ABSTRACT
The concept of interruption is the keystone to Heinrich Schenker's compositional theory, permitting him to make a decisive attempt at communion with the geniuses through re-composition of their most exalted masterworks. But Schenker's concept of interruption presents something of an obstacle to understanding, in that he describes and depicts interruption in seemingly contradictory ways. In Harmonielehre, Schenker's conception of the tone as a living idea of nature that procreates, develops, and manifests itself in a piece of music entails a commitment to both melodic repetition and harmonic unity. Harmonielehre tries to reconcile its themes of form and harmony in the perfect authentic cadence. Schenker's definition of the perfect authentic cadence departs from its conventional definition as a particular kind of harmonic arrival closing a phrase that ends on the tonic. Schenker turns to the Urlinie, which arrives on the scene in the explanatory edition of Beethoven's Piano Sonata.
