Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Ian Bent
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Common-tone tonality
- 2 Three examples of functional chromatic mediant relations in Schubert
- 3 Key harmonic systems and notions of third relations from Rameau to Hauptmann
- 4 Hugo Riemann
- 5 Twentieth-century theory and chromatic third relations
- 6 Riemann's legacy and transformation theories
- 7 A chromatic transformation system
- 8 Chromatic mediant relations in musical contexts
- 9 Five analyses
- Bibliography
- Index
- Compositions cited
6 - Riemann's legacy and transformation theories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Ian Bent
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Common-tone tonality
- 2 Three examples of functional chromatic mediant relations in Schubert
- 3 Key harmonic systems and notions of third relations from Rameau to Hauptmann
- 4 Hugo Riemann
- 5 Twentieth-century theory and chromatic third relations
- 6 Riemann's legacy and transformation theories
- 7 A chromatic transformation system
- 8 Chromatic mediant relations in musical contexts
- 9 Five analyses
- Bibliography
- Index
- Compositions cited
Summary
RULES OF HARMONIC PROGRESSION
While never completely abandoned at home, Riemann's ideas, whether understood or misunderstood, fell into deep disfavor in the English-speaking theoretical community for several decades. Beginning in the 1980s, though, particulars of his theory have once again gained attention, as a lively interest in tonal harmony, especially of the nineteenth century, has resurfaced among American theorists. Riemannian ideas are not only being revived but are being recast in novel ways. The purpose of this chapter is to visit those aspects of his theory which are fundamental to the new perspective, to outline the new theoretical approaches, and to consider the ways in which Riemannian concepts have been transformed in the service of these “neo-Riemannian” approaches.
It is a common belief that Riemann's functional theory includes the condition that all well-formed functional progressions must take the form T–S–D–T. The propensity to see the progression T–S–D–T as a necessary condition for functional coherence may spring from an urge to read in rules for harmonic progression into Riemann's theory in particular and harmonic theory in general. As stated above in section 1.3, the notion of harmonic function often carries a sense that chords by their inner and/or contextual nature determine motion to other chords. Riemann himself did start out thinking this way, employing cadential models of harmonic progression for fifteen years, from his dissertation up to the Systematische Modulationslehre. But, as discussed in chapter 4, he had largely abandoned this position by the time of the 1893 functional theory.
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- Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-Century Music , pp. 135 - 164Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002