Contents

Brahms's Handel Variations and Fugue was one of Schenker's "core" teaching pieces – the title is to be found in all his surviving lessonbooks, from 1912 to 1931, students studying it variation by variation. The bulk of this 56-page double issue is occupied by an analysis of the work (which became a teaching tool in itself as soon as proofs of the article reached Schenker). The first two-and-a-half pages of the Urlinie sheet lay out each variation over a single staffline so that the individual measures align down the page from variation to variation, facilitating close comparison; the fugue occupies the last page and a half.

As with the essay on Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 57 in Tonwille 7, there are extensive, detailed remarks on performance in the Brahms essay, including a paragraph on each of the variations and nearly two pages on the fugue; these include suggestions for fingering, and for the positioning of the hands in relation to the keyboard.

Two short theoretical articles follow. The first contrasts the effect upon the listener of the work of genius (genuine) and non-genius (sham). The second relates closely to the first, and is of historical importance in crystallizing all Schenker's ideas so far. "Elucidations," which Schenker reprinted in Tonwille 10, and again with minor orthographical changes in Meisterwerk I (1925) and II (1926), sets out concisely with examples the notions of chord of nature, tonal space, passing-tone progression, dissonance and consonance, diatony, harmonic scale-degree, Urlinie, neighbor-note motion, tension-span, background and foreground, synthesis, and the way in which geniuses achieve ultimate economy of means by employing these principles whereas non-geniuses deal only in surface effects.

The "Miscellanea" of this issue are partly linked to the Brahms analysis through the concept of perfection (Vollendung) and are partly a celebration of the centenary of the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and the reconstruction of that first concert by the Viennese Concert Society on May 7, 1924.

Publication History

[to be completed]

Contents List