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Summary of Allen Fortes article: Schenkers Conception of Musical
Structure

In this article Forte explains why Shenkers analysis is important to understand

or to approach a piece in a deepest context, step by step Forte express his own

opinion about the analysis of music with Shenkerian method as a way to better

understanding the main ideas throughout a musical piece. In this article Fortes

Subject is a sketch of a complete short work, the second song from Schumanns

Dichterliebe.

Forte clarify the Shenkerian concepts divided in three main level structure. Each

subsequent level expands, or prolongs, the content of the previous level, Forte

shows how the three levels interact using the Shenkerian analysis.

These three levels are divided in:

A. Foreground (the lowest staff)

B. Middleground (the middle staff)

C. Background (the upper staff)

Foreground: The lowest staff contains the major surface elements,

those elements which are usually most immediately perceptible like

the phrase duration, harmonical structure, and metrical

organization. In this level we can find the most important pitches

and helps identify the inner voices and the formal structure.

Middleground: recognize the big structures, the middleground

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contains the essentials of the prolongational middle section, in this level is

distinguish the expansion of the smaller prolongational chords, these

prolongation chords appear in more detailed in the foreground level.

Background: Distinguish as the fundamental structure level which

controls the entire work. The projection of tonic triad is regarded as

main part of all the works. An important step in this process is

called Urline, or fundamental line, in which the upper voice

projects the triad in the form of descending linear succession.

Schenker marks this succession, in two ways: (1) with

numerals (and carets) which designate the corresponding diatonic

scale degrees, and (2) with the balken [i.e., beam] which connects

the stemmed open notes.