TENSION-THEORYAND STRUCTURE LAYER

inAural Analysis

If you focus on the tunes, and the phrases.You may be understanding the piece in a

Schönbergian approach, called the

PHRASE ANALYSIS

If you focus on the slow-fast, or the quiet-loud organization,

you may be understanding the piece in aErnst Kurth’s approach, called the

TENSION-THEORYAND STRUCTURE LAYER

in music analysis

PHRASE ANALYSIS let you see – inobjective ways – how the elementsof music are organized. But this objective picture can be varied

in one way, or another in real-time performance.

Knowing the objective ways does not always

guarantee us a full vision of an art.

Tension theory allows us to see more intothe music than mere noting how tunes arestructured; how the harmonies are varied;how the music is organized, etc. It is useful to inform us the differences when the same pieces are played in a variety of ways.

Benefit from wave-editing software, Kurth’stension theory can be a powerful tool foraural analysis

Kurth, Ernst (b Vienna, 1 June 1886; d Berne, 2 Aug 1946)

Swiss musicologist, studied with Adler and Gund, Kurth was a creativethinker who was able to impart to his deeply intuitive and dynamicapproach to music. He published a number of works both to musicology and philosophy.

Kurth’s most extensive work was that on Bruckner (1925), where in addition to providing an acute biographical study, he developed his theory of musical form: findings are summarized in Musikpsychologie (1931), where music & sound are regarded as proceeding from the composer’s being – this philosophical basis of Kurth’s thought stems from Schopenhauer’s conception of music as the of music as the manifestation of a will that created both the world and its culture.

KURT VON FISCHER