II. History 2. 1750-1840

2. 1750–1840.
The origins of musical analysis as one now thinks of it lie in early 18th-century philosophy and are linked with the origins of the aesthetic attitude itself. For it was in the 18th century, and particularly with the English philosophers and essayists, that the idea came to the surface of contemplating beauty without self-interest – that is, without motive of personal improvement or utility. This new attitude was termed, by one of its earliest protagonists, Lord Shaftesbury (1671–1713), ‘disinterested attention’. It embodied a mode of interest that went no further than the object being contemplated, and was engrossed in the contemplation itself. Leibniz, at about the same time, evolved a concept of perception as an activity in itself rather than as a processing of sense-impressions. This active concept of perception was important in the work of Alexander Baumgarten (1714–62), who coined the word ‘aesthetics’. It was during this period that the notion of ‘fine art’ as such, divorced from context and social function, arose.

In Shaftesbury’s equation of disinterested attention with ‘love of truth, proportion, order and symmetry in things without’ lies the germ of formal theory as it was developed in Germany during the second half of the 18th century. His declaration that ‘the Beautiful, the Fair, the Comely, were never in the Matter, but in the Art and Design; never in the Body itself, but in the Form or forming Power’ (Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, 1711, ii, 405) drew attention to the outward form as the object of contemplation rather than content. Such an attitude came through in, for example, Der allezeit fertige Polonoisen- und Menuettencomponist (1757) by J.P. Kirnberger, one of a number of publications that laid down a fixed chord scheme for dances, and supplied several motifs for each bar from which one was to be selected by throwing a dice.

However, it was not in the field of analysis or of criticism, as one might expect, that these perceptually based ideas were fully articulated in music for the first time. It was in composition teaching: in particular in the writings of the theorist H.C. Koch. The most significant aspects of Koch’s important work Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition (1782–93) were the twin subjects of phrase structure and formal model. Koch’s principle of phrase extension had its forerunner in the Anfangsgründe zur musicalischen Setzkunst (1752–68) of Joseph Riepel. In his second chapter (Frankfurt, 1755) Riepel discussed the construction of eight-bar phrases in two four-bar units, designating each according to its type of cadence as Grundabsatz, Aenderungsabsatz or Aenderungscadenz (pp.36ff). He went on (pp.54ff) to discuss repetition and phrase extension (Ausdähnung) and interpolation (Einschiebsel). Riepel used graphic signs – the square, crosses and letters – to designate constructional devices. In his fourth chapter (Augsburg, 1765) Riepel considered melodic ‘figures’ (Figuren) not in the rhetorical Baroque sense but as units of formal construction. He presented the first five bars of an aria, marking the four musical figures by brackets and numbers (fig.1a ). He then took no.1 and showed how it might be repeated sequentially at the interval of a 3rd (marking the repetition with a double cross; fig.1b ), then at the 2nd and the 5th. He then worked a sequential extension of no.2 which continued with no.4 (fig.1c ), and so on (pp.81ff). The examples were still very much in the style of Baroque melodic construction, but Koch described Riepel’s work as ‘the first ray of light’ (ii, 11).


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From J. Riepel: ‘Anfangsgründe zur musikalischen Setzkunst’, iv (Augsburg, 1765), 81–2

British Library, London
There is evidence that Kirnberger too was influenced by Riepel in his writings. In Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik (ii/1, 1776), he employed a range of teminology for melodic structures that provides a halfway-point between Riepel and Koch. Each large-scale section of a piece, called Haupttheil, was subdivided into several units, each called Periode or Abschnitt. They were themselves subdivided into several units, each known as Satz or Rhythmus. They in turn were subdivided into the smallest unit of all, each known as Cäsur or Glied. The term Einschnitt equated sometimes with Satz, sometimes with Cäsur. Kirnberger offered rules (ii/1, 140–51; also briefly i, 1771, p.96; Eng. trans., 407–16, 114) on the construction of all these units, especially as to their length, rhythmic patterning and cadence-forms. In stating that the number of bars constituting a Satz should normally be a multiple of four, or at least of two, he made special allowance for interpolation. A one-bar unit, a repetition of the previous bar, could be inserted (ii/2, 143; Eng. trans., 409) without disturbing the feel of the unit. Moreover, the Satz could be extended by the elongation of the value of one or more of its main notes. This might result in five-, seven- or nine-bar Sätze.

Kirnberger had apparently been a pupil of J.S. Bach, and certainly sought to disseminate Bach’s methods; in turn he was the musical adviser to the great Swiss aesthetician J.G. Sulzer. He was also the direct heir of the two lines of harmonic theory that descended from Rameau and Heinichen. This may be seen in three harmonic analyses of pieces (two of them entire) that are associated with him. The first is an analysis of his own E minor fugue, which he appended to vol.i (1771) of Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik in order to demonstrate how to ‘detect the true harmony as conceived by the composer’, distinguishing it from passing notes, in complex situations. ‘Once beginners have acquired skill in the accurate analysis of harmony in this piece, we recommend to all of them that they also study the works of great masters in a similarly thorough way’ (Eng. trans., 266, 270ff). This analysis is laid out on five staves, the top two presenting the fugue entire. The fifth staff shows the fundamental bass as Kirnberger derived it, the fourth shows the inessential dissonances, and the third presents a figured bass for the composition, so as to show the inversions of chords. Die wahren Grundsätze zum Gebrauch der Harmonie (1773), published over Kirnberger’s name, was probably written by his pupil J.A.P. Schulz under his supervision. Appended to this work are harmonic analyses of two works from Bach’s Das wohltemperirte Clavier: the Fugue in B minor from book 1 (selected because of its apparent insolubility) and the first part of the Prelude in A minor from book 2. The latter is rather simpler, but the B minor Fugue is laid out on two pairs of staves (the top pair presenting the fugue in finished form), with two further individual staves below. The third and fourth staves give a figured bass (using the bass of the fugue where appropriate) with chords over it that simplify by removing all inessential dissonances. The fifth staff gives the fundamental bass, with figures that retain the essential dissonances. Finally, the sixth staff gives the fundamental bass with only the fundamental chords recorded in its figuring – that is only triads and chords of the 7th, in accordance with Rameau’s principles.

Koch’s exposition of melodic phrase structure in the 1780s and 90s was to be of the profoundest importance for music theory, ultimately also for analysis, and it led directly to Riemann’s theory of dynamic and agogic. The exposition is in Part ii of the Versuch (section 2, subsection 3 ‘On the construction of melodic sections’, and subsection 4 ‘On the combining of melodic sections, or the construction of periods’), occupying in all some 500 pages. It follows immediately on a discussion of rhythm and metre, and establishes a hierarchical framework in which two-bar ‘segments’ or ‘incises’ (vollkommene Einschnitte) combine in pairs to form four-bar ‘phrases’ (Sätze) which in turn combine to make ‘periods’ (Perioden). Koch then laid down rules as to how this framework might be modified without loss of balance. Chapter 3 of subsection 4 contains three studies ‘Of the use of melodic extension’. The first is of extension by repetition of all or part of a phrase; here Koch conveyed the idea of function within a phrase rather than melodic material, speaking often of ‘the repetition of a bar’ when the content of that bar is different on second statement. The second study is multiplication of phrases and cadential figures. The third is of the highly significant concept whereby a two-bar or four-bar phrase-unit may be embedded within an existing melody. Koch explained with each extension device (Verlängerungsmittel) how it could be used without upsetting the general effect of symmetry. Thus for example he stated that ‘When a phrase contains one-bar units of which the first is repeated, then the second must also be repeated’, because if not ‘the unequal handling of these small units stands out as an unpleasant effect’ (ii, 63ff).

Chapter 3 of subsection 3 describes processes of melodic compression effected by the telescoping of two phrase-units to form a single unit. In this chapter he used a bar-numbering system that shows the bar at the point of telescoping as having two functions. Fig.2 shows the telescoping of two four-bar phrases into a seven-bar period, with the suppressed bar (Tacterstickung) marked with a square (ii, 455).


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From H.C. Koch: ‘Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition’, ii (Leipzig, 1787), 455

British Library, London
Koch’s processes of extension and compression show his concern with symmetry and proportion on the smaller scale. Subsection 4 also presents the construction of compositions in ascending order of magnitude, from ‘the combining of melodic sections into periods of the smallest size, or the organization of small compositions’ (chap.2, iii, 39–152) involving the combination of four melodic sections ‘of which two have a cadence in the home key’ (p.57), ‘of which one has a cadence in a related key’ (p.81), and ‘in which only a single closing phrase occurs’ (p.111), and the combination of ‘more than four sections in small compositions’ (p.128) to ‘the combination of melodic sections into periods of greater length, or the organization of larger compositions’ (chap.4, iii, 231–430). In this way Koch drew all the musical elements of a composition into mutual relationship – for music is ‘that art which expresses feelings through the relationships between notes’ (i, 4).

It is in these two chapters that the other important aspect of Koch’s work comes to the fore: that of the formal model. In this respect he cited as his authority Sulzer’s Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (1771–4), in which the idea of ‘layout’ (Anlage) or model is put forward. Such a model sets down a plan for a work and the most salient features. The artist, following this model, is then to proceed to the ‘execution’ (Ausführung) or completion of design and finally to the ‘elaboration’ (Ausarbeitung) of the work in all its details. Accordingly, within the discussion of smaller forms (iii, 39ff) Koch provided the plan and characteristic details of the gavotte, bourrée, polonaise, anglaise, minuet and march, concluding with the chorale and figured melody. He described, for example, the gavotte as ‘a dance piece of lively and pleasant character’ much used in theatrical dance. Its features are ‘(1) an even time signature which is usually in 2/2 and not too fast; (2) that each phrase begins with a two-crotchet upbeat; (3) that it has even-numbered rhythmic units with a detectable phrase division at each second bar; (4) that it comprises two sections, each of eight bars’.

All these models were offered as generative: from them compositions could be created, almost mechanically – ‘almost’, because Koch held the view that ‘living expression’ (lebendiger Ausdruck) was essential to the artist (‘the poet who abandons expression, image, figure, and becomes a dictionary-user, is in error’, i, 6). They form part of an instruction manual that proceeds from harmony to counterpoint and then to melody and form. Yet they are important, too, in the history of analysis, because they separate ‘norm’ from individuality, implicitly stating what was ‘expected’ and thereby defining liberty. Moreover, although most of Koch’s abundant music examples were specially written for the book (in the contemporary style of Graun, Benda, and early Haydn and Mozart), he appended to his discussion of the combination of four melodic sections a brief analysis (iii, 58ff) of the minuet from Haydn’s Divertimento in G (HII:1). The criteria for his analysis are particularly interesting: ‘This little minuet’, he began, ‘has the most complete unity’. He followed the philosophical dictate, transmitted by Sulzer (under Einheit), that ‘wholeness … and beauty consist of diversity bound together in unity’. Sulzer described unity with reference to a clock: ‘if only one of its mechanical parts is removed then it is no longer whole [Ganzes] but only a part of something else’. In his analysis Koch identified the first four bars as the ‘sole principal idea’, repeated to form a closing phrase. The opening of the second half, also repeated as a closing phrase, ‘while different from the preceding sections, is actually no less than the self-same phrase used in another way; for it is stated in contrary motion, and by means of a thorough deviation which results from this becomes bound together through greater diversity’.

Not only is the ‘model’ an important tool for formal analysis, later to be used by Prout, Riemann and Leichtentritt, but also the Sulzerian process of model–execution–elaboration is itself an important concept of artistic creation, which later acquired its analytical counterpart in the theory of layers (Schichten). In addition, Koch equipped the composer and analyst with a terminology, derived from grammar and rhetoric, for the description of structure. For him, melody was ‘speech in sound’ (Tonrede), comprising grammar and punctuation. He sought to establish a ‘natural law’ of musical utterance (Tonsprache) which he called the ‘logic of the phrase’. In this logic the smallest sense-unit, called ‘incomplete segment’ (unvollkommener Einschnitt), normally occupied one bar, the ‘complete segment’ (vollkommener Einschnitt, itself divisible into two Cäsuren in Sulzer’s definition of Einschnitt) two bars. Such segments combine to form the ‘phrase’ (Satz), defined as either ‘opening phrase’ (Absatz) or ‘closing phrase’ (Schluss-Satz). Phrases form a ‘period’ (Periode). All three principal words are grammatical constructs: Einschnitt as phrase, Satz as clause, and Periode as sentence, the third of these divisible, according to Koch, into ‘subject’ (i.e. first four bars, enger Satz) and ‘predicate’ (latter four bars).

At the beginning of the 19th century came a work that gave an unprecedented amount of space and range of thought to analysis. Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny (1762–1842) in his Cours complet d’harmonie et de composition (1806) devoted no fewer than 144 pages, including analytical plates, to an analysis of the first movement of Mozart’s String Quartet in D minor K421/417b. He provided a double analysis, examining both phrase structure and expressive content. Momigny’s phrase-structure analysis is based on the novel rhythmic concept that musical units proceed from upbeat (levé) to downbeat (frappé) and never vice versa. He termed his smallest sense-unit, made up of two successive notes, upbeat and downbeat, the cadence or proposition musicale. These two notes are in the relationship of antécédent and conséquent. In the opening bars of the movement by Mozart (fig.3 ), two cadences mélodiques pair off in antecedent–consequent relationship to form a cadence harmonique, two of these forming a hémistiche, two hémistiches forming a vers, and two vers forming a période. Momigny’s concept does not, however, insist on hierarchy by pairs, and allows for as many as six or eight vers to make up a période in certain contexts. The périodes form further into reprises and are designated according to function within their reprise as ‘de début’, ‘intermédiaire’, ‘de verve’, ‘mélodieuse’, or ‘complémentaire’. (In other contexts Momigny used other terms from versification also to designate structural units of intermediate size: distiche, strophe and stance.)

In this phrase-structure analysis Momigny laid the basis for a view of music that was to become important at the end of the 19th century: of music as a succession of spans of tension. In his expressive analysis, on the other hand, he was looking back to the Affektenlehre of the 18th century. His method was to determine the caractère of the work under analysis, to select a verbal text that had the same character, and to set the text to the principal melodic material of the work so that melodic repetition was mirrored by verbal repetition, fluctuations of musical mood by fluctuations of textual meaning. He constructed a poetic parallel with the music, offering through it an interpretation of both form and content.

The plates for the analysis present the music laid out on ten parallel staves; the top four show the quartet in conventional score, the fifth staff presents the melodic line (and notes printed small here reveal the beginnings of melodic reduction technique) with its cadences marked, the sixth and seventh staves provide a harmonic reduction of the texture with harmonic cadences marked, the eighth and ninth staves present the principal melodic material with poetic text underlaid (in this case a dramatic scene between Dido and Aeneas, with notes from the first violin assigned to Dido and from the cello assigned to Aeneas) and with simple piano accompaniment, and the tenth staff shows the roots of the prevailing harmony as a fundamental bass (fig.3 ).


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J.-J. de Momigny: ‘Cours complet d’harmonie et de composition’, iii (Paris, 1806), 109–10

British Library, London
Momigny’s other extended analysis is of the first movement of Haydn’s ‘Drumroll’ Symphony no.103 (Eng. trans., 1994). This spans 24 pages of text combined with 47 pages of annotated full score. The text first investigates the substance of the movement, proceeding period by period, examining the thematic material and its deployment, its use of contrasting dynamics and timbres, stressing the achievement of variety in unity; it then builds a poetic analogue to the music in the form of a village community terrorized by a fearful storm and eventually chastened in the eyes of God. This latter ‘pictorial and poetic analysis’ belongs to an 18th-century tradition of exploring the borderland between words and music – a tradition exemplified by Klopstock and Lessing, of which the most celebrated product was Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg’s double adaptation of C.P.E. Bach’s C minor Fantasy, first to the words of Hamlet’s monologue ‘To be, or not to be’ and then to those of Socrates’ monologue as he takes hemlock (see Helm, 1972). Indeed, Momigny’s writings suggest that there was a veritable school of such activity in Paris at this time. Grétry was a skilled exponent of this group, which Momigny called ‘les parodistes’.

Momigny’s two analyses from 1806 are monumental achievements. So too was another extended analysis, which occupied 21 columns of the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, published in two instalments in July 1810: E.T.A. Hoffmann’s analytical review of the score and parts of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, complete with copious music examples (Eng. trans., 1994). Together three mighty analyses emerge from the head-waters of the broadening stream of 19th-century analysis. Superficially, Hoffmann’s review has much in common with those of Momigny. Both deal in detail with matters of structure, both use highly technical language, both offer rich descriptive imagery. Hoffmann’s pictorial language, however, belongs (as one would expect of him) to the world of Romantic literature, speaking of ‘nameless, haunted yearning’ and a ‘magical spirit realm’, and of the work being held together ‘in a continuous fantastic sequence … like an inspired rhapsody’. His technical description, which freely uses such terms as Hauptgedanke, Zwischensatz and Figur, sees the music not in fixed format, through a series of periodic frames, but in free format, as a seamless continuity powered by motifs. It adumbrates an organicist view of musical structure, as for example (Eng. trans., p.163):

it is particularly the close relationship of the individual themes to each other which provides the unity that is able to sustain one feeling in the listener’s heart. … It becomes clearer to the musician when he discovers the bass pattern that is common to two different passages, or when the similarity between two passages makes it apparent. But often a deeper relationship that is not demonstrable in this way speaks only from the heart to the heart, and it is this relationship that exists between the subjects of the two allegros and the minuet, and that brilliantly proclaims the composer’s rational genius.

At one point Hoffmann’s text sets out five forms of the Menuett theme so that the reader can see the transformations.

Schumann’s review of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (1835) also combines objectivity and subjectivity in tackling the work from four distinct points of view: formal construction, style and texture, the poetic ‘idea’ lying behind the symphony, and the spirit that governs it. The review ranges itself against critics of the work, examining its structure section by section to show that ‘despite the apparent formlessness … as regards its major proportions it possesses a wonderfully symmetrical disposition – to say nothing of its inner coherence’ (Eng. trans., 1994, p.174); discussing harmonic and modulatory style, melodic and contrapuntal fabric, acknowledging the contravention of many theoretical rules but justifying them by the work’s intensity, its ‘wholly distinctive and indomitable spirit’ (p.180); recounting the work’s programme, and arguing that it spurs the listener’s imagination to perceive its own further meaning; and finally affirming that the symphony ‘has to be understood not as the work of art of a master, but rather as unlike anything that has gone before it by virtue of its inner strength and originality’ (p.194).

The use of analysis to serve an interest in musical objects themselves, rather than to supply models for the study of composition, reflected a new spirit of historical awareness that arose with Romanticism. It was not a dispassionate ‘scientific’ interest in the past specimens, but a desire to enter into the past, to discover its essence. This spirit, in confluence with the Romantic image of ‘genius’, resulted in a new type of monograph, biographical and historical. An early example was J.N. Forkel’s Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (1802), which, while including nothing that could be termed formal analysis as such, contained an extended characterization of Bach’s music as a whole – in short, a stylistic analysis. Forkel was much influenced by the concept of ‘organism’ in contemporary philosophy and education; to seek the depths of ‘Bach’s transcendent genius’ (Eng. trans., 1920, p.xxix) in the totality of his work rather than in individual compositions was consistent with this. He declared Bach’s mastery of technique; at the same time he tried to define where ‘Bach followed a course of his own, upon which the text books of his day were silent’ (p.74). To identify genius he took, in chapters 5 and 6 (‘Bach the Composer’), five aspects of music: harmony, modulation, melody, rhythm and counterpoint. His method was to cite a technical context, state the conventional in terms of contemporary theory or practice, and then consider Bach’s handling of such a context. He thus had illuminating things to say about Bach’s voice-leading, his use of passing notes, of pedal points, of remote modulations, his contrapuntal solo melodic writing, his fugal counterpoint and his use of the voice; for example (p.77):

there is a rule that every note raised by an accidental cannot be doubled in the chord, because the raised note must, from its nature, resolve on the note above. If it is doubled, it must rise doubled in both parts and, consequently, form consecutive octaves. Such is the rule. But Bach freqently doubles not only notes accidentally raised elsewhere in the scale but actually the semitonium modi or leading-note itself. Yet he avoids consecutive octaves. His finest works yield examples of this.

For Forkel such transgression on Bach’s part always produced a more natural, spontaneous or smooth effect than orthodoxy. The link between genius and nature was axiomatic: ‘when [Bach] draws his melody from the living wells of inspiration and cuts himself adrift from convention, all is as fresh and new as if it had been written yesterday’ (p.83).

The early decades of the century saw the publication of other comparable monographs, including Baini’s study of Palestrina (Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, 1828), Carl Winterfeld’s of Palestrina (1832) and Giovanni Gabrieli (1834) and Aleksandr Dmitreyevich Ulïbïshev’s of Mozart (1843). In these, technical assessment was placed at the service of characterization of style; there was a critical and historical dimension to such writing that set it apart both from the field of composition teaching that had given rise to Koch’s terminology and from the critical analysis of individual works exemplified by Hoffmann’s review of Beethoven’s Fifth and Schumann’s of the Symphonie fantastique. Other writings pursued a third analytical path that derived from the model of the composition treatise but was focussed on the elucidation of pre-existing works – even where the work in question had been composed by the author, as in the case of the analysis by G.J. Vogler of one of his own preludes (1806; Eng. trans., 1994).

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Traité de mélodie (1814, 2/1832) by the Czech composer and theorist Antoine Reicha is its citation of so many examples from actual music (he listed the composers in his preface). All these examples are submitted to segmentation and discussion. This in itself represents a significant shift from the compositional to the analytical standpoint – Reicha remarked in the preface to the Traité that ‘It is with music as with geometry: in the former it is necessary to prove everything by music examples, just as it is with the latter by geometric figures’. Such a shift is emphasized by the inclusion of six extended analyses of works by Haydn (pp.40ff and ex.D4), Mozart (p.43, E4), Cimarosa (pp.43ff, F4), Sacchini (pp.45ff, G4), Zingarelli (pp.47ff, Q4) and Piccinni (pp.49ff, R4). Each piece is presented as a continuous melodic line annotated with brackets, labels and comments, and a page or two of discussion in the text.

Reicha established a set of technical terms in the French language comparable to those of Koch, Riepel and Sulzer. He used dessin to denote the smallest unit of construction (equivalent to Einschnitt), and likened it to an idée; two or three dessins normally make up a rythme (equivalent to Satz), repetition or multiplication of which (the second of a pair being called the compagnon) produces the période. A composition made up of several périodes is a coupe: that of two or three périodes is a petite coupe binaire or ternaire, and that of two or three parties, each comprising several périodes, is a grande coupe binaire or ternaire. The dessin is punctuated by a quarter-cadence (quart de cadence), the rythme by a demi-cadence, the période by a trois-quarts de cadence (if repeated) or by a cadence parfaite. Koch’s division into grammar and punctuation is mirrored in this view, as is his fundamental concept of hierarchical phrase structure. Thus Reicha took the theme of the last movement of Mozart’s String Quartet K458, ‘The Hunt’, and divided it into two membres (i.e. rythmes), each comprising two dessins of two bars’ duration. Three of the four dessins are melodically distinct (his nos.1, 2 and 3), and Reicha broke each of these further into two sub-units, numbering five of them (nos.4–8) and still calling them dessins. All this is illustrated in his music example B5, of which the first section is shown in fig.4 .


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From A. Reicha: ‘Traité de mélodie’ (Paris, 1814), Planches, 46

British Library, London
Such writing could arouse the interest of the musical public. Around 1830 there was an intense debate in the pages of La revue musicale and the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung about the opening bars of Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ Quartet K465 (see Vertrees, 1974), in which the protagonists were Fétis and an anonymous writer identified by the pseudonym ‘A.C. Leduc’. The response to this by the Mannheim-based composer and theorist Gottfried Weber was widely circulated. Weber acknowledged the ‘disturbing effect’ of the passage, and stated that its causes may be ascertained by analysis (Eng. trans., 1994, p.163): ‘A thorough-going analysis of the entire harmonic and melodic fabric [Textur] of the passage in question will enable us to detect all these causes, to isolate them and see them interacting with one another, and thus to specify what it is in these tonal constructs [Anklängen] that disturbs us so much’. Weber deployed a number of approaches. He considered the tonal scheme of the passage through the application of harmonic theory; he identified the proliferation of passing notes as a factor contributing to the effect of the music; he noted cross-relations between the voices, and parallel progressions at the interval of a 2nd; he reviewed ‘the grammatical construction of the passage as a whole’ and finally assessed its ‘rhetorical import’. Weber did not claim that his analysis proved either the ‘lawlessness’ or the ‘law-abiding quality’ of the music (p.183): only the ‘musically trained ear’ could judge whether the tolerable ‘limits of harshness’ had been overstepped. Content himself to accept the judgment of Mozart, and to disregard ‘fools and jealous ones’, Weber nonetheless felt that his analytical approach had been able to establish what the effects consisted of and what intentions lay behind them: ‘All that technical theory could have done, it has here done’ (p.182).

Weber was also among those who in the first decades of the 19th century continued the work previously done in the area of harmonic theory by Rameau, Heinichen, Kirnberger and others. His four-volume theory of tonality (Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst, 1817–21) was widely used and acknowledged: the work went through three German editions, and its American-English edition (published under the name of Godfrey Weber), translated by James Warner (1842), went through some six impressions; this edition was revised in 1851 by John Bishop of Cheltenham, the translator of Czerny and editor of Reicha. In §53 of the Versuch Weber set out a new method of designating chord types. This uses Gothic letters in upper and lower case, with superscript circle, ‘7’ and crossed-‘7’, to designate major, minor and diminished triads, dominant 7th, secondary 7th, half-diminished 7th, and major triad with major 7th. Then in §151 there are Roman numerals, large and small (actually small-capital), with the same superscript symbols, to denote chord types as located on degrees of the scale within a given key. The two ‘modes of designation’, as described in §153, can be combined by prefixing an upper- and lower-case italic letter and colon to the Roman numeral as an index of the prevailing key; thus C:IV7 indicates the dominant 7th on the fourth degree of C major.

Weber claimed originality for these symbol-systems and complained of piracy by contemporary writers. The combined system just outlined provided the basis for Schenker’s designation of fundamental harmonic steps (Stufen), and became widely used in 20th-century theoretical writings.

By far the most visionary steps in harmonic theory at this time, however, were taken by Momigny. Over a period of 18 years he formulated a theory of long-term tonality which enabled him to imply, for example, that the first movement of the Mozart D minor String Quartet in its entirety modulates (in the modern sense) a mere eight times, and that other extended passages normally regarded as modulating several times never leave the home key. While writing the Cours complet (1803–5) he evolved an expanded notion of tonality whereby a key comprised not only its seven diatonic notes but also the five flanking notes on the sharp and flat sides and a further five on the double-sharp and double-flat sides (relatively speaking), to produce a tonal space of 27 notes. Finally, in La seule vraie théorie de la musique (1821) that space is divided into diatonic genus, chromatic genus and enharmonic genus. By this formulation (derived from classical Greek music theory), most conventionally accepted modulation is classed as movement within this expanded tonal space – movement between areas called ‘octachordes’. Such local movement within the tonal space is termed modulation (or modulation négative), whereas movement outside that space is termed transition (or modulation positive).