Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground

Introduction

This is the second of three courses. It continues on from the discussion of voice-leading analysis begun in AA314_1 Voice-leading analysis of music 1: the foreground and which will continue in AA314_3 Voice-leading analysis of music 3: the background. This course returns to the study of Mozart's harmonic style that was begun in AA314_1. Once again, we will analyse the voice leading of extracts chosen from the piano sonatas. At the end of AA314_1, you saw that analysing the ‘foreground’ of the music – that is, the structure outlined by the consonances in the harmony – leads on to the discovery of deeper levels of structure. These deeper levels of harmony are what you are going to study here. The term used for this larger-scale structuring is the ‘middleground’ . However, the basic techniques used to describe it are just the same as those introduced in AA314_1 which analyse the foreground.

Before you begin, you may wish to revise the ideas that were introduced in AA314_1, especially familiarising yourself with the terms analytical notation, arpeggiation, background, consonance, consonant skip, diminution, dissonance, foreground, middleground, neighbour note, passing note, prolongation, reduction, register transfer, resolution and suspension, which are listed in the glossary for this course. In this course you will be meeting extracts from all the complete sonata movements to which you listened at the beginning of AA314_1, so you may wish to listen to these whole movements again. In Section 3 of this course you will need a pencil and some manuscript paper in order to complete the activities.

The aims of this course are:

• to develop voice-leading analysis;

• to introduce the concept of the ‘middleground’ of harmonic structure.

The materials upon which this course is based have been jointly authored by Robert Samuels and Howard Wilde.

This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 3 study in Arts and Humanities [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .