ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that a confusion of the nature pervades theoretical discussions of musical form, at least insofar as these purport to have anything to say regarding what the listener experiences. Theoretical accounts of musical form, however, concentrate mainly on the configurations of musical materials within movements. Heinrich Schenker’s intention may have been to explain the experience of musical form; but his real achievement lay in his contribution to the experience itself. Schenker believed that he had discovered the principles according to which masterworks in music should be heard, and that these principles were a direct function of human psychology. Most musical analyses, Schenker’s included, look like chains of deductive reasoning based on the material properties of musical scores; and in the past decade or two, considerable effort has been expended in trying to formulate the principles of Schenkerian analysis in a strictly axiomatic manner.
