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Matthew Arndt

The University of Iowa, Music, Faculty Member

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Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

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Queens College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York

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Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)

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Papers by Matthew Arndt

Schoenberg—Schenker—Bach: A Harmonic, Contrapuntal, Formal Braid

Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, 2019

This article follows on the heels of one by Holly Watkins, who argues that music, “a subsystem of... more This article follows on the heels of one by Holly Watkins, who argues that music, “a subsystem of the social system of communication,” can evoke the organic (the bodily and the psychic) not by forming a self-contained unity of parts and whole but through the “internal recursiveness” of musical works, their external “recursiveness vis-à-vis other music,” and – crucially – “the knowingness that music displays toward its own operations.” I adopt the premise that music evokes the organic most vividly not through recursive processes in individual systems but through the as-if intentional integration of such processes in multiple systems, of which I concern myself particularly with the harmonic, contrapuntal, and formal domains (or, more precisely, the motivic). I offer correctives to the organicist theories of Arnold Schoenberg and Heinrich Schenker, which similarly concern these domains, and especially to their reception. And I explore this direction through an analysis of Bach’s Prelude No. 7 in E-flat major from book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 852, a singular piece that billows forth like an unfathomable blossom.

Some Statistical Properties of Harmony and Voice Leading in Shemokmedi School Georgian Chant

Proceedings of The Eighth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony, 26–30 September, 2016, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2018

Georgian three-voice sacred polyphony is stunningly beautiful, and it has prompted many questions... more Georgian three-voice sacred polyphony is stunningly beautiful, and it has prompted many questions about its harmony and voice leading. It is well established that Georgian chant uses modes in the sense of melodic formulae. But some have referred to diatonic modes of one kind or another in Georgian sacred and/or folk music. Whether such modes are conceivable depends on the tuning system, which is a matter of dispute. To address the question of modes and indirectly the question of tuning, I analyzed statistical properties of harmony and voice leading in a collection of Shemokmedi School Georgian chant as sung by Dimit’ri P’at’arava. This preliminary study found no clear differences between passages with different cadence tones and thus no support for the hypothesis of diatonic modes. On the contrary, all passages shared suggestive, systematic patterns of melodic and harmonic tendencies. These patterns are consistent with a melodic and/or harmonic system of equal or nearly equal steps.

Form—Function—Content

Music Theory Spectrum, 2018

Arnold Schoenberg’s concept of formal function, as formulated by Erwin Ratz, has become a staple ... more Arnold Schoenberg’s concept of formal function, as formulated by Erwin Ratz, has become a staple of music theory since it was reimagined and systematized by William E. Caplin. However, this con- cept has been criticized for not speaking to the content of a piece of music, its particularity and meaning. By defining formal components, parts, and functions in line with the conceptual metaphors that underlie musical form, one may establish the inseparability of form and content. The defini- tions proposed here apply to art music from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, the latter demonstrated through an analysis of Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1.

The Two Deaths in Beethoven's Bagatelle op. 126 no. 4

Music Theory and Analysis, 2017

Theodor W. Adorno discusses Ludwig van Beethoven's six bagatelles, op. 126 (1824), as exemplars o... more Theodor W. Adorno discusses Ludwig van Beethoven's six bagatelles, op. 126 (1824), as exemplars of the composer's late-style music, which reflects on different dimensions of mortality, both literal and figurative. Adorno's commentary, while suggestive and pertinent for our time, is hindered by inadequate analysis. A renewed look at bagatelle no. 4, the darkest of the set, with the aid of Heinrich Schenker's and Arnold Schoenberg's theories lends heft and bite to Adorno's critique.

Toward a Renovation of Motivic Analysis: Corrupt Organicism in Berg’s Piano Sonata, op. 1

Theory and Practice, 2017

This essay takes up Theodor W. Adorno’s agenda for turning analysis around to show how Alban Berg... more This essay takes up Theodor W. Adorno’s agenda for turning analysis around to show how Alban Berg’s music, specifically his Piano Sonata, op. 1, accomplishes a “permanent re-absorption back into itself” as the realization of a corrupt organicism, an organicism fixated on death and decay instead of growth (1982, 184). A hallmark of this corrupt organicism is the exhaustive use of backward development, where a leap forward in motivic development is filled to make the coherence of contrasting parts more comprehensible. Motivic analysis, traditionally focused on forward development, is ill-equipped to deal with this phenomenon. In order to understand the process of backward development in Berg’s music, then, this essay contributes to a renovation of motivic analysis. I will show that a fatalistic corrupt organicism is not only thematized in the sonata—“a tragic work” that ironically begins with the fated end of its “funereal” closing theme (Carner 1975, 100)—but pervasively effected through exhaustive backward development, exhaustive liquidation, and harmonic re-absorption.

Review of Robert P. Morgan, Becoming Heinrich Schenker: Music Theory and Ideology

Journal of Music Theory, 2016

Schenker and Schoenberg on the Eye of the Genius

Theoria, 2013

The origin, structure, and consequences of Heinrich Schenker’s and Arnold Schoenberg’s conception... more The origin, structure, and consequences of Heinrich Schenker’s and Arnold Schoenberg’s conception of the genius are not obvious, but previous studies have addressed this conception only obliquely. Aided by my study of Schenker’s papers in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection, I demonstrate through a close reading of Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s published and unpublished writings informed by conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory that Schenker and Schoenberg from about the time of their Harmonielehren onward both conceive of the genius as that perfect artist who in and through the act of improvisatory composition realizes the tone (an ideal sound), attains self-realization, and points the way to an elusive realization of mankind, a conception which draws on and develops those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Arthur Schopenhauer, and which is tied together by the figure of vision and, appropriately enough, certain recurring image schemas, but also inadvertently by the figure of blindness. Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s divergent musical developments and their parallel, individualistic confessions of Judaism in the 1920s are both linked to this conception. Included are discussions of Immanuel Kant, the unconscious, morphology, the musical idea, tonality, painting, morality, God, and the Bilderverbot.

Schoenberg on Problems; or, Why the Six-Three Chord Is Dissonant

Theory and Practice, 2013

Arnold Schoenberg's curious ascription of dissonance to the six-three chord in his Harmonielehre ... more Arnold Schoenberg's curious ascription of dissonance to the six-three chord in his Harmonielehre reveals the positing of a unity of tonal and non-tonal music in their solving of problems of unrest in the tone, the dissonance, and the musical idea, but neither his fragmentary theoretical writings nor his interpreters have fleshed this connection out. On the contrary, the notion has arisen of a " tonal problem " as a distinguishing feature of tonal music. Drawing on blending theory and metaphor theory, I elucidate this unity by explaining Schoenberg's dialectical conceptions of the tone, the means of art (made up of consonances and dissonances), the musical work (as a presentation of the musical idea), and the evolution of perception and music and by supplementing Schoenberg's analysis of the first movement of Johannes Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, op. 60. These findings shed new light on Schoenberg's and indeed on Brahms's musical thought.

Interruption and the Problem of Unity and Repetition

Journal of Schenkerian Studies, 2012

Schenker’s concept of interruption remains a matter of division among music theorists. Peter H. S... more Schenker’s concept of interruption remains a matter of division among music theorists. Peter H. Smith’s suggestion that Schenker’s concept of interruption reflects his valuation of linear evolution is true, but this valuation is only part of the story. A close reading of Schenker’s theoretical writings informed in the end by blending theory and metaphor theory demonstrates that Schenker is equally committed to both harmonic-linear unity and melodic-formal repetition as expressions of tonal life, and that interruption, which involves a dual articulation of the one Ursatz, caps a sustained effort to theorize the integration of unity and repetition. Schenker’s quest to reconcile form and harmony begins with the concept of the perfect authentic cadence, which he theorizes in Harmonielehre. Schenker subsequently develops the notion of harmonic unity through the concepts of consonance and dissonance, and he attempts to wed harmonic unity and formal repetition through the concept of the Urlinie. In the final stage of his theoretical career, Schenker arrives at the concept of interruption, which not only finally integrates formal repetition and harmonic unity but does so in a way that recuperates aspects of the tone not captured by these principles in themselves.

Schenker and Schoenberg on the Will of the Tone

Journal of Music Theory, 2011

As a comparative reading informed by recent work in integration theory and metaphor theory shows,... more As a comparative reading informed by recent work in integration theory and metaphor theory shows, Heinrich Schenker's and Arnold Schoenberg's Harmonielehren adumbrate broader theories of composition based in part on a conception of the tone as a partly unconsciously perceived, living idea, which the artist imitates in a piece of music as a manifestation or development of one particular tone by means of the motive and the key. Schenker and Schoenberg further conceive of a piece as a picture of the tone and a statement about the tone. This analysis reveals that Schenker's and Schoenberg's peculiar clashes, such as in their starkly opposed attitudes toward tonality, are the result of a mere difference in emphasis—attributable to temperament—on the absoluteness of the tone as an idea of nature versus the contingency of the artist's response to the tone in the formation of music, a contradiction inherent in both of their remarkably parallel theories. This deep unity in Schenker's and Schoenberg's musical thought invites a reassessment of the opposed historical categories of tonal and post-tonal music, which have informed our perception of a fundamental conflict between their theories and limited our perception of commonality between their theories.

Books by Matthew Arndt

The Musical Thought and Spiritual Lives of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg

Routledge, 2018

This book examines the origin, content, and development of the musical thought of Heinrich Schenk... more This book examines the origin, content, and development of the musical thought of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg. One of the premises is that Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s inner musical lives are inseparable from their inner spiritual lives. Curiously, Schenker and Schoenberg start out in much the same musical-spiritual place, yet musically they split while spiritually they grow closer. The reception of Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s work has sidestepped this paradox of commonality and conflict, instead choosing to universalize and amplify their conflict. Bringing to light a trove of unpublished material, I argue that Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s conflict is a reflection of tensions within their musical and spiritual ideas. They share a particular conception of the tone as an ideal sound realized in the spiritual eye of the genius. The tensions inherent in this largely psychological and material notion of the tone and this largely metaphysical notion of the genius shape both their musical divergence on the logical (technical) level in theory and composition, including their advocacy of the Ursatz versus twelve-tone composition, and their spiritual convergence, including their embrace of Judaism. These findings shed new light on the musical and philosophical worlds of Schenker and Schoenberg and on the profound artistic and spiritual questions with which they grapple.

Schoenberg—Schenker—Bach: A Harmonic, Contrapuntal, Formal Braid

Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, 2019

This article follows on the heels of one by Holly Watkins, who argues that music, “a subsystem of... more This article follows on the heels of one by Holly Watkins, who argues that music, “a subsystem of the social system of communication,” can evoke the organic (the bodily and the psychic) not by forming a self-contained unity of parts and whole but through the “internal recursiveness” of musical works, their external “recursiveness vis-à-vis other music,” and – crucially – “the knowingness that music displays toward its own operations.” I adopt the premise that music evokes the organic most vividly not through recursive processes in individual systems but through the as-if intentional integration of such processes in multiple systems, of which I concern myself particularly with the harmonic, contrapuntal, and formal domains (or, more precisely, the motivic). I offer correctives to the organicist theories of Arnold Schoenberg and Heinrich Schenker, which similarly concern these domains, and especially to their reception. And I explore this direction through an analysis of Bach’s Prelude No. 7 in E-flat major from book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 852, a singular piece that billows forth like an unfathomable blossom.

Some Statistical Properties of Harmony and Voice Leading in Shemokmedi School Georgian Chant

Proceedings of The Eighth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony, 26–30 September, 2016, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2018

Georgian three-voice sacred polyphony is stunningly beautiful, and it has prompted many questions... more Georgian three-voice sacred polyphony is stunningly beautiful, and it has prompted many questions about its harmony and voice leading. It is well established that Georgian chant uses modes in the sense of melodic formulae. But some have referred to diatonic modes of one kind or another in Georgian sacred and/or folk music. Whether such modes are conceivable depends on the tuning system, which is a matter of dispute. To address the question of modes and indirectly the question of tuning, I analyzed statistical properties of harmony and voice leading in a collection of Shemokmedi School Georgian chant as sung by Dimit’ri P’at’arava. This preliminary study found no clear differences between passages with different cadence tones and thus no support for the hypothesis of diatonic modes. On the contrary, all passages shared suggestive, systematic patterns of melodic and harmonic tendencies. These patterns are consistent with a melodic and/or harmonic system of equal or nearly equal steps.

Form—Function—Content

Music Theory Spectrum, 2018

Arnold Schoenberg’s concept of formal function, as formulated by Erwin Ratz, has become a staple ... more Arnold Schoenberg’s concept of formal function, as formulated by Erwin Ratz, has become a staple of music theory since it was reimagined and systematized by William E. Caplin. However, this con- cept has been criticized for not speaking to the content of a piece of music, its particularity and meaning. By defining formal components, parts, and functions in line with the conceptual metaphors that underlie musical form, one may establish the inseparability of form and content. The defini- tions proposed here apply to art music from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, the latter demonstrated through an analysis of Schoenberg’s Op. 11, No. 1.

The Two Deaths in Beethoven's Bagatelle op. 126 no. 4

Music Theory and Analysis, 2017

Theodor W. Adorno discusses Ludwig van Beethoven's six bagatelles, op. 126 (1824), as exemplars o... more Theodor W. Adorno discusses Ludwig van Beethoven's six bagatelles, op. 126 (1824), as exemplars of the composer's late-style music, which reflects on different dimensions of mortality, both literal and figurative. Adorno's commentary, while suggestive and pertinent for our time, is hindered by inadequate analysis. A renewed look at bagatelle no. 4, the darkest of the set, with the aid of Heinrich Schenker's and Arnold Schoenberg's theories lends heft and bite to Adorno's critique.

Toward a Renovation of Motivic Analysis: Corrupt Organicism in Berg’s Piano Sonata, op. 1

Theory and Practice, 2017

This essay takes up Theodor W. Adorno’s agenda for turning analysis around to show how Alban Berg... more This essay takes up Theodor W. Adorno’s agenda for turning analysis around to show how Alban Berg’s music, specifically his Piano Sonata, op. 1, accomplishes a “permanent re-absorption back into itself” as the realization of a corrupt organicism, an organicism fixated on death and decay instead of growth (1982, 184). A hallmark of this corrupt organicism is the exhaustive use of backward development, where a leap forward in motivic development is filled to make the coherence of contrasting parts more comprehensible. Motivic analysis, traditionally focused on forward development, is ill-equipped to deal with this phenomenon. In order to understand the process of backward development in Berg’s music, then, this essay contributes to a renovation of motivic analysis. I will show that a fatalistic corrupt organicism is not only thematized in the sonata—“a tragic work” that ironically begins with the fated end of its “funereal” closing theme (Carner 1975, 100)—but pervasively effected through exhaustive backward development, exhaustive liquidation, and harmonic re-absorption.

Review of Robert P. Morgan, Becoming Heinrich Schenker: Music Theory and Ideology

Journal of Music Theory, 2016

Schenker and Schoenberg on the Eye of the Genius

Theoria, 2013

The origin, structure, and consequences of Heinrich Schenker’s and Arnold Schoenberg’s conception... more The origin, structure, and consequences of Heinrich Schenker’s and Arnold Schoenberg’s conception of the genius are not obvious, but previous studies have addressed this conception only obliquely. Aided by my study of Schenker’s papers in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection, I demonstrate through a close reading of Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s published and unpublished writings informed by conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory that Schenker and Schoenberg from about the time of their Harmonielehren onward both conceive of the genius as that perfect artist who in and through the act of improvisatory composition realizes the tone (an ideal sound), attains self-realization, and points the way to an elusive realization of mankind, a conception which draws on and develops those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Arthur Schopenhauer, and which is tied together by the figure of vision and, appropriately enough, certain recurring image schemas, but also inadvertently by the figure of blindness. Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s divergent musical developments and their parallel, individualistic confessions of Judaism in the 1920s are both linked to this conception. Included are discussions of Immanuel Kant, the unconscious, morphology, the musical idea, tonality, painting, morality, God, and the Bilderverbot.

Schoenberg on Problems; or, Why the Six-Three Chord Is Dissonant

Theory and Practice, 2013

Arnold Schoenberg's curious ascription of dissonance to the six-three chord in his Harmonielehre ... more Arnold Schoenberg's curious ascription of dissonance to the six-three chord in his Harmonielehre reveals the positing of a unity of tonal and non-tonal music in their solving of problems of unrest in the tone, the dissonance, and the musical idea, but neither his fragmentary theoretical writings nor his interpreters have fleshed this connection out. On the contrary, the notion has arisen of a " tonal problem " as a distinguishing feature of tonal music. Drawing on blending theory and metaphor theory, I elucidate this unity by explaining Schoenberg's dialectical conceptions of the tone, the means of art (made up of consonances and dissonances), the musical work (as a presentation of the musical idea), and the evolution of perception and music and by supplementing Schoenberg's analysis of the first movement of Johannes Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, op. 60. These findings shed new light on Schoenberg's and indeed on Brahms's musical thought.

Interruption and the Problem of Unity and Repetition

Journal of Schenkerian Studies, 2012

Schenker’s concept of interruption remains a matter of division among music theorists. Peter H. S... more Schenker’s concept of interruption remains a matter of division among music theorists. Peter H. Smith’s suggestion that Schenker’s concept of interruption reflects his valuation of linear evolution is true, but this valuation is only part of the story. A close reading of Schenker’s theoretical writings informed in the end by blending theory and metaphor theory demonstrates that Schenker is equally committed to both harmonic-linear unity and melodic-formal repetition as expressions of tonal life, and that interruption, which involves a dual articulation of the one Ursatz, caps a sustained effort to theorize the integration of unity and repetition. Schenker’s quest to reconcile form and harmony begins with the concept of the perfect authentic cadence, which he theorizes in Harmonielehre. Schenker subsequently develops the notion of harmonic unity through the concepts of consonance and dissonance, and he attempts to wed harmonic unity and formal repetition through the concept of the Urlinie. In the final stage of his theoretical career, Schenker arrives at the concept of interruption, which not only finally integrates formal repetition and harmonic unity but does so in a way that recuperates aspects of the tone not captured by these principles in themselves.

Schenker and Schoenberg on the Will of the Tone

Journal of Music Theory, 2011

As a comparative reading informed by recent work in integration theory and metaphor theory shows,... more As a comparative reading informed by recent work in integration theory and metaphor theory shows, Heinrich Schenker's and Arnold Schoenberg's Harmonielehren adumbrate broader theories of composition based in part on a conception of the tone as a partly unconsciously perceived, living idea, which the artist imitates in a piece of music as a manifestation or development of one particular tone by means of the motive and the key. Schenker and Schoenberg further conceive of a piece as a picture of the tone and a statement about the tone. This analysis reveals that Schenker's and Schoenberg's peculiar clashes, such as in their starkly opposed attitudes toward tonality, are the result of a mere difference in emphasis—attributable to temperament—on the absoluteness of the tone as an idea of nature versus the contingency of the artist's response to the tone in the formation of music, a contradiction inherent in both of their remarkably parallel theories. This deep unity in Schenker's and Schoenberg's musical thought invites a reassessment of the opposed historical categories of tonal and post-tonal music, which have informed our perception of a fundamental conflict between their theories and limited our perception of commonality between their theories.

The Musical Thought and Spiritual Lives of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg

Routledge, 2018

This book examines the origin, content, and development of the musical thought of Heinrich Schenk... more This book examines the origin, content, and development of the musical thought of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg. One of the premises is that Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s inner musical lives are inseparable from their inner spiritual lives. Curiously, Schenker and Schoenberg start out in much the same musical-spiritual place, yet musically they split while spiritually they grow closer. The reception of Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s work has sidestepped this paradox of commonality and conflict, instead choosing to universalize and amplify their conflict. Bringing to light a trove of unpublished material, I argue that Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s conflict is a reflection of tensions within their musical and spiritual ideas. They share a particular conception of the tone as an ideal sound realized in the spiritual eye of the genius. The tensions inherent in this largely psychological and material notion of the tone and this largely metaphysical notion of the genius shape both their musical divergence on the logical (technical) level in theory and composition, including their advocacy of the Ursatz versus twelve-tone composition, and their spiritual convergence, including their embrace of Judaism. These findings shed new light on the musical and philosophical worlds of Schenker and Schoenberg and on the profound artistic and spiritual questions with which they grapple.

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