
gressions but in reverse order: V–I in D minor follows III]–
III–I in A major.
the webern in mozart
In this article, I presented two systems of chromatic harmony
that mix tonal and twelve-tonal premises. In second-order
chromatic systems, the surface string, in the absence of a single
referential key, is twelve-tonal; in restricted twelve-tone chro-
matic systems, some levels of the harmonic hierarchy itself, in
addition to the surface string, are twelve-tonal. Restricted
twelve-tone chromatic systems are “tonal” nonetheless due to
the Principle of Diatonic Fusion, which ensures that the
pitch-class sets that make up a twelve-tone level are, at some
other level of the hierarchy, triads and seventh chords, possibly
chromatically altered, in some key.72
A mixture of tonal and twelve-tonal premises is a possibility
that Cohn does not entertain, when he considers possible
answers to his own question, “how does music that is heard to
be organized by diatonic tonality become music that is heard
to be organized in some other way?”73 “Either that ‘other way’
71 Ex. 10 does not account for mm. 78–89, that lead to the C[-major epi-
sode. In brief, I see the E[ dominant-seventh chord of mm. 78–85 as
both backward relating to A[, and part of a forward-relating progression
III7\ –V7–I in C[. The additional events in mm. 86–89 are details within
the motion from III7\ to V7. In Cohn (2012, 195–99), the C[ major of
mm. 89–96, that serves as a model for the C major of mm. 97–104, is cu-
riously absent. A passing reference to these measures at the outset of the
discussion seems to misread them as representing V in C major. “The pas-
sage, from the scherzo of the C major Symphony, begins at m. 93 [recte,
89] with a waltz fragment that is presented first in the dominant and then
in the tonic and ends with a dominant prolongation that precedes the re-
prise of the Scherzo at m. 153. . .” (195).
72 Here, then, is a possible explanation for the “audacious euphony” that
Cohn (2012, ix), following Riemann, finds in certain nineteenth-century
progressions so intriguing. The progressions are audacious because they
are twelve-tonal rather than tonal; they are euphonious because they sat-
isfy the Principle of Diatonic Fusion.
is conjured tabula rasa from what was absent from diatonic
tonality” he reasons, “or it is conjured partly by what was pre-
sent in it.” Cohn dismisses the first possibility because “it is in-
consistent with everything else we know about historical
process and human cognition. That leaves the second possibil-
ity: that there is some aspect of diatonic tonality that was
reshaped, recontextualized, developed in some direction that
had been hitherto inconceivable. . . .”74
There is a third possibility, however, namely mixture of
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
tonal and twelve-tonal premises.75 As an alternative to Cohn’s
account, therefore, I propose that as long as the Principle of
Diatonic Fusion asserted its control, the “other way” of orga-
nizing music was unable to break out into the open; but once
this principle, for one reason or another became irrelevant, the
Webern in Mozart was set free.
The harmonic systems discussed in this article, the strictly
diatonic, the first- and second-order chromatic, and the re-
stricted twelve-tone system, fall into a natural order that is
highly suggestive from the historical point of view; I believe
there is hardly a need to belabor this point. I do wish to com-
ment, however, on what might seem a weakness in the implicit
four-stage historical process. Should there not be more than a
single stage between first-order and restricted twelve-tone
chromatic systems? In other words, should the theory not ben-
efit from partitioning second-order systems into several
subsystems?
My answer is “perhaps,” though I admit that thus far I was
unable to find a convincing way of doing so. On second
thought, however, the seemingly disproportional inclusiveness
of second-order systems may not represent a weakness in the
theory after all. Recall the thicker boundary in Example 6 be-
tween first- and second-order chromatic systems. The as-
tounding harmonic creativity exhibited by composers of the
long nineteenth-century specifically with regard to chromati-
cism seems to be well served by the metaphor of leaving a fa-
miliar, orderly environment (first-order chromatic systems),
and venturing into a vast unknown (second-order systems and
beyond). It is precisely this uncharted and unruly territory, in
other words, large enough for each composer to carve a niche
all of her or his own, which allowed the Romantic genius to
blossom in all its glory.
In his 1996 article, “Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic
Systems, and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic
Progressions,” the point of departure to his “Neo-Riemannian”
odyssey culminating in AE, Cohn allows Carl Dahlhaus to
have the first and final word. “To be adequate” he quotes the
esteemed musicologist as his motto,
73 Cohn (2012, 205).
74 Ibid.
75 In such a mixture, I believe, neither set of premises, the tonal nor the
twelve-tonal, is derivable from the other, at least in any strictly logical
sense. See note 54 concerning the qualified sense in which the twelve-
tone concept is tonal-derivative.
 the webern in mozart
a description of Wagnerian harmony would have to clarify
its position floating between a tonality that has been
attacked by the weakening of the root progressions but not
yet completely destroyed, and an atonality anticipated in
the increased independence of semitonal motion but not yet
reached; and this [position] would have to be defined as
clearly as the relationships between the technical features
and their expressive role.76
I, too, would like to stand now on the shoulder of the same
giant. “For nearly a century” writes Dahlhaus slightly earlier on
the same page,
up to the deaths of Webern and Schoenberg, the style of
Tristan was the cornerstone of a development whose origi-
nal impulse was always discernible in its most extreme man-
ifestations. And Wagnerian harmony can be analysed, at
least partly, from the viewpoint that the atonal consequences
drawn later were already prefigured in its tonality. . . .77
Nicely said. My only reservation is that the “atonal con-
sequences” that Webern, Schoenberg, and others drew from
Wagner’s harmony are also prefigured in the music of many of
his predecessors in the long nineteenth century, including
Mozart. Indeed, to the extent that composers well before
Mozart were not always respectful of the boundaries of first-
order chromatic systems, the “other way” of organizing music
was, implicitly, practically always there.
works cited
Agmon, Eytan. 1990. “Music Theory as Cognitive Science:
Some Conceptual and Methodological Issues.” Music
Perception 7 (3): 285–308.
———. 2006. “Structural Levels and Harmonic Theory:
Toward a Reconciliation.” In Essays from the Third
International Schenker Symposium. Ed. Allen Cadwallader.
219–43. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.
———. 2013. The Languages of Western Tonality. Heidelberg:
Springer.
Aldwell, Edward, and Carl Schachter. 1989. Harmony and
Voice Leading, 2nd edition. San Diego: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
76 Dahlhaus (1980, 123). Cohn concludes the article as follows. “By keeping
in mind the distinction between its two natures, at the same time as we
acknowledge the capacity for interaction between them, our recognition of
the triad’s duality will help us approach the clear definition that Carl
Dahlhaus, in the passage given at the head of this article, suggested as a
standard for descriptions of Romantic harmony.”
77 Ibid., emphasis added. Dahlhaus continues: “Conversely, the fact that the
memory of Wagner was still not completely extinct in the 1920s, not only
in the music of Schoenberg and Webern but also in that of such ‘experi-
mentalists’ as Roslavets and Lourie, is no reason for speaking of a ‘relapse
into Romanticism’ in the manner of neo-classicist polemics but can rather
be interpreted as a sign of the inner unity of a modern music of which
Tristan was the earliest monument.”
191
Baker, James. 1986. The Music of Alexander Scriabin. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Bungert, James. 2012. “Book Review. Audacious Euphony:
Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature.” Journal of
Musicological Research 31 (4): 326–29.
Burnett, Henry, and Roy Nitzberg. 2007. Composition,
Chromaticism and the Developmental Process: A New Theory
of Tonality. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Christensen, Thomas. 1996. “Fetis and Emerging Tonal
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
Consciousness.” In Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism.
Ed. Ian Bent. 37–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Clampitt, David. 1998. “Alternative Interpretations of Some
Measures from Parsifal.” Journal of Music Theory 42 (2):
321–34.
Cohn, Richard. 1996. “Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic
Systems, and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic
Progressions.” Music Analysis 15 (1): 9–40.
———. 2012. Audacious Euphony: Chromaticism and the
Triad’s Second Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dahlhaus, Carl. 1980. “Wagner, (1) Richard, §9: Style.” In
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed.
Stanley Sadie. Vol. 20, 120–25. London: Macmillan.
Damschroder, David. 2010. Harmony in Schubert. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Fetis, François-Joseph. 1832. “Cours de Philosophie musicale
et d’Histoire de la Musique: Huitième et dernière leçon.”
Revue musicale 12 (6me Annee, no. 25): 196–98.
Fisk, Charles. 2000. “Comment & Chronicle.” With response
by Richard Cohn. 19th-Century Music 23 (3): 301–304.
Forte, Allen. 1987. “Liszt’s Experimental Idiom and Music of
the Early Twentieth Century.” 19th-Century Music 10 (3):
209–28.
Goldenberg, Yosef. 2007. “Schenkerian Voice-Leading and
Neo-Riemannian Operations: Analytical Integration with-
out Theoretical Reconciliation.” Journal of Schenkerian
Studies 2: 65–84.
Harrison, Daniel. 1994. Harmonic Function in Chromatic
Music: A Renewed Dualist Theory and an Account of Its
Precedents. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 2002. “Nonconformist Notions of Nineteenth-
Century Enharmonicism.” Music Analysis 21 (2): 115–60.
Horton, Julian. 2004. Bruckner’s Symphonies: Analysis,
Reception, and Cultural Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
———. 2016. “Richard Cohn, Audacious Euphony:
Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature.” Nineteenth-
Century Music Review 13 (2): 302–12.
Hunt, Graham. 2007. “When Chromaticism and Diatonicism
Collide: A Fusion of Neo-Riemannian and Tonal Analysis
Applied to Wagner’s Motives.” Journal of Schenkerian
Studies 2: 1–32.
Hyer, Brian. 2002. “Tonality.” In The Cambridge History of
Western Music Theory. Ed. Thomas Christensen. 726–52.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
192 music theory spectrum 42 (2020)
Klumpenhouwer, Henry. 2011. “History and Structure in
Cohn’s Audacious Euphony.” Integral 25: 159–75.
Kopp, David. 2002. Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-
Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kozen, Dexter. 1997. Automata and Computability. New York:
Springer.
Kramer, Lawrence. 1981. “The Mirror of Tonality:
Transitional Features of Nineteenth-Century Harmony.”
19th-Century Music 4 (3): 191–208.
Lerdahl, Fred. 2001. Tonal Pitch Space. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lewin, David. 1984. “Amfortas’s Prayer to Titurel and the
Role of D in Parsifal: The Tonal Spaces of the Drama and
the Enharmonic C[/B.” 19th-Century Music 7 (3): 336–49.
McCreless, Patrick. 1996. “An Evolutionary Perspective on
Nineteenth-Century Semitonal Relations.” In The Second
Practice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality. Ed. William
Kinderman and Harald Krebs. 87–113. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press.
Murphy, Scott. 2014. “Richard Cohn, Audacious Euphony:
Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature.” Journal of
Music Theory 58 (1): 79–101.
Proctor, Gregory. 1978. “Technical Bases of Nineteenth-
Century Chromatic Tonality: A Study in Chromaticism.”
Ph.D. diss., Princeton University.
Rehding, Alexander. 2011. “Tonality between Rule and
Repertory; Or, Riemann’s Functions—Beethoven’s
Function.” Music Theory Spectrum 33 (2): 109–23.
Rings, Steven. 2007. “Perspectives on Tonality and
Transformation in Schubert’s Impromptu in E[, D. 899,
no. 2.” Journal of Schenkerian Studies 2: 33–64.
———. 2011. Tonality and Transformation. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rothstein, William. 2003. “Letter to the Editor: A Reply to
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mts/article/42/2/173/5908006 by SMT Member Access user on 28 December 2020
Brian Hyer.” Journal of Music Theory 47 (1): 215–22.
Samarotto, Frank. 2007. “Determinism, Prediction, and
Inevitability in Brahms’s Rhapsody in E[ major, op. 119,
no. 4.” Theory and Practice 32: 69–99.
Schachter, Carl. 1987. “Analysis by Key: Another Look at
Modulation.” Music Analysis 6 (3): 289–318.
Schenker, Heinrich. 1906. Harmonielehre. Stuttgart: Cotta.
———. 1979. Free Composition. 2 vols. Trans. and ed. Ernst
Oster. New York: Longman.
Tymoczko, Dmitri. 2011. A Geometry of Music: Harmony and
Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice. New York:
Oxford University Press.
———. 2012. “The Generalized Tonnetz.” Journal of Music
Theory 56 (1): 1–52.
Yust, Jason. 2015. “Schubert’s Harmonic Language and Fourier
Phase Space.” Journal of Music Theory 59 (1): 121–81.
Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 42, Issue 2, pp. 173–92, ISSN 0195-6167,
electronic ISSN 1533-8339. V C The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford
University Press on behalf of The Society for Music Theory. All rights
reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
DOI: 10.1093/mts/mtaa010